Group Exhibition of the Year 2025: 50/100/55

The recipient of the Visual Arts Council’s award for Group Exhibition of the Year is the Textile Society for 50/100/55. The exhibition’s title was meant to commemorate the Association’s 50th anniversary, showcasing 100 works by 55 exhibitors in Hlöðuloftið, Korpúlfsstaðir, Reykjavík.

The history of textile art in Iceland reaches back through the centuries, as clearly demonstrated in a recent exhibition at the National Museum, which included an embroidered Icelandic antipendium on loan from the Louvre, Paris. In more recent times, the medium was, however, not all that highly regarded. Still, this would change with the impact of the second wave of feminism, as one of the related struggles was to make sure that textiles — almost exclusively seen as a women’s medium — were acknowledged as an accepted artistic medium. The founding of the Textile Association can be traced back to that struggle. 

On the occasion of the Association’s 50th anniversary, its board decided to present a major exhibition, inviting members to submit recent works, from which submissions the exhibition committee and curator subsequently selected pieces to include. Consequently, about two-thirds of the works featured were from the year 2024. The exhibition catalogue includes, among other things, mentions of the birthplaces of each participating artist. The vast majority was born in Iceland, but there was one participant from each of the following countries: the United States, Canada, Croatia, Lithuania, Germany and Romania. In recent years, textiles have taken on an increasingly important role in international exhibitions, including at the Venice Biennale. It can, therefore, be stated that textiles have now gained their rightful place as a recognised art medium.

The jury considers that the exhibition 50/100/55 offered an excellent overview of the diversity of textiles as a medium for artistic expression. The works thrived in the raw space and, despite the bold combination of different works, the exhibition expressed a strong whole.

Curator: Ægis Zita

Exhibition committee: Helga Pálína Brynjólfsdóttir, Ingiríður Ólafsdóttir, Olga B. Þorleifsdóttir, Ólöf Á. Stefánsdóttir and Þorgerður Hlöðversdóttir