The Auratic Object

Claudia Wieser

Info: Materials, as Monika Wagner once noted, are indicators of social sensibilities, since they are enriched by the history of their usages. And this alone is enough for social codes to be transmitted through them. According to the Hamburg-based art historian, the transfer from the practical-functional realm to an aesthetic one thoroughly shakes up the order and with it the hierarchy of materials—the cherished boundaries between high and low thus become shifted. Weaving is a complex process, says Claudia Wieser, who has produced half a dozen large-format tapestries for her exhibition The Auratic Object. By using different modes of weaving and varying the float of weft and warp threads, the artist underscores the three-dimensional character of the fabric—opening up a space of immense temporality where past, present, and future intertwine.