CYCLES

The last of their kind - Moroccan tribal carpets with textile waste from menzel.galerie, Vienna
Gabriele Hain, porcelain
Alois Hain, painting

Tue, July 21 - Sat, August 1, 2026
Galerie hain AG WERK + RAUM

Renate Anna Menzel has been collecting and presenting artifacts from a vanishing world of nomads and sedentary people for two decades. In the summer of 2026, she will be showing a selection of her Moroccan Boucheraouite (= shredded) carpets at Galerie Hain AG, together with porcelain by Gabriele Hain and paintings by Alois Hain.

Like everywhere else in the world, rural areas in Morocco are undergoing major changes. Throughout the ages, women's textile work has been nourished by the resources of self-sufficient life, the skillful processing of sheep's wool and the large herds of tribes. Today, however, there is a lack of this beneficial material due to migration and the abandonment of traditional life. Hand-spun wool has become precious. Instead, the old clothes of our Western consumer society are flooding the country's markets, providing the weavers with new raw material. Cut into strips, as we know it from our patchwork carpets, it is woven and knotted resiliently at home. The Moroccan women have thus succeeded in providing wonderful proof of the continued existence of the vital creative will of an ancient folk culture. They created carpets of a very unique and new vitality. Whenever there was still some leftover wool, the processed fleece of the animals was a precious part of it. For this was the tradition of the ancestors, the world view of the grandmothers and mothers. Today, the hype of the markets is also trying to more or less appropriate these carpets called boucheraouite (= shreds) of the last decades. Meanwhile, marketing is even focusing on AI-designed production, the main thing being the label "recycled". How will the creative women of Morocco, in continuation of their folk culture, continue to counter this independently?

More information:
www.hainag.com
www.menzelgalerie.com

Exhibition details

Gallery hain AG WERK + RAUM, Sternwaldstraße 10
Duration: Tue, July 21 - Sat, August 1, 2026
Opening hours: Tue, July 21 & Tue, July 28: 5:30 - 7 p.m.
Weavers' market: Sat, 1 - 6 pm, Sun, 1 - 5 pm
Haslach Day on Sat, August 1: 12 - 2 pm
and by telephone appointment: 07289 | 72 0 35