Off the Bed...Onto the Wall...Into the Air. Quilts and the Art of Exhibition Design

'Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts'
Photo: Courtesy Quilts in the Barn blog

In 1971 an exhibition titled 'Abstract Design in American Quilts' was held at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. It showcased 60 Pennsylvanian quilts painstakingly selected from the large collection of Jonathan Holstein and Gail van der Hoof.  Just three years earlier these two young artists, having discovered the aesthetic of quilts,  had set about building a collection judged solely on visual merit and not by the traditional standards of age, workmanship, condition etc.  When the opportunity arose for them to design and mount an exhibition they furthermore decided 'not to impose any thematic, chronological or other organising theme to the exhibition but simply hang it as it looked best' (my italics).   It has often been said that the substance and style of this exhibition 'moved quilts off the bed onto the wall'.  

In 2011,  New York has just seen another ground-breaking quilt exhibition, hosted by the Museum of Folk Art in the Park Avenue Armory and titled 'Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts".  Again a private collection, this time collected over a much longer period but  with a similar mindset which did not dismiss a quilt for being old, or tattered, or stained, or simple.  There was one simple criterion.  That it should be part of the great tradition of graphic red and white quilts.  I would have said the great 'American' tradition, but I am pretty sure there are quilts in there with roots in Ireland, Wales and the North-East of England.

The exhibition showcased 651 (yes, that is six hundred and fifty-one) red and white quilts from the collection of Joanna S Rose.  After months of planning it lasted a breathtakingly short 6 days, but in that time it has set the internet quilt world alight with praise for the quality of the display as well as the collection. Incidentally, initially 650 quilts were hung, but when Mrs Rose came to look it over she noticed that 'there was one missing'.


Mrs Rose had celebrated her 80th birthday this year, and when asked by her husband what gift she would like, she asked for '....two things: something I have never seen before, and a gift for New York City.  I thought, one thing I've never seen is these quilts all at once'. As the collection had grown they had all just lived 'in her closet'.  This exhibition, free to visitors, was her husband's response.  Designers were invited to suggest a way to display this many quilts in the cavernous interior of the Armory's Drill Hall.  The winning design is quite extraordinary.  Quilts sail and soar close to each other into an inky black starlit sky,  leading the eye up with them in wonder.  Within  a  central spiral of quilts are set 8 chairs in a circle, each adorned with a red and white quilt, evoking a quilting bee. Wherever you stand there is a wonderful crowded, and yet not crowded, view of quilts.  For an excellent description of the rationale of the design of the display, carried out by  Thinc Design, go to MetropolisMag.com.


It is evident that for visitors this was not so much an exhibition as an experience.   This being the 21st century there are free digital apps, with images of the individual quilts, an introduction written by Mrs Rose, a short history of Red and White Quilts written by Elizabeth V Warren,  Guest Curator;  and audio clips which were intended for visitors touring the quilts. As documentation and cataloguing of the quilts continues, the apps will be updated.  And there will be a book.


Enthusiastic photographers and bloggers have crowded the internet with images, and the fact that there seem to be no 'bad' photographs is another testament to the quality of the display.  I could not begin to list all sources, but I do commend to you the Quilts in the Barn blog (click her pictures in the earliest post for atmospheric full-size views.)  The New York Times features an interview with Mrs. Rose, and photographs of the mounting of the exhibition.   Flickr contributors have had a field day, and of course YouTube is in on the action.


I heard that this exhibition was meant to be a 'one-time-only' event.  An art collector was once asked why he did not lend his paintings out for exhibition and replied 'because I know they will never come back in a better condition than when they left me'.  Reading Jonathan Holstein's description of what dreadful things happened to their travelling quilt collection (in 'Abstract Design in American Quilts: A Biography of an Exhibition') you realise the art collector had a point.  But even if  'Infinite Variety' never travels or shows again, this exhibition has given us all an amazing opportunity to enjoy these quilts, and raised the bar improbably high for the next quilt exhibition to seek 'groundbreaking' status.


I end with a quote from Angela Riechers writing in the Metropolis Mag article (do make time to read the full article if you can):


'On all scales, from architectural to intimate, Infinite Variety is a 360-degree immersive experience that fuses both the whole and the parts into a transcendent example of the art of exhibition design. As Tom Hennes put it, “It’s a great case of seeing the forest and the trees at the same time.”