The exhibition Fabric: Textile and the Female Nude explores the connection between textiles and the female nude in art. Featuring around 43 works, ranging from early 17th-century masterpieces to contemporary pieces, the presentation at Villa Schöningen illuminates this and related themes across various artistic genres.

Artists have long considered the depiction of textiles to be the highest achievement in art, a notion that dates back to antiquity. A famous example is the story of Parrhasius’s Curtain, circa 400 BC: In it, the painters Zeuxis and Parrhasius vie for the title of greatest artist. Zeuxis is so fooled by Parrhasius’s trompe l’oeil curtain that he tries to pull it aside, only to discover that it is painted rather than real.

Curtains and other textiles—such as scarves, stockings, or sheets—play a central, theatrical role in art. They conceal and reveal, enhancing the allure of what remains hidden and making it seem all the more desirable. Textiles are a crucial stylistic device in the long tradition of depicting the female nude. But there is an ambivalence there as well: what is rarely seen is frequently objectified and, in the case of the female body, often sexualized.

The dynamic is clearly at work in Hans Rottenhammer the Elder’s Venus Before Her Bath (1610/1620). A delicate shawl extends from Venus’s hand across her body to her intimate area. And yet instead of providing privacy, the partial covering voyeuristically draws attention to the figure’s private parts.

Female contemporary artists engage with and critically examine this tradition. Cindy Sherman, for instance, deliberately portrays herself as an object in her photograph Untitled 447, where she appears in a full-body cloth costume as a naked clown. The ambivalent figure reflects society’s treatment of the female body: a common subject of imagery, yet often censored and objectified.

Interestingly, even the latest technologies such as AI image generators perpetuate problematic views of the female form. While AI typically renders male bodies realistically, images of females are often riddled with anatomical inaccuracies. The phenomenon raises questions about the data sources on which AI is trained and societal perspectives on female bodies in general.

Fabric: Textile and the Female Nude invites viewers to think critically about the role of textiles in portrayals of the female body. The multifaceted function of fabric—as protection, adornment, or deception—not only guide the gaze but also make power dynamics visible and open to challenge.

Perhaps some of the curtain will be lifted to allow for a more open approach to female physicality.