Yinka Shonibare / Laura Owens
dal 7/9/2004 al 6/11/2004
Segnalato da
7/9/2004
Yinka Shonibare / Laura Owens
The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia
The exhibition features Space Walk, made in collaboration with the FWM during Shonibare's residency and a selection of past work by the artist including the photographic series Dorian Gray, Scenes 1-12, the large wall painting 100 Years and the sculpture Pedagogy Boy/Boy. Laura Owens: the new series of works employ the broad range of influences, application techniques, and iconography that have placed Owens at the forefront of contemporary painting.
Yinka Shonibare
September 8 - November 6, 2004
The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) is pleased to present the work of Artist-in-Residence Yinka Shonibare. The exhibition features Space Walk, made in collaboration with the FWM during Shonibare's residency and a selection of past work by the artist including the photographic series Dorian Gray, Scenes 1-12, the large wall painting 100 Years and the sculpture Pedagogy Boy/Boy. The exhibition will be on view September 8, 2004 - November 6, 2004, with an opening reception on Friday, October 1, 2004 from 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.. Thelma Golden, Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs at The Studio Museum in Harlem, will lecture on Thursday, October 7, 2004, at 6:00 pm with a reception to follow.
Shonibare's interest in culturally-charged juxtaposition has remained a constant thread through his work. Recently short-listed for Britain's prestigious Turner Prize, he is best known for his installations that address cultural identity by juxtaposing seemingly traditional African batik patterned cloth with the styles of 19th century aesthetes and dandies. Through installations, paintings, and photographic series, Shonibare addresses the intersection of identity, cultural symbols and aesthetics.
In Space Walk, Shonibare's 2002 collaboration with the FWM, a man and a woman dressed in space suits made of richly colored fabrics float in the gallery. For the fabric's design, Shonibare silk-screened text and photographs from 1970s "Philly Sound" record albums by bands like The Intruders, Three Degrees, The O'Jays and contemporary singer Jill Scott. The fabrics are adorned with the names of famous African Americans, such as James Brown, Billie Holiday, Barry White and David Hammons as well as famous Philadelphia sites from the days of Philly Soul.
Reinterpreting Western art and literature (Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray or Jean-Honore Fragonard's painting The Swing), Shonibare presents jarring and elegant tableaux of mannequins resplendently clothed in colored fabric. These sculptural installations reflect his interest in the long-lasting and pervasive effects of European colonialism. The headless mannequins wear finely detailed Victorian fashions, made not from historically-accurate fabrics, but African kinte cloth. However, the kinte cloth is not what it seems. Through the complex web of colonial-era trade, the wax-printed fabric was actually manufactured in Holland and only later shipped to West Africa, where it was adopted and has now become synonymous with traditional African textiles. In addition to the sculptural tableaux, Shonibare's work includes large-scale photographic projects (such as Dorian Gray) and sculpture (Pedagogy Boy/Boy).
Yinka Shonibare was born and lives in London, England. His recent solo exhibitions include Yinka Shonibare, Double Dutch, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2004); Play With Me, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, England (2003); Double Dress, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2002, traveling exhibition); Be-Muse, the British School in Rome, Rome, Italy (2001); Affectionate Men, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK (2000) and Dressing Down, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK (1999, traveling exhibition). Shonibare's participation in numerous group exhibitions includes Looking Both Ways: Art of the Contemporary African Diaspora, Museum of African Art, Long Island City, Queens, New York (2003); Black President: The Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2003); Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany (2002); Spoleto Festival, Charleston, South Carolina (2002); The Short Century, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, Germany (2001, traveling exhibition); Secret Victorians, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia (2001) and Sensation, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York (1999).
Image: Yinka Shonibare in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Space Walk(detail), 2002. Fiberglass, silkscreen print on cotton sateen and cotton brocade, and plastic. Installation dimensions variable. Photo: Aaron Igler.
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Laura Owens
September 8 - November 6, 2004
The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) is pleased to present a stunning new body of work by Los Angeles-based painter Laura Owens. Through her residency at the FWM, Owens created a suite of seven hand-embroidered prints on silk, which will be on view September 8, 2004 - November 6, 2004. A gallery talk by Owens and FWM Project Coordinator, Olivia Schreiner, will take place on Tuesday, September 21, 2004 at 6:00 p.m. and a lecture on Owens's work by Paul Schimmel, Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, will be held on November 5, 2004 at 6:00 p.m.
The new series of works employ the broad range of influences, application techniques, and iconography that have placed Owens at the forefront of contemporary painting. Though created in a new medium, these works build on the artist's long time interest in European, Asian and American landscape painting, tapestries and decorative textile design. As with her strongest paintings, abstract and figurative elements establish a complex series of formal relationships.
In Owens' untitled beehive paintings from 1998, the black and yellow stripes of the bees are made up of three-dimensional rows of paint applied directly from the tube; the marks in this painting were directly inspired by an embroidered pillow the artist purchased at an estate sale. Through the FWM's Artist-in-Residence Program, Owens has been able to explore the range of mark-making, textures and palette available through historical embroidery materials and styles, and merge it into her signature imagery of trees, leaves and creatures, as well as flat areas of pure color.
Born in Euclid, Ohio, Owens currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Owens received her B.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design and her M.F.A. from California Institute for the Arts. Her recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition organized by Paul Schimmel at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2003, traveled to Aspen Art Museum, Milwaukee Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami) and the 2004 Whitney Biennial. Her works have been acquired by museums including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and the Guggenheim Museum, New York. Other recent exhibitions include Drawing Now: Eight Propositions, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2002); Painting at the Edge of the World, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2001); a solo exhibition at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2001); and Examining Pictures: Exhibiting Paintings, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2000, traveled to UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles).
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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., 12 noon to 4 p.m.
The exhibition program of The Fabric Workshop and Museum is supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, LLWW Foundation, AG Foundation, Arcadia Foundation, The Philadelphia Cultural Fund, Independence Foundation, The Claneil Foundation, The Miller-Plummer Foundation, Samuel S. Fels Fund, The Barra Foundation, and the Board of Directors and members of The Fabric Workshop and Museum.
For more information, please contact Emily Goldsleger at 215-568-1111.
For general information, call 215-568-1111.
The Fabric Workshop and Museum
1315 Cherry Street
5th and 6th Floors
Philadelphia, PA 19107-2026