Apprentissages

A handbook to Sheila Hicks' Paris

An American artist born in 1934 and based in Paris since 1964, Sheila Hicks has dedicated her life to the textiles and fibers she handles, sculpts, and glorifies in works both big and small. Her unique style gives shape to an international language, understandable by each of us, which is simultaneously tactile, emotional, and straightforward. Thanks to her profound mastery of technical craftsmanship and her rare aesthetic intuition, her artistic practice finds its equilibrium at the intersection of applied arts and contemporary art, proposing an idiosyncratic chromatic and formal vocabulary.

This handbook accompanies her project for the 2016 Festival d’Automne in Paris. Entitled “Apprentissages” (“learning processes”), it develops as a manifold exhibition held successively in the classical architecture of the Musée Carnavalet, dedicated to the history of Paris, in several shop windows in different Parisian neighborhoods, and finally in the post-modernist black cube of the Théâtre des Amandiers-Nanterre. Extensively documenting the site-specific installations, the book is built around a conversation between Sheila Hicks and Clément Dirié about her life and work, her relationship with Paris, her methods of learning and sharing. It also republished a short text written in 1969 by Claude Lévi-Strauss, a friend of the artist.

Sheila Hicks’ recent exhibitions include the 30th São Paulo Biennial (2012); the Whitney Biennial in New York (2014); the 20th Sydney Biennial, the Glasgow International Festival, and “Weaving & We-2nd Triennial of Fiber Art” in Hangzhou (all 2016).

Published with the Festival d’Automne à Paris.