The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) presents The Unseen Evidence of Things Substantiated, an exhibition of new work by Nate Young (Minneapolis, MN) who, through FWM’s Artist-in-Residence Program, continues his exploration of systems and objects that impacts one’s beliefs. Young’s theological concepts, at times rendered through text, diagrams, and architectural elements—such as altars, church pews, and in this exhibition, a pulpit—create unexpected encounters through his use of unique materials. The surface of the eight-foot, fabricated metal pulpit that Young made in collaboration with FWM is designed to create, as Young described, “an effect where the object actually recedes into space, becoming conscious of its own presence.” This effect is achieved through the use of a super-black paint developed for the aerospace industry and used by NASA that is distinctive for its high-light absorption and low outgassing properties, thus producing a perceptual illusion within the installation environment and a shifting awareness of the artwork.
In an immersive video installation, the second work in The Unseen Evidence of Things Substantiated, Young strips away as much visual material as possible to reveal the system of language. This new work, produced during the artist’s residency at FWM, incorporates a preacher’s oration with a magician’s sleight of hand by using a 16th century holographic illusion known as Pepper’s Ghost. As the artist stated, “In a lot of my work, what I am doing is thinking of language as a system. Magic is sort of a system through which we have a contextual understanding of things. Because we agree what language is, we are able to communicate that the context is language.”
Nate Young: The Unseen Evidence of Things Substantiated is part of FWM’s ongoing series, Convergence: Declarations of Independence, which presents to the Philadelphia community the energy and creativity of artists working outside traditional centers of the art world.