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See more objects with the color black grey or see all the colors for this object.
Object Timeline
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1981 |
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1985 |
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2012 |
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2013 |
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2014 |
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2025 |
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Textile, Nuno me Gara (Cloth Patterned Cloth)
This is a Textile. It was designed by Junichi Arai. It is dated 1981 and we acquired it in 1985. Its medium is cotton and its technique is two intercrossed plain weave structures (double cloth), jacquard controlled; overspun yarns. It is a part of the Textiles department.
Junichi Arai was born in Kiryu, the center of traditional Japanese silk weaving, and was trained in his family’s mill. He went on to become one of the most innovative textile artists of our time. Over the past fifty years he has won dozens of patents for his work in fiber chemistry, metallic fibers and finishes, and other surface treatments, including a unique melt-off process for creating metallic textiles.
Arai is often called a textile engineer, and Nuno me Gara, woven in 1981, shows he was also an early adopter of computer-aided loom technologies. Using just two colors, red and black, in a double-cloth construction, he creates an image that is both illusionistic and abstract. The image of a pile of narrow fabric strips follows in a long tradition of using photographic imagery to showcase the loom’s capabilities, but Arai focuses equally on the sensuous tactility of the subject.
This object was featured in our Object of the Week series in a post titled Weaving Illusions.
This object was
donated by
Junichi Arai.
It is credited Gift of Junichi Arai.
- Frieze (France)
- block printed on handmade paper.
- Gift of Eleanor and Sarah Hewitt.
- 1928-2-69-a,b
- Dado (France)
- block printed on handmade paper.
- Museum purchase from the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition....
- 1994-101-2
- Sidewall, PHE-01
- digital print on paper.
- Gift of NLXL.
- 2013-4-1
Our curators have highlighted 9 objects that are related to this one. Here are three of them, selected at random:
- Book Illustration, Cook’s Linoleum, Pattern 3388
- lithograph.
- Collection of Smithsonian Institution Libraries.
- SIL39088002584423
- Hanging, Binary Traces: Kay
- cotton.
- Museum purchase from General Acquisitions Endowment Fund.
- 2007-33-1
- Sidewall, Faltenwurf (Shadow-Folds)
- flexograph printed on paper.
- Museum purchase from Sarah Cooper-Hewitt Fund.
- 1992-110-1
Its dimensions are
H x W: 259.1 x 120 cm (102 x 47 1/4 in.) Repeat H: 60 cm (23 5/8 in.)
Cite this object as
Textile, Nuno me Gara (Cloth Patterned Cloth); Designed by Junichi Arai (Japanese, 1932 - 2017); Japan; cotton; H x W: 259.1 x 120 cm (102 x 47 1/4 in.) Repeat H: 60 cm (23 5/8 in.); Gift of Junichi Arai; 1985-31-1
This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Making Design.
