WELLER, Katharina; WAGNER K, Matthias (eds.)
Wool. Silk. Resistance

Rather than approaching rugs, carpets, and tapestries from a stylistic or art-historical perspective, Wool. Silk. Resistance presents them within a trajectory that exists outside established Western approaches to textile studies. The title introduces a series of questions: Can resistance be articulated through textile materials? And if so, in what ways do rugs, carpets, and tapestries express an “aesthetics of textile resistance”? Wool. Silk. Resistance centers on the perspectives of international artists working in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, who engage with different dimensions of resistance through rugs, carpets, and tapestries understood as open and evolving art forms.

Published in conjunction with the eponymous exhibition at Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt-am-Main, this book addresses political opposition, resilience, and material or structural endurance in individual ways, and considers acts of resistance that may be directed against perceived illegitimate systems of power, traditionalism, discrimination, racism, trauma, or environmental destruction.

With contributions by Caroline Achaintre, Eva Linhart, Teresa Minn, Leon Lukas Plum, Sofia Simeth, Matthias Wagner K and Katharina Weiler.

Featuring the work of Faig Ahmed, Diedrick Brackens, Johannah Herr, Jan Kath, Alexandra Kehayoglou, William Kentridge, Baseera Khan, Noelle Mason, Otobong Nkanga, Tobias Rehberger, Erin M. Riley, Tsherin Sherpa, Rose Stach, Nasan Tur and Jeroen van den Bogaert.

[publishers’ words]

Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2026
Design by Bureau Sandra Doeller
Exhibition Catalogues / Crafts / Politics