Ann Coxon

PhD supervisor: Briony Fer
Working title for PhD: 'New Tapestry: Textile Art in Europe, 1960-1979.'

 

My thesis aims to explore and evaluate the New Tapestry movement in Eastern and Western Europe in the 1960s and 70s. Existing considerations of the international movement known more widely as Fibre (Fiber) Art have tended to place particular emphasis on North American developments and to focus on art/craft hierarchies. Yet there has been little critical or theoretical attention to the meanings and materiality of the works themselves. My thesis will address the specific histories, developments and contexts of the New Tapestry movement in Europe, considering its emergence and radical departure from European tapestry traditions and asking how this lineage figures within certain key works. Taking a thematic approach, I will draw out discussions of translation, folk-art, architecture, environment, materiality and nature.

Publications

• ‘Calder’s Postwar Equilibrium’, Alexander Calder, exhibition catalogue, Ben Brown Fine Arts, London, 2024
• ‘Bois Le Duc: The Forest, The Fortress and the Nomad’s Tent’, in New Encounters with Abakanowicz Anthology (upcoming, title tbc, publisher tbc), (peer reviewed).       
• ‘Sculpting Feelings: Tapta and the Textile Art of the 1970s’, Tapta, Flexible Forms, exhibition catalogue, Muzeum Susch, Switzerland, 2024
• ‘On Painting On Weaving’, Ptolemy Mann, monograph, Hurtwood Publishing, London, 2024
• ‘Woven Walls and the Texture of Time’ in Olga de Amaral, exhibition catalogue, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, 2024
• ‘Wearing Their Own Selves: Anu Põder’s Sculptural Clothing’, in Cecilia Alemani, ed.,  Anu Põder: Space for My Body, exhibition catalogue, Muzeum Susch, Switzerland, 2023
• ‘Threads of Resilience: Build, Rebuild, Wear and Repair’, Clare Molloy, ed., Katie Schwab, Sample Book, Vleeshal and Dent-De-Leone, Netherlands, 2023
• Motherhood book (monograph), Tate Publishing, 2023.
• ‘Every Tangle of Thread and Rope’, essay in Ann Coxon and Mary Jane Jacob, eds., Magdalena Abakanowicz, exhibition catalogue, Tate Publishing, 2022
• ‘Beyond Craft: Exhibiting Textiles in the Art Museum’, Journal of Craft, Volume 15,  issue 2. (peer reviewed), 2022
• ‘Weaving Modernism by K H Wells’, book review, Burlington Magazine, vol 162, no  1411, Yale University Press, 2020 (peer reviewed)
• ‘Contemporary Art/Textile Art’ in Breaching Borders, 16th International Triennial of Tapestry, exhibition catalogue, Łódź, Poland, 2019.
• ‘Two Hands, One Eye, One Needle and Many Threads’, in Madge Gill by Myrninerest, Sophie Dutton, Ed., Rough Trade Books, London, 2019
• ‘Another Dimension: Dorothea Tanning, Contemporary Practice and the Legacies of Surrealism’ in Dorothea Tanning, Alyce Mahon, Ed, exhibition catalogue, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid and Tate Modern, London, 2018.
• Anni Albers, exhibition catalogue, Ann Coxon, Briony Fer and Maria Müller-Schareck, Eds, exhibition catalogue, Tate, London, 2018
• ‘Making Something from Something: Toward a Re-definition of Women’s Textile Art’ in Entangled: Threads and Making, exhibition catalogue, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK, 2017
• ‘Composing Motions: Staging Calder’s Performing Sculpture’ in Alexander Calder: Performing Sculpture, Achim Borchardt-Hume, Ed, exhibition catalogue, Tate, London, 2015
• ‘The Potentiality of the Thing, Saloua Raouda Choucair’s modular sculpture’, in Saloua Raouda Choucair, Jessica Morgan, Ed, exhibition catalogue, Tate, London, 2013
• Louise Bourgeois, monograph, Modern Artists series, Tate Publishing, 2010

Conference papers and presentations

• In Conversation with Glenn Adamson (recorded) for Lenore Tawney and Toshiko Takaezu: A Remarkable Friendship, Alison Jacques Gallery, 2024
• Unpacking Haegue Yang, Hayward Gallery, 2024
• Lecture, ‘Sculpting Feelings’, Tapta: Flexible Forms, online symposium, also panel discussion, Muzeum Susch, Switzerland, 2024
• Woven Textiles in the Art Museum/Gallery, Mary Farmer Study Day, Westdean College/UCA Farnham, 2024
• Museum Debate – Contested Threads: Curating Textiles, panel discussion, Courtauld Institute, London, 2024   
• Panel Discussion, The Mother and the Weaver, Foundling Museum, London, 2024
• On curating Magdalena Abkanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope, Symposium paper, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway, 2023
• Symposium paper, The Forest, the Fortress and the Nomad’s Tent at New Encounters with Abakanowicz, Tate Modern, 2023
• Symposium paper, Working on the Surfaces: Albers’s Knots and Asawa’s Loops, Modern Art, Oxford, 2022
• Keynote lecture, Weaving Cultural and Personal Memory, Academic symposium, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge University, 2022
• Beyond Craft: Exhibiting Textiles in the Art Museum, Association for Art History annual conference paper. 2021
• Chair, Tender Crafts Panel Discussion, Jerwood Gallery, London, 2021Curator’s Talk: Ann Coxon on Dorothea Tanning, Starr Auditorium, Tate Modern, 11 March 2019
• Lecture, Department of Fine Art, University of Leeds, 2019
• Curators’ Talk, Ann Coxon and Briony Fer on Anni Albers, Starr Auditorium, Tate Modern, 17 October 2018
• ‘Monochromes of Modern Life’, Art Fund lecture, The Wallace Collection, 2016
• ‘Louise Bourgeois’s Insomnia Drawings’, Insomnia Conference, Wellcome Collection, London, 2008

Curated Exhibitions and Displays

• Mire Lee: Open Wound, Hyundai commission, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, 2024
• Curatorial Advisor, Material Worlds, Hayward Touring Exhibition, 2024
• Magdalena Abakanowicz, Every Tangle of Thread and Rope, Tate Modern, 2022

Media appearances/outreach work

Curated Exhibitions and Displays

• Dorothea Tanning, Tate Modern, London, 27 February – 9 June 2019
• Anni Albers, Kunstsammlung Nordrheim-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, K20, 9 June – 9 September 2018; Tate Modern, London, 11 October 2018 – 27 January 2019
• Beyond Craft, Materials and Objects collection display, Tate Modern, 2018
• Bruce Nauman, ARTIST ROOMS, Tate Modern, 2017-2018
• Louise Bourgeois, ARTIST ROOMS, Tate Modern, 2016-2017
• Living Cities, Tate Modern, 2016-2020
• Start Display, Tate Modern, 2016 - 2020
• Alexander Calder, Performing Sculpture, Tate Modern, 11 November 2015 – 3 April 2016.
• Louise Bourgeois: Works on Paper, Tate Modern, 2013-2014
• Saloua Raouda Choucair, Tate Modern, 16 April – 20 October 2013
• Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera, Tate Modern, 2010
• Level 2 Gallery: Michael Rakowitz, Tate Modern, 2010
• Craftivism, Arnolfini, Bristol, 11th December 2009 – 13th February 2010
• Louise Bourgeois (major retrospective exhibition), Tate Modern, 10 October 2007 – 20 January 2008; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 5 March – 2 June 2008; Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, 27 June – 28 September 2008; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 26 October 2008 – 26 January, 2009; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, 28 February  - 7 June, 2009.
• Kandinsky: The Path to Abstraction, Tate Modern, 22 June – 1 October 2006
• Robert Frank: Storylines, Tate Modern, 28 October 2004 – 23 January 2005
• Interweaving Cultures, Jim Thompson Thai House and Museum, Bangkok, 2005

Teaching

• MA Art as Theory course (leading sessions on Textility and Fiber Art and Indigeneity), UCL, 2024
• MA Curating the Art Museum Virtual Display Project, Courtauld Institute of Art/Tate, 2023
• Teaching Assistant BA year 2 course Action/Re-Action, UCL, 2021-2
• Visiting Lecturer, Curatorial Programme, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2019.
• Repeat visiting lecturer and mentor, MA and BA courses, Department of Fine Art, University of Leeds.
• Course tutor: Curating collection displays at Tate Modern, MA Curating, Royal College of Art, 2004 – 2010.
• Visiting tutor: MA Sculpture course, Royal College of Art
• Visiting tutor: Bath School of Art, Bath Spa University; Norwich University of the Arts; Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton.

Contact 
ann.coxon.19@ucl.ac.uk

Qualifications
MA, Curating and Commissioning Cotemporary Art, Royal College of Art, 2000
BA Fine Art, University of Leeds, 1997