David Adjaye Selects

About David Adjaye Selects: Works from the permanent collection

On view June 19, 2015 through Feb. 14, 2016

Architect David Adjaye presents 14 West and Central African textiles from the museum’s permanent collection in the latest installment of the Selects series. On view in the renovated Marks Gallery on the museum’s first floor, the exhibition is the 12th in the ongoing series, in which prominent designers, artists and architects are invited to mine and interpret the museum’s collection.

Hailed as an architect with an artist’s sensibility and with projects underway on four continents, Adjaye is known for combining the aesthetics of his African heritage with classic, modernist design. In exploring Cooper Hewitt’s collection, he has created a dialogue between the museum’s textiles and his own “library of patterns” that he draws on as a source of inspiration in his work. Having lived in Africa as a child and visited each of the continent’s 54 nations as an adult, Adjaye is deeply affected by the importance of textiles in the visual culture of Africa, whose forms and patterns are often reflected in his buildings.

Highlights of the works on view include:

• an Asante kente cloth from Ghana
• a bògòloanfini mud cloth from Mali,
• a Dyula ikat wrapper from Ivory Coast
• a Yoruba indigo dyed wrapper from Nigeria

 

Brochure

A free 24-page brochure accompanies the exhibition, with an essay by Adjaye and additional information about the objects on view. Download your copy.

highlights

Explore all the objects in the exhibition through our online collection interface.

David Adjaye Selects is made possible by the Marks Family Foundation Endowment Fund.