Melissa Cody

[Español abajo]

The first major solo museum presentation of fourth-generation Navajo weaver Melissa Cody (b. 1983, No Water Mesa, Arizona) spans the last decade of her practice, showcasing over 30 weavings that include three major new works produced for the exhibition. Using long-established weaving techniques and incorporating new digital technologies, Cody assembles and reimagines popular patterns into sophisticated geometric overlays, incorporating atypical dyes and fibers. Her tapestries carry forward the methods of Navajo Germantown weaving, which developed out of the wool and blankets that were made in Germantown, Pennsylvania and supplied by the US government to the Navajo people during the forced expulsion from their territories in the mid-1800s. During this period, the rationed blankets were taken apart and the yarn was used to make new textiles, a practice of reclamation which became the source of the movement. While acknowledging this history and working on a traditional Navajo loom, Cody’s masterful works exercise experimental palettes and patterns that animate through reinvention, reframing traditions as cycles of evolution.

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MoMA PS1 presentará la primera exposición individual de Melissa Cody (n. 1983, No Water Mesa, Arizona), tejedora navajo de cuarta generación. Melissa Cody: Webbed Skies [Cielos palmeados] abarca la última década de su práctica artística, presentando más de 30 tejidos y tres nuevas comisiones importantes. Cody utiliza métodos tradicionales, patrones complejos y tintes hechos a mano para resaltar los tapices como tecnologías potentes para la narración visual, sugiriendo su influencia en la automatización digital actual. Los tapices de Cody siguen los métodos del tejido tradicional navajo que se desarrolló a partir de la lana y las mantas que se fabricaban en Germantown, Pensilvania, y que el gobierno de Estados Unidos suministró al pueblo navajo durante la expulsión forzada de sus territorios a mediados del siglo XIX. Si bien Cody reconoce esta historia y trabaja en un telar tradicional navajo, sus obras magistrales ejercitan paletas y patrones experimentales que anima a través de la reinvención, reformulando las tradiciones como ciclos evolutivos.