The nonagenarian Colombian fiber artist Olga de Amaral, now 92, is the subject of a major retrospective at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, following its debut at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris in 2024. The exhibition, on view through October 12, 2025, features works spanning her entire career, from the 1950s to the present, and includes pieces that blend ancient and futuristic aesthetics, often incorporating gold shimmer and woven density. Curated by Marie Perennès and Stephanie Seidel, the show highlights Amaral's pioneering role in textile art, a medium historically marginalized as craft rather than fine art.
This retrospective matters because it cements Olga de Amaral's place in the canon of contemporary art history at a time when textile art is finally being reassessed by major institutions. Amaral has been a common thread in recent museum exhibitions re-evaluating fiber art, including shows at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Her career—spanning architectural design studies, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and decades of experimental practice—demonstrates the enduring significance of textile art as a fine art tradition, challenging long-held hierarchies between craft and high art.