McArthur Foundation Genius Grant recipient and internationally acclaimed artist Ann Hamilton integrates the sensorial and universal aspect of fabric as a conceptual core of her artistic practice. The National Gallery of Art’s current exhibition “Woven Worlds” includes Hamilton’s “Side-by-Side,” consisting of twenty upcycled overcoats embellished with raw wool, as a continuation of her “intervention” project for the 2018 Contextile Contemporary Textile Art Biennal in Guimarães, Portugal. Exemplary of her ability to amplify the sense of human presence through form and material, Hamilton’s coats explore fabric as it is intertwined with memory and language. Reflecting on the pervasiveness of textiles, Hamilton states, “Held by cloth’s hand, we are swaddled at birth, covered in sleep, and wound in death. A single thread spins a myth of origin and a tale of adventure, interweaves people and webs of communication.”

“Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction” is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in collaboration with the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Hamilton’s “Side-by-Side” will be on view at the National Gallery of Canada through March of 2025, before traveling to The Museum of Modern Art in New York where it will be on view April through September of 2025. Over forty of Ann Hamilton’s works are part of the Nation Gallery of Art’s permanent collection, including several works from her “Body Object” series, four of which can be seen at Robischon Gallery’s current exhibition.