“Knitted Registry” July 9 – 27, 2013 Curator Talk on July 22 at 7:00pm
“Knitted Registry” features works that have been knit in a variety of ways. The exhibition proposes a fresh take on knitting as a cryptographic activity — with knitted items as encrypted texts. The concept of the exhibition is inspired Charles Dickens’ book “A Tale of Two Cities” in which knitting is a central theme and describes how important messages were encrypted into knitted pieces during the French Revolution.
To see knitting as a form of encryption allows it to be considered apart from its traditionally gendered associations. This curatorial approach is felt throughout “Knitted Registry,” where what seems to be one thing is, in fact, another. The repetitive process of knitting, which is both monotonous and intimate, allows for the exploration of repressed memories, silenced secrets, and situations that reveal disruptions and deviations from what is considered to be proper social conduct. Rather than focusing on the obvious personal dimension of knitting, this exhibition looks at encryption as touching on the social and political mechanisms that create hierarchies and separations, and arbitrarily determine the boundaries of social correctness in a manner that tosses whoever defies it into a figurative “no man’s land.”
Curated by: Ruty Chinsky Amitay
Artists Include: Yael Balaban, Raya Bruckenthal, Uri Gershuni, Ayala Landow, Chava Polivoda, Belle Shafir, Itamar Yakhin, Gil Yefman