Press Release

FWM Announces Fall 2020 Reopening

August 12, 2020

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THE FABRIC WORKSHOP AND MUSEUM ANNOUNCES
SOFT REOPENING ON SEPTEMBER 10, 2020
WITH TIMED TICKETING OPEN FOR SAMARA GOLDEN: UPSTAIRS AT STEVE’S
AND LORNA SIMPSON: SPILLING, BREAKING WAVES

Reserve FWM Tickets Online

Philadelphia, PA, August 12, 2020 — The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) announced the soft reopening of their galleries, beginning on September 10, 2020. In adherence with the State of Pennsylvania and City of Philadelphia safety guidelines, FWM will operate at 25% capacity and implement proactive health and safety measures, including timed ticketing options, enhanced sanitation, and social distancing measures.

FWM’s revised hours of operation are Tuesday through Friday from 12pm to 6pm, Saturday and Sunday from 12pm to 5pm. Fridays will be reserved for FWM members only. Museum tickets are available on the FWM website at fabricworkshopandmuseum.org, with a series of time slots available each day. Admission to FWM remains free to the general public—with a suggested donation of $5 per person—but online registration is required for all visitors.

Ticket availability will be dependent upon current occupancy limits, as determined by the current guidelines in Philadelphia’s reopening plan for indoor cultural spaces. After reserving online tickets, visitors will be sent up-to-date information outlining health and safety measures.

FWM’s eighth-floor gallery features the exhibition Samara Golden: Upstairs at Steve’s, on view from September 10, 2020 through January 31, 2021. The exhibition will premiere a new installation created during Golden’s 2019-2020 residency at FWM. The elaborate installation was only partially completed when Philadelphia’s shelter-in-place orders were enforced in March. With Golden consulting remotely, the FWM Studio completed the installation after a five-month hiatus, infusing the post-disaster seaside scene with layered meanings.

At once infinite and ephemeral, Golden’s immersive structures have been described as psychological architecture for the way they thoughtfully embed layers of consciousness within socio-economic stratification. Upstairs at Steve’s depicts a complete upending of an outdoor tableau. The exhibition reveals a mysterious confluence of biography, history, psychology, and nature. Familiar household objects are strewn across the dunes, as if deposited from a natural disaster, with an accompanying soundscape adding another atmospheric layer.

Visitors will also still have an opportunity to view Lorna Simpson: Spilling, Breaking Waves, extended through October 11, 2020. The exhibition focuses on an important turn in the artist’s trajectory: the absence of the figure, especially in relation to landscape. The centerpiece of the exhibition, Standing in the Water, is a room-sized multimedia installation made in collaboration with the FWM Studio in 1994, comprising video, sound, and a silkscreen printed industrial felt floor sculpture. Additional works on loan from Simpson’s studio—The Rock (1995), The Car (1995), The Fire Escape (1995), and The Park (1995)—help to contextualize this pivotal move, illustrating how material choice contributed to a deep sense of interiority and introspection in the artist’s work.

FWM Health and Safety Measures

Contactless Ticketing
Advance tickets to FWM are available online. Timed tickets allow for a limited number of guests per hour. This will minimize person-to-person contact and allow the museum to operate at reduced capacity in accordance with city and state protocols.

Mandatory Masks
In the interest of everyone’s safety, face coverings will be required for all staff and visitors ages 2+ as they enter and navigate the building. Children under the age of 2 must either be carried or placed in a stroller.

Monodirectional Traffic Flow
FWM’s reception area and gallery spaces are designed to support a monodirectional traffic flow through the museum in order to minimize contact. Visitors will use the back elevator to travel up to the eighth-floor gallery, descending to the second-floor gallery, ground floor, museum shop, and exit by way of the front elevator and/or stairs. Our Visitor Services team will be available to help guide visitors throughout the building.

Social Distancing
Please maintain proper social distancing, keeping at least 6 feet between yourself, FWM staff, and other visitors who are not in your party while enjoying the exhibitions. Visitors are asked to follow spacing markers in the reception area and other selected areas. Plexiglass barriers have also been installed in areas where transactions occur.

Practice Hand Cleanliness
Hand sanitizer stations are installed throughout FWM to encourage positive public hygiene. High-traffic areas undergo frequent sanitizing during open hours.

Practice Public Health Etiquette
Because water fountains are unavailable for hygiene reasons, visitors are welcome to bring their own bottled water, but no other food or drink is permitted in the museum. Also, please practice public health etiquette by coughing or sneezing into your elbow rather than your hands.

Travel Light
Visitors will be asked to keep their belongings with them (coats, bags, purses) during their time at FWM. Please refrain from bringing large bags or backpacks into the museum.

We kindly ask that all visitors observe the above measures and precautions during their visit. Updates will be implemented (i.e. increased gallery capacity, return of group visits, etc.) as local guidelines allow.

About Samara Golden
Samara Golden (b. 1973, Ann Arbor, MI) graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1995 and received her MFA from Columbia University in 2009. Golden has had solo exhibitions at MoMA PS1, New York; YBCA, San Francisco; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; and CANADA, New York. Her work was included in the 2014 Hammer Biennial, and Room to Live at MOCA Los Angeles. Her recent project, The Meat Grinder’s Iron Clothes, was featured in the 2017 Whitney Biennial. Golden’s work is in the permanent collection of The Whitney Museum, New York; LACMA, and MOCA Los Angeles; The Zabludowicz Collection, London; and Yuz Museum, Shanghai. The artist lives in Los Angeles.

About Lorna Simpson
Lorna Simpson (b. 1960, Brooklyn, NY) received her BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts, New York, and her MFA from the University of California, San Diego. Simpson’s works have been exhibited at and are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Haus der Kunst; Munich; and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, amongst others. Notable international exhibitions include the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Documenta XI in Kassel, Germany; and the 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy. Lorna Simpson is represented by Hauser & Wirth.

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Press Contact

David Simantov, Blue Medium, Inc.
Tel: +1-212-675-1800
david@bluemedium.com

Philadelphia-based inquiries:
Erin Sweeny, FWM Communications
Tel: 215-561-8888 x224
erin@fabricworkshopandmuseum.org


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Partners & Funding

Support for Samara Golden: Upstairs at Steve’s is provided by The Coby Foundation, Ltd., The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, Maja Paumgarten and John Parker, Canada, and Budmen Industries.

Major support of FWM is provided by the Marion Boulton “Kippy” Stroud Foundation. FWM receives state art funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Additional support is provided by The Philadelphia Cultural Fund, Agnes Gund, and the Board of Directors and Members of The Fabric Workshop and Museum.


About the Fabric Workshop and Museum

Founded in 1977, FWM both makes and presents, encouraging artists to experiment with new materials and new media in a veritable living laboratory. Through its renowned Artist-in-Residence (AIR) Program, FWM collaborates with artists to expand their practices, while documenting the course of artistic production from inspiration to realization. FWM presents large scale exhibitions, installations, and performative work, utilizing innovative fiber and other media. Today, FWM is the only US institution devoted to creating work in textile and new media in collaboration with some of the most significant artists of our time.