> View the Surface Tension Online Catalogue

The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) is pleased to present Surface Tension, an exhibition that explores the diverse ways contemporary video artists are projecting images. Artists featured in Surface Tension question the traditional notion of the screen as a flat, static surface. Featured artists include Tony Oursler, Jim Campbell, Nicole Cohen, Nadia Hironaka, Lighting for Urban Rooftop Environments (LURE), Camille Utterback and Peter Rose in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum. A reception will be held at The Fabric Workshop and Museum on Friday, September 5, 2003 from 6:30 p.m. — 8:00 p.m. Following this reception, Lighting for Urban Rooftop Environments (LURE) will project new artist-designed screensavers outside the FWM from 8:00 p.m. — 9:00 p.m.

Jim Campbell, Ambiguous Icon (Running, Falling), 2000, custom electronics, 768 LEDs, 28" x 22"

The works in Surface Tension reveal an underlying tension in our everyday perception of images by exploring the disjunction between the screen as a site of representation and, alternately, as a mode of communication.
–– Cassandra Coblentz, Curator and Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative Curatorial Fellow

The tenuous relationship between image and screen is revealed through a diverse range of techniques. Featured works, such as Tony Oursler's Wavefront, 2001, focus on the material of the screen itself, projecting images onto fluid or fragmented surfaces that render imagery elusive or untenable. Other works, such as Jim Campbell's Ambiguous Icon (Running, Falling), 2000, focus specifically on the technology of viewing a moving digital image on a screen, reducing images to elemental color and light and exploring the pixel on a formal level.

	Camille Utterback, Liquid Time, 2001, Interactive installation, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist, New York

The FWM has a history of working with video artists such as Bill Viola and Doug Aitken, artists at the forefront of experimenting with the screen as a projection surface. In keeping with this history, Surface Tension features a new work by Artist-in-Residence Peter Rose, an artist whose work, like Viola's and Aitken's, employs an innovative approach to the material of the screen in order to challenge our perception of the moving image. Rose often creates imagery that is fleeting; he uses light, shadows and digital manipulation to deconstruct language and the act of seeing. Rose's new video installation utilizes multiple spatial layers, provoking viewers to question the boundaries of the projected images. His screen is a fluid form that momentarily provides a surface to read the image. While his imagery in this new work conjures ideas of concrete representation, it also portrays the moving image as elusive.

Surface Tension includes a digital Web-based catalog that can be launched through the FWM's website starting Friday, September 5, 2003. It will include imagery, video, sound as well as links to other relevant Websites. This Curatorial Fellowship is a project of the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, a program funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts, Philadelphia.

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 and programs are free and open to the public. Hours: Mon. – Fri. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sat., noon to 4 p.m.

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, the Miller-Plummer Foundation, The Barra Foundation, and the Board of Directors and members of The Fabric Workshop and Museum. In-kind donations for the exhibition Surface Tension were generously made by Zero Defect Design and Xochi Media Inc.

For more information, please contact the PR Coordinator at 215-561-8888, pr@fabricworkshopandmuseum.org. For general information, call 215-561-8888.

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