Ian Berry’s new exhibition is a treat for the senses
04/11/2021
The Material World exhibition features some of Berry’s most well-known pieces including Behind Closed Doors, Hotel California and the Secret Garden, all made with layers of recycled jeans, with no bleaching or dyeing.
The Secret Garden, which Mr Berry worked on with technology company Tonello and US mill Cone Denim, represents sustainability and the environment and has been updated with a collaboration with menswear designer Jonathan Christopher. Mr Christopher represents Mother Nature, her vines connecting the circle of life, with a dress called Cunae-Cradle.
Sustainability is also at the core of Mr Berry’s collaboration with Swedish designer Lill O.Sjöber. The TWOOD (textile-wood) pieces, a guitar and a drum kit, have been created with denim scraps and echo the album covers from Mr Berry’s 2012 Record Store.
Welcoming visitors into the museum is a giant jacket, adorned in oversized pop culture badges, produced with Henry Wong of Pakistan-based mill and manufacturer AGI Denim.
Over the past year, Mr Berry has created dozens of portraits of ‘Denim Legends’ (pictured) and is asking the audience to help shape this collection, which will grow over the period of the show (until May 1). The public can submit their ‘denim legends’ to be considered for a portrait.
Malena Karlsson, curator at the Textile Museum of Sweden, said: “Ian Berry’s work is interesting and important on so many levels. There’s the ‘wow’ factor of the craft, the thematics and the way in which his art shows how the textile material forms yet another dimension in art.”
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