[caption id="attachment_12571" align="alignnone" width="560" caption="Nicholas Godley and Simon Peers with Spider Silk Textile"][/caption]
A special preview and dinner party was held on the evening of June 1 at the Art Institute of Chicago to celebrate the new galleries of the AIC and the opening of the Godley Peers Spider Silk textile exhibit. The golden textile was conceived and created by Simon Peers and Nicholas Godley in Madagascar from silk thread collected over one million Golden Orb spiders.
Simon Peers and Nicholas Godley have revived and reinvented the little known history and process of using the silk of spiders in weaving by carefully extracting the lustrous, golden-colored silk from living spiders by hand. It took five years and the thread from more than one million spiders for Peers and Godley to create a hand-woven, brocaded textile with patterns from the historic royal weaves of Madagascar. Said Godley, “It is art, fashion, culture, anthropology and science – what one object can encompass all those things?” Peers added, “…imbued with metaphor and poetry, with nightmare and phobia, with tales and myths that resonate within us all, the Spider Silk textile encompasses an extraordinary history with contemporary resonance, embodying diverse meanings and associations that inspire and fire the imagination.”
After a very successful showing at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the exhibition was regarded as one of the most popular standalone exhibitions in recent years. The spider silk textile is now on special loan to the AIC as a part of the museum’s new galleries dedicated to African art and Indian art of the Americas. The textile will be displayed in Gallery 137 through October. Sometimes referred to as the “8th Wonder of the World,” this extraordinary textile will next be exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London beginning January 2012.
The dinner celebration and preview was hosted by the Art Institute’s president and director James Cuno, Simon Peers, and Nicholas Godley. The event was attended by museum trustees, notable Chicagoans, curators, and other luminaries of extraordinary achievement. All of the guests were given the opportunity to touch and take turns wearing a unique satin, Spider Silk opera scarf created specifically for the opening celebration. Guests like Marjorie Benton, Eric and Cheryl McKissack, Ronald Krueck, Denise Gardner, Dr. Anita Blanchard, Douglas Dawson, and Susan Vogel enjoyed Gossamer Dream champagne cocktails and delectables by Bon Appétit at the textile preview dinner.
[caption id="attachment_12572" align="alignnone" width="560" caption="Spider Silk in the Loom"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_12573" align="alignnone" width="560" caption="Jim Cuno, Lady Liliana Cavendish, Nicholas Godley and Simon Peers"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_12574" align="alignnone" width="560" caption="Dinner Table Setting"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_12575" align="alignnone" width="560" caption="Lady Liliana Cavendish and Nicholas Godley"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_12577" align="alignnone" width="560" caption="Spider Silk Textile"][/caption]
All images courtesy of AIC.
