Art Institute of Chicago · Grant Park / Loop

Embroidered Traditions from Morocco to Afghanistan

Jetzt zu sehen2. Mai 2026 – 25. Januar 2027·32 $

The museum's first exhibition devoted to the artistic traditions of the SWANA region, with more than 70 embroidered works from the 18th through the 20th century.

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Kohistani women wore the jatho to weddings and festivals, and it was made to be heard. The black cotton dress is sewn with beads, buttons, buckles, coins, bells and metal amulets, and the label explains that they jingled when the wearer danced, to scare away evil spirits.

You walk through 75 objects in the lower-level textile galleries, 57 to 59, nearly all from the museum's own collection and most never shown before. It is the Art Institute's first show on Southwest Asia and North Africa, arranged by theme rather than country, with four face veils from a Riyadh collector on public view in the US for the first time. In 19th-century Turkey an embroidered bath towel announced your social status; the one in your bathroom announces Target.

Newcity's Elisa Shoenberger called it "a treasure trove of artistry". Her one catch: it stops at the 20th century and says little about how these crafts are made or worn today. It runs until 25 January 2027.

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The Kohistani jatho
In Gallery 57, a black cotton wedding and festival dress heavy with beads, buttons, bells and coins, with a beaded triangular amulet dangling at the front of the skirt.
The Amazigh akhnif cape
Look at the back of this Moroccan wool cape, woven to shape from the hood down, for the big red motif called the eye, placed to protect the wearer's back.
Two Yemenite Jewish gargush hoods
Cone-shaped bridal hoods covered in metal-wrapped embroidery, whose silver triangles the curator says are meant to look like a tiered cake.
The Marsh Arab izar
On this Iraqi wool wedding blanket, rows of triangles stand for hills, diamonds for the reed platforms people live on, and wavy lines for the water around them.
The Turkish towel ends
The cut-off borders of 19th-century bath towels, embroidered in silk and metallic thread with rosewater bottles, ships and buildings.