Compass

Editorial: A discussion about the importance of museum exhibitions imparting knowledge to the public leads to exciting news about the HALI tours.

Dialogue: Introducing the HALI UK tour; an ICOC special event in Budapest and Vienna; an online auction breaks a world record; V&A Museum’s Clothworkers’ Centre at Blythe House;  a tapestry makes £1.2 million at Sotheby’s London.

Diary: A selection of international must-see events.

Calendar: Our listings of the latest auctions, exhibitions, fairs and conferences taking place this season.

Thread of time: Two textile pieces which denote value: an Inca quipu, a device for recording data, sits beside an Italian velvet, which is not quite what it seems.

Travellers’ tales: Philippa Scott A Burgundian adventure rich with textiles, wine and the reopening of the Dijon museum

Profile: Markus Voigt As Galerie Neiriz in Berlin comes closes its doors, artist and collector Hamid Sadighi Neiriz reveals the story of his past and how he came to open the gallery space.

Comment: Francesca Leoni The legacy of May Beattie lives on through the archive donated to the Ashmolean Museum in 2000, which is soon to be fully reorganised, inventoried and open to researchers.

Anatomy of an object: An examination of the striking imagery on a lau pahudu or women’s skirt from East Sumba from the Steven G. Alpert Collection of Indonesian textiles at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Features

The New Vakıflar Carpet Museum: Serpil Özçelık, Walter B. Denny 

The Vakıflar Halı Museum has reopened its doors in Istanbul, demonstrating the best Turkish effort yet to exhibit seven hundred years of historical carpet weaving. The treasures of Anatolia are finally ready to be discovered in a suitable setting.

Rainments of the Rainforest: Gerry Masteller 

An account of the extensive and diverse Borneo textile collection of Heribert Amann, as seen in his recent book Textiles from Borneo: The Iban, Kantu, Ketungau, and Mualang Peoples

World view: Judith Glass, Rina Indictor 

‘Interwoven Globe’, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art’s recent mammoth multi- departmental exhibition placed textiles at the very centre of 300 years of world history and trade. The authors examine both the scope of the grand show and individual exhibits.

Turkmenistan honours its own: Christine Martens, Elena Tsareva 

Museums are flourishing throughout Turkmenistan. In the capital Ashgabat, the National Museum holds collections of remarkable Turkmen tribal textiles and felts.

Berbers in sharp focus: Gebhart Blazek 

A recent exhibition of Moroccan carpets, belonging to the architect Professor Jürgen Adam, at the International Design Museum in Munich, invites fascinating parallels with 20th-century abstract art.

Challenging perception: Chiara Barbieri 

The current exhibition ‘Decorum’ at the Paris Museum of Modern Art brings paintings and textiles together in ways that confront old prejudices and preconceptions.  The author introduces highlights from the featured carpets and tapestries spanning different periods, countries and techniques.

Reviews

Exhibition reviews

‘Transylvanian Treasures in Poland’ at the National Museum of Art, Gdansk; the Indianapolis Museum of Art shows the majesty of African textiles; tapa bark cloths take the stage in ‘Made in Oceania’ at the Rautenstauch-Joest-Museum in Cologne.

Book reviews

Susan Meller’s latest book, the visually stunning Silk and Cotton: Textiles from the Central Asia that Was comes under the spotlight; Jonathan Hope takes a closer look at Eyes of the Ancestors – The Arts of Island Southeast Asia at the Dallas Museum of Art, which highlights the importance of the Museum’s Indonesian collection; Carpets from Islamic Lands: Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah; The Al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait by Friedrich Spuhler is examined by Walter B. Denny; plus reviews of Khans, Nomads & Needlework: Suzanis and Embroideries of Central Asia and Dress Accessories of the 1st millennium ad from Egypt

Market feature

Recent fair reviews see a rise in popularity for pre-20th century art at London’s Frieze Masters 2013. Meanwhile, San Francisco’s ARTS fair presents good material in abundance.

Auction price guide

Reports from New York, Stuttgart, and Paris, including the Vanderbilt star-lattice carpet sale at Christie’s London, and the 16th century star Ushak from Austria Auction Company’s inaugural sale in Vienna.

Special Report

Family-run company Amadi Carpets opened their weaving facility dedicated to women in Afghanistan just over two years ago, with the intention to raise the status of women in the war-torn country.

Last page

The life of the Italian collector and carpet connoisseur Marino Dell’Oglio is celebrated by Moshe Tabibnia.