Warps and wefts

A few days ago I visited the Tate museum in London. The Tate museum is a modern art museum located in an old power station along the Thames. Lots of fun and famous artworks to see. For today I will settle with writing about the following painting by François Morellet:

It is called Two warps and wefts of short lines at 0 and 90 degrees. Warps and wefts are techniques for weaving string into fabric. To weave you put tension along a row of strings, warps, then you transversely move a string up and under the warps to create a fabric. Usually this is done in a systematic way such that the string creating the fabric forms a pattern, for example look at your Denim jeans.

Why did Morellet paint warps and wefts? A lot of Morellet's work concerns using a set of logical rules to create artworks which usually have a geometric quality. So warps and wefts fits right in. However, there is something strange in wanting to paint something which arises only in the process of weaving. So maybe he wants to convey the message that complicated as a piece of fabric is that it is just a set of rules.

Anyway it is modern art so meaning is in the eye of the beholder. What do you think it is about?

(fun fact: wefts are also called woofs :D)

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