For the past twenty-three years The Fabric
Workshop and Museum has challenged the wherewithal of Philadelphia's
art community by uncompromisingly placing one artistic medium
in the spotlight for scrutiny. Not just a display case for artworks,
The Fabric Workshop has served as a think-tank and laboratory
for burgeoning contemporary artists who want to create new and
experimental pieces solely in fabric.
These days, however, it seems The Fabric Workshop and Museum
is turning inward to challenge its own notions of fabric as
an artistic medium. In mid-December of 1999, The Workshop mounted
the exhibition "Make/Believe," guest-curated by Kathleen Forde,
which consisted entirely of video installations. On the one
hand, this move on The Workshop's part could signify a desire
to elasticize its boundaries as a museum to include other up
and coming modes of expression. On the other hand, the exhibition
could be seen as a consideration of video installation itself
as a kind of fabric: a textured, layered and patterned visual
entity. One video in the show, Untitled/ Butterflies by Stephen
Murphy, illustrated this point well: in the 40 second video
loop, the screen fills with a multitude of computer generated
butterflies which weave in and out of themselves, methodically
repeating like a silk-screen motif.
Two exhibitions currently on display
present The Fabric Workshop and Museum as both an institution
that devotes itself to the medium of fabric and one which seeks
to expand the accepted classifications of artistic media. The
downstairs gallery holds a selection of recent works by Brazilian
artist Iran do Espirito Santo. The upstairs gallery shows a group
of contemporary tapestries from the traveling exhibition "Threads
of Dissent." Though in many ways miles apart, the two exhibitions
can be seen as linked by the theme of traditional vs. exceptional
methods of working with fabric in art.
In fact, only one piece in Iran
do Espirito Santo's exhibition incorporates fabric. Nostalgia
(1999) is a shaggy carpet of deep green wool which is reminiscent
of a field of grass. Other pieces in the show, though not made
with fabric, play with texture and pattern in conceptual ways.
Untitled (1999) playfully inverts the negative space of a keyhole
to the positive form of a convex mirror. Any curious eyes that
seeks to peer into the keyhole is assaulted with a distorted reflection
of itself. Lacking texture or pattern, the highly polished steel
surface of the keyhole captures and wears other textures: the
magnified pores of your skin or other artworks in the room. In
Section, the artist transforms a gallery wall into a faux wood
surface by painting the wall black and carefully etching lines
of wood grain into the painted surface. The result is an all-encompassing
sensory experience and a meditation on paint as a kind of liquid
fabric.
Like Iran do Espirito Santo's
carpet piece, the tapestries by various artists from "Threads
of Dissent" are also nostalgic in nature. Originally part of a
larger show at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston,
these pieces were initially shown alongside medieval, renaissance
and baroque tapestries. Although modern in design and technique,
the tapestries on display at The Fabric Workshop speak to the
more ancient dialogue that existed between painting (depicting
on fabric) and weaving (depicting with fabric). However, a piece
like Wojciech Jaskolka's Text H-4, which weaves sections of newspaper
into an abstract design, clearly rejects many tenets of occidental
tapestry weaving.
The Fabric Workshop and Museum's
current exhibitions not only carry out its founding goals to expand
and invigorate the artistic medium of fabric, they also provocatively
highlight the common ground shared by all modes of artistic practice.
Abigail Susik
abbysusik@hotmail.com
Iran do Espirito Santo's work will be on display through April
22, 2000.
Threads of Dissent will remain open until May 20, 2000.
On April 13 at 6:00 PM there will be a lecture by curator Jennifer
Gross.
The FWM is located at :1315 Cherry Street on the 5th Floor. (215)
568-1111.
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