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The Gold of Threads: Olga de Amaral at ICA Miami
The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami), in collaboration with the Cartier Foundation, presented a major retrospective of Olga de Amaral’s work from May 1 to October 12, 2025.
The exhibition brought together more than 50 pieces created over six decades of the artist’s career. Among them are works that have never before been shown outside her home country of Colombia. The Miami presentation continues the success of the Paris premiere, held at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.
Olga de Amaral is one of the leading figures in the development of contemporary textile art — a true innovator. At 93, she is experiencing global recognition and acclaim. The artist works at the intersection of weaving, painting, and sculpture. Her bold approach and experiments with fiber have elevated textile craft to the realm of high art, a field long regarded as merely decorative.
Her fascination with fabrics began in childhood. “Probably because they were the most beautiful goods at the markets I often visited,” she recalls. “I watched my mother examine blankets and textiles, and how she ran her hand across them. Her admiration for form, texture, and color stayed with me.”
Wool was the first fiber she worked with — knitting, braiding, tying knots. Later came horsehair (“there were many horses around,” she says), linen, cotton, plaster, and acrylic paints. Since the late 1960s, de Amaral has been covering textiles with gold leaf, silver, and palladium. “I use gold not as a symbol of luxury, but as a symbol of light. It turns the fabric into an immaterial substance, a space for contemplation.”
The artist does not treat fabric as a flat surface. Her works — freely suspended in space — take on architectural form. It is important to note that in 1952, de Amaral earned a degree in architecture in Bogotá, which explains her interest in form, materiality, and proportion. She later continued her studies at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, the American counterpart of the Bauhaus. There she studied under Marianne Strengell, the Finnish-American artist who advanced the ideas of three-dimensional fiber art. “At Cranbrook I discovered the loom,” de Amaral says. “For me, it became yet another way of working and creating.” Since then, textile has become a narrative medium for her — a language that merges the weaving traditions of Colombia’s Indigenous cultures with the principles of modernism.
The exhibition design in both Paris and Miami was developed by Lina Ghotmeh, a Lebanese-born architect and recipient of numerous international awards. Her concept is rooted in the idea of a “vertical forest.” Ghotmeh draws inspiration from Colombian landscapes, conveying their rhythm, density, and breath. Nature has always been a central source of inspiration for de Amaral herself; her works often evoke geological strata, mountain formations, or the mists of the tropical Andes.
The Paris exhibition (the first European retrospective of de Amaral’s work) and the subsequent Miami presentation represent a significant gesture of global recognition. They were preceded by extensive research by the Cartier Foundation and the publication of a book with analytical texts on de Amaral’s practice. Overall, interest in textile art has shifted dramatically in recent years. This is reflected in the artist’s exhibition activity over the past four years: solo shows in Houston, London, New York, Paris, and Miami, as well as her participation in last year’s Venice Biennale. The resurgence of textile art is, in many ways, a historical response to the rise of digital practices. In the age of technology, handcraft and materiality acquire renewed value.
The exhibition brought together more than 50 pieces created over six decades of the artist’s career. Among them are works that have never before been shown outside her home country of Colombia. The Miami presentation continues the success of the Paris premiere, held at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.
Olga de Amaral is one of the leading figures in the development of contemporary textile art — a true innovator. At 93, she is experiencing global recognition and acclaim. The artist works at the intersection of weaving, painting, and sculpture. Her bold approach and experiments with fiber have elevated textile craft to the realm of high art, a field long regarded as merely decorative.
Her fascination with fabrics began in childhood. “Probably because they were the most beautiful goods at the markets I often visited,” she recalls. “I watched my mother examine blankets and textiles, and how she ran her hand across them. Her admiration for form, texture, and color stayed with me.”
Wool was the first fiber she worked with — knitting, braiding, tying knots. Later came horsehair (“there were many horses around,” she says), linen, cotton, plaster, and acrylic paints. Since the late 1960s, de Amaral has been covering textiles with gold leaf, silver, and palladium. “I use gold not as a symbol of luxury, but as a symbol of light. It turns the fabric into an immaterial substance, a space for contemplation.”
The artist does not treat fabric as a flat surface. Her works — freely suspended in space — take on architectural form. It is important to note that in 1952, de Amaral earned a degree in architecture in Bogotá, which explains her interest in form, materiality, and proportion. She later continued her studies at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, the American counterpart of the Bauhaus. There she studied under Marianne Strengell, the Finnish-American artist who advanced the ideas of three-dimensional fiber art. “At Cranbrook I discovered the loom,” de Amaral says. “For me, it became yet another way of working and creating.” Since then, textile has become a narrative medium for her — a language that merges the weaving traditions of Colombia’s Indigenous cultures with the principles of modernism.
The exhibition design in both Paris and Miami was developed by Lina Ghotmeh, a Lebanese-born architect and recipient of numerous international awards. Her concept is rooted in the idea of a “vertical forest.” Ghotmeh draws inspiration from Colombian landscapes, conveying their rhythm, density, and breath. Nature has always been a central source of inspiration for de Amaral herself; her works often evoke geological strata, mountain formations, or the mists of the tropical Andes.
The Paris exhibition (the first European retrospective of de Amaral’s work) and the subsequent Miami presentation represent a significant gesture of global recognition. They were preceded by extensive research by the Cartier Foundation and the publication of a book with analytical texts on de Amaral’s practice. Overall, interest in textile art has shifted dramatically in recent years. This is reflected in the artist’s exhibition activity over the past four years: solo shows in Houston, London, New York, Paris, and Miami, as well as her participation in last year’s Venice Biennale. The resurgence of textile art is, in many ways, a historical response to the rise of digital practices. In the age of technology, handcraft and materiality acquire renewed value.
Gallery
By Julia Bikbulatova