Sofie Dawo (1926–2010) was an exceptional artist. Her unconventional creative strategy involved enhancing fabric by damaging or disrupting it. Through this radical treatment, the manufacturing process became literally inscribed into the object, with unpredictable – “emerging surprises” (Dawo) – deliberately factored in. Dawo’s textile experiments are devoid of any function or practical application and defy clear classification as either art or craft – they stand on their own.

The 22 works by Sofie Dawo, along with selected works on paper, displayed at the Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Applied Arts), are of particular interest due to their artistic merit and represent a cross-section of Dawo’s oeuvre. However, they also address key questions pertaining to the Kunstgewerbemuseum: Where do the boundaries between art and craft lie? And who defines them, when, and on what grounds?

Dawo preferred to be regarded as a textile artist rather than a craftsperson. What distinguished her experimental, artistic approach was that she focused entirely on the material – its specific properties and effects – and allowed it to respond to her touch, surprises and coincidences included. Dawo exploited the material’s inherent potential in a variety of ways and, through her treatment of it, sometimes pushed its physical limits – for example, by cutting threads, interlacing them or augmenting them with other materials, including metal, nylon and polyester. She also drastically altered textile surfaces by scoring them or intentionally damaging intact fabric. The avant-garde artist deliberately “broke all the rules”, doing away with traditional weaving techniques. Her works are not confined to a two-dimensional plane; they frequently extend into three-dimensional space. They are textile sculptures.

The Textile Artist Sofie Dawo

Sofie Dawo is one of the textile artists who have long remained largely unnoticed, despite having made a significant contribution since the 1960s to liberating the art of weaving from its role of merely transforming a visual image into a textile medium. She refrained from reproducing a design – be it figurative or abstract – or the depiction of a narrative in favour of work that was entirely liberated and free to draw its inspiration solely from the material and its technical possibilities. Her approach helped to establish textile art as an autonomous art form.

Sofie Dawo, born in the Saar region (now the German state of Saarland), studied at the Staatliche Schule für Kunst und Handwerk (state school of arts and crafts) in Saarbrücken from 1948 to 1952, initially pursuing fine art and subsequently weaving. She was a student of Boris Kleint, who had studied painting under Johannes Itten in Berlin and been his assistant. In this capacity, Kleint had been appointed by the Saarbrücken art school to introduce Bauhaus-inspired basic curriculum, which is likely to have had a profound influence on Dawo. After working as a designer, primarily in interior design for public spaces, Dawo returned in 1958 to the Staatliche Schule für Kunst und Handwerk in Saarbrücken (called the Saarland Fachhochschule [University of Applied Sciences] at the time), where she led classes in weaving and textile printing. She remained closely associated with that institution until the end of her life.

The exhibition was made possible by loans from Jochum Rodgers, Berlin.

A special exhibition of the Kunstgewerbemuseum – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin