Entanglements: On the role of textiles in art and society
Artistic positions from the ifa art collection
Textile traditions and production are a common thread running through the region around Chemnitz. Until 1994, Flöha was an important textile centre, and in GDR times thousands of workers passed through the station every day on their way to the factories. Now the railway station, renovated for the Capital of Culture, has become the setting for "Entanglements".
On display were works of modern and contemporary art in the context of textiles: artists included Antje Engelmann, Katharina Fritsch, Hermann Glöckner, Renate Göritz, Käthe Kollwitz, Helga Paris, Judith Raum, Reinhard Mucha, Rosemarie Trockel and Franz Erhard Walther. The exhibition was curated by Susanne Weiß (ifa).
In an unusual collaboration, the ifa - Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen cooperated with the municipality of Flöha and Deutsche Bahn to realise the exhibition and presented artists from its own collection in dialogue with the local history.
Textiles not only brought together tradition and innovation, but also the cause and effect of production and material, patterns and interpretations as well as values and paradoxes that characterised our economic and social conditions.
When? Until 03 August 2025
Where? Flöha art station, station concourse, Bahnhofstraße 2A, 09557 Flöha I Admission: free
The exhibition is part of the PURPLE PATH art and sculpture trail. The project is being realised together with the town of Flöha and is taking place in cooperation with the Wüstenrot Foundation.
The art collection of the ifa - Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen currently comprises around 24,000 works from various disciplines of modern and contemporary visual art: architecture, photography and design are represented as well as monographic exhibitions by Rosemarie Trockel or Wolfgang Tillmans. Around half of these come from purchases of travelling exhibitions, for which curators have developed monographic structures since the 1960s, presenting outstanding artistic positions from Germany. Another focus is on socio-politically relevant projects that reflect contemporary artistic trends and movements of the 20th and 21st centuries. They are presented as travelling exhibitions in international museums and cultural institutions, but also outside the major metropolises. There are currently 20 exhibitions on show worldwide, which have also been co-organised since the 2010s.
The second half of the ifa art collection originates from the collection of the Centre for Art Exhibitions of the GDR (ZfK), parts of which were taken over in 1991. This has been researched in cooperation with the Wüstenrot Foundation since 2023. On thedigital art platform ifa Agorathe ifa's unique art collection is made visible and tangibleagora.ifa.de/topics
