The Fondation Toms Pauli and the Cité internationale de la tapisserie present an exhibition at the Centre Jean- Lurçat in Aubusson, devoted to the first Lausanne Biennials (1962 - 1969), focusing on their transformative impact on the art of tapestry in Europe and worldwide.

The exhibition presents the rapid metamorphoses that occurred on the global tapestry landscape in the space of seven years, from 1962 to 1969. Designed by Pierre Pauli, his wife Alice and Jean Lurçat, these international events aimed to present the state of wall tapestries at the time. Very quickly, however, the biennials became the epicentre of an apparently destructive upheaval in so-called “traditional” tapestry and the crucible of a new, freer approach that would lead to three-dimensional works. The concepts, rules, practices and techniques that had been in force since the Second World War were radically challenged at the first Lausanne Tapestry Biennials.

Thanks to a world-wide research, some 35 tapestries have been chosen for the exhibition, the same works that hung on the Biennial’s walls at the time.
The choice of works illustrates classic French wall production through Lurçat and his painter- cartoonist friends (Prassinos, Tourlière), as well as some great painters’ works woven by national manufactories or by Aubusson ateliers (Picasso, Delaunay, Estève). Other woven tapestries show the diversity of European and American production (Somville, Rousseau-Vermette, Yoors, Adams, Scholten).
On the other side are Polish artists who made a big impression (Abakanowicz, Owidzka, Sadley) as well as the first three-dimensional creations (Giauque, Jobin, Abakanowicz, Daquin, Lindgren).

The Cité internationale de la tapisserie and Fondation Toms Pauli present a number of pieces from their collections. The Tate Modern in London has agreed to lend Magdalena Abakanowicz’s 1969 Abakan Red on an exceptional basis. The Mobilier National in Paris and the Central Textiles Museum in Lodz, Poland were also contacted. Lenders also include the Yoors Foundation in New York, UNESCO in Paris for a piece by Le Corbusier, and the Musée national des beaux- arts du Québec.

The exhibition is edited by Bruno Ythier, curator of Cité internationale de la tapisserie, Aubusson, and Giselle Eberhard Cotton, director of Fondation Toms Pauli, Lausanne.