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Spatial Signs
Exhibition of tapestry-woven ecclesiastical vestments
Inge-Lise and Flemming Bau

3-31 October 2004

On certain days of the ecclesiastical year when the pastor turns his back on the congregation in Bregnet Church, he wears his violet vestments with a torn cross on the back. Whether the congregation approves of it or not, a cross hanging in shreds will inevitably provoke reactions.

Inge-Lise and Flemming Bau are the ones responsible for the controversial vestments from Bregnet. It is not the first time that they have chosen to employ symbols which set the imagination and mind of the spectator in motion. Since the couple started working with vestments in 1974, they have always focused on reinterpreting ecclesiastical colours and symbols in order to make them lively and relevant for a modern congregation. For the two artists, vestments are like moving pictures interplaying with the interior architecture of the church. At the same time they are also costumes which intensify or accentuate the themes of the morning services.
As practising artists for thirty years, Inge-Lise and Flemming Bau will in October exhibit the fruits of their long experience of working with ecclesiastical textiles in a retrospective exhibition, which also shows the entire working process right from the drawing-board stage to the final product in the church. The brushes, silk, wool, colours, paper and loom will be shown together with all the beautiful and colourful tapestry-woven ecclesiastical vestments.

In 1963 Inge-Lise Bau graduated as a weaving instructor and in the years 1978-2003 she was the owner of Nøtten Weaving and Textile School. A student of draughtsman Kai Rich.

Flemming Bau currently works as an illustrator of books as well as a designer and painter.