The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) is pleased to present New Material as New Media: The Fabric Workshop and Museum at 25 Years, a Retrospective Exhibition celebrating 25 years of collaborative projects with artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Claes Oldenburg and Robert Morris.

The Fabric Workshop and Museum has worked with over 400 artists in the past quarter century to produce over 5,500 works. These works are housed in the FWM’s permanent collection and are exhibited both in-house and around the world. In 2001, the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève exhibited a retrospective exhibition with works created at the FWM by Mike Kelley, Mona Hatoum, Renée Green, Marie-Ange Guilleminot among others. In Spring 2002, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney hosted the exhibition From Lichtenstein to Viola: Material World, 25 Years of The Fabric Workshop and Museum featuring FWM collaborative projects by Christine Borland, Mona Hatoum, Glen Ligon, Virgil Marti, Tristin Lowe, Carrie Mae Weems, and many others.

For this exhibition, Philadelphia’s own Anne d’Harnoncourt will curate an exhibition using The Fabric Workshop and Museum’s vast and diverse collection of works of art, documentation and process material. As the FWM moves into its second quarter century, d’Harnoncourt’s retrospective will demonstrate the ways in which the FWM’s Residency Projects have allowed contemporary artists of all media (including sculpture, installation, video, painting, architecture, and design) to create new works in fabric and other unconventional materials. This retrospective may include projects completed within the last year by Stacy Levy, Yinka Shonibare and Ugo Rondinone.

The Fabric Workshop and Museum’s new retrospective publication, New Material as New Media: The Fabric Workshop and Museum at Twenty Five Years, was written by Marion Boulton Stroud, with a foreword by Anne d’Harnoncourt and introduction by Mark Rosenthal. (Designed by Takaaki Matsumoto Inc., Published by MIT Press.) A beautiful, cloth bound publication in three-color ways, this book highlights major FWM Residency projects over the last 25 years and includes an interview of Marion Stroud by Ruth Fine.

New Artist Multiples, addition to the FWM’s growing catalog of multiples, are also be exhibited in celebration of a quarter century of artistic achievement. Pregnant Woman by Louise Bourgeois, a photographic triptych by Isaac Julien, a new multiple made of breakfast cereal by Tom Friedman, and works by William Wegman, Kiki Smith, Edgar Heap of Birds are to be included. The FWM’s Multiple Program has been active since its founding in 1977. Mona Hatoum’s Untitled (Brain), 1999, Ann Hamilton’s Untitled (Hair Collar), 1993, and Richard Tuttle’s The Thinking Cap, 1998 are just a few examples of multiples created in collaboration with the FWM over the years.

In its 25th Year, The Fabric Workshop and Museum is the only contemporary art museum in the United States devoted to creating new work in fabric and other materials in collaboration with emerging and established artists from around the world. Founded in 1977, The Fabric Workshop and Museum has developed from an ambitious experiment to a renowned institution with a widely recognized residency program, an extensive collection of work by resident artists, in-house and touring exhibitions, and comprehensive educational programming that includes lectures, tours, in-school presentations, and student apprenticeships. All FWM exhibitions, events and programs are free and open to the public.

The exhibition program of The Fabric Workshop and Museum is supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, LLWW Foundation, The Philadelphia Cultural Fund, Independence Foundation, The Claneil Foundation, Philip Morris Companies, Arcadia Foundation, the Miller-Plummer Foundation, The Barra Foundation, and the Board of Directors and members of The Fabric Workshop and Museum.

For Press Information, contact P.R. Coordinator at the Fabric Workshop and Museum, 215.568.1111 or kathryn@fabricworkshopandmuseum.org

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