Exhibition to focus on “extreme” textiles

-- Home Textiles Today, 12/20/2004 12:10:00 PM

MINNEAPOLIS — In spring 2005, Cooper-Hewitt will present “Extreme Textiles: Designing for High Performance,” a museum exhibition devoted to the subject of technical textiles — highly engineered materials designed for superior performance in extreme conditions.

The exhibition, curated by Matilda McQuaid, exhibitions curator and head of Cooper-Hewitt’s textiles department, will present more than 150 extreme textile applications from a wide range of areas, including architecture, apparel, medicine, transportation, aerospace and the environment. On view April 8, 2005 through Jan. 15, 2006 , the exhibition will examine the broad spectrum of contemporary design through the lens of textile fibers and structures.

“Extreme Textiles: Designing for High Performance” was organized by the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum . Target is the lead sponsor of the exhibition.

“The goal of this exhibition is to reveal the incredible breadth of areas in which textiles are being used, and to provide inspiration for new approaches to design,” says McQuaid. “In addition, the exhibition will share the intrinsic beauty of technical textiles and acknowledge the enormous influence they have in our lives.”

The objects featured in the exhibition will be organized in terms of their high-performance characteristics — stronger, lighter, faster, smarter, safer — and displayed throughout the museum campus, including the first- and second-floor exhibition galleries, the Great Hall and the Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden.