The Fabric Workshop and Museum presents
Henry Taylor: Nothing Change, Nothing Strange
Now Extended Through October 22, 2023
Philadelphia, PA, February 8, 2023 (Updated May 2, 2023)— The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) is pleased to announce the extension of Henry Taylor: Nothing Change, Nothing Strange through October 22, 2023. The result of an 18-month residency, the exhibition features an immersive sculptural environment that Taylor created through his continued exploration of painting and sculpture alongside his first experimentation with textiles.
Nothing Change, Nothing Strange exemplifies many of the themes that run through Taylor’s practice and investigates the boundaries that have historically divided painting and sculpture. During his residency, Taylor collaborated with the FWM studio team to assemble materials sourced from the Recycled Artists in Residency program (RAIR)—a non-profit organization focusing on the intersection of art, industry, and waste. Dissecting, merging, and mending these recycled materials has enabled Taylor to forge a previously uncharted avenue in his ever-expanding artistic process. In Nothing Change, Nothing Strange, Taylor considers the signifying potential of color and pattern, the complexity and parameters of space, and the historical persistence of oppression—illustrated by the exhibition’s very title.
“Henry has wholeheartedly embraced The Fabric Workshop’s ethos of collaboration and experimentation,” says DJ Hellerman, FWM’s Chief Curator & Director of Curatorial Affairs. “His incredible energy and willingness to open his process has resulted in an exhibition unlike any other in the history of his career as it digs deep into Henry’s thinking process and relationship with the politics embedded in material culture.”
During Taylor’s residency, FWM’s studio team custom-built an enormous loom for the artist to weave found objects. Using warp and weft—the two elemental components of weaving that allow thread to become fabric—as both literal and conceptual devices, Taylor examines how people and materials are held together, separated, and categorized both socially and systematically. The loom, displayed in the process of creating a black-on-black tartan cloth—a pattern central to Taylor’s concept—opens the exhibition and sets the stage for his installation.
Unstretched, 30-foot billowing works draped throughout the exhibition space mark Taylor’s first foray into painting of this scale—a radical and innovative use of canvas akin to the treatment of sails, flags, and scenic backdrops. The totemic sculptures created from compressed blocks of industrial refuse such as paint buckets, vinyl home siding, and black plastic planters carry distinct material identities and narratives as they soar into the rafters above the audience. Throughout the installation, visitors encounter the artist’s deft manipulation and investigation of eclectic materials, a voracious sourcing of diverse subjects typical of Taylor’s work. The exhibition opened on March 2, 2023 and will now run until October 22, 2023.
Taylor was recently the subject of a major retrospective, Henry Taylor: B Side, which was on view until April 30, 2023 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. The exhibition will travel to The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York later this year.
Organizing Credits
Nothing Change, Nothing Strange is organized by Chief Curator & Director of Curatorial Affairs DJ Hellerman, and Senior Project Coordinator Abby Lutz in collaboration with the artist and the FWM Studio team. The project was initiated by Karen Patterson, FWM’s former Director of Exhibitions.
About Henry Taylor
Born in 1958 in Ventura, CA, Henry Taylor was initially exposed to the medium of painting through his father, who was a commercial painter at a naval air station. In junior high school, Taylor vigorously absorbed the major tenets of art historical discourse spanning the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries. Taylor later studied journalism, anthropology, and set design at Oxnard College where he made the acquaintance of James Jarvaise, the Head of the Department of Fine and Performing Arts. Jarvaise was instrumental in instilling the young painter with a sense of vocational efficacy that helped Taylor focus his efforts entirely on his artistic practice. Taylor’s formal training came in the 1990s, when he studied at The California Institute of the Arts while also working as a psychiatric technician at Camarillo State Mental Hospital.
Taylor has been the subject of numerous exhibitions in the United States and internationally, including solo exhibitions at MoMA PS1, New York (2012) and The Studio Museum in Harlem (2007). His work was also presented at the Whitney Biennial (2017) and the 58th Venice Biennale (2019). Taylor’s works are held in the collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, among others. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Related Events
Reception
Opening Celebration
Wednesday, March 1, 2023
6:00–8:00 pm
Be among the first to experience Henry Taylor: Nothing Change, Nothing Strange, the culmination of the artist’s residency. Light refreshments served
FREE | advance registration encouraged
Community Event + Workshop
International Denim Day: Jeans Mending Drop-in Workshop
Wednesday, April 26, 2023
12:00–6:00 pm
Originating from Italy in 1999 and occurring in tandem with Sexual Assault Awareness Month, International Denim Day is all about spreading awareness around sexual violence issues, supporting survivors, and educating ourselves and others. Join FWM and Philadelphia Center Against Sexual Violence (WOAR) for this drop-in workshop focused on healing and mending. Bring a denim item to mend with an iron-on patch to decorate with screenprinting and woodblock printing. From 5–6 pm, join a conversation around the healing process for survivors, led by Masters of Public Health at WOAR. Learn more about Denim Day at denimdayinfo.org
Suggested donation of $5.
Proceeds from this event will go to Philadelphia Center Against Sexual Violence (WOAR).
All Ages Workshop
First Friday: Tartan Rag Rugs
Friday, May 5, 2023
4:00–7:00 pm
Throughout history, woven patterns have served as an expression of identity, tribe, or social bond. FWM Artist-in-Residence Henry Taylor also views them as a metaphor for the patterns within society that both unify and divide us. Join this all-ages workshop to express an identity or sense of belonging by creating your own tartan rag rug using strips of fabric and material scraps.
$10 Public | $5 FWM members | $5 kids ages 4–15 | FREE for kids under 4
Workshop
Mending Circle
Friday, May 12, 2023
5:00–7:00 pm
Bring in your stained or worn clothing and learn a variety of mending skills to reimagine and prolong the life of your garments. Participants will leave with clothing transformed by sewing, embroidery, and screenprinting techniques!
$10 Public | $5 FWM members
Proceeds from this event will go to Broad Street Ministries.
Workshop
Making Art with Accumulated Materials
Saturday, May 27, 2023
2:30–4:00 pm
Trash or treasure? During his visits to Philadelphia, Henry Taylor found inspiration at a construction and demolition waste management site and was able to source many materials through a partnership with RAIR (Recycled Artist in Residency). Following Henry’s example, join us to glean materials and inspiration from FWM’s own recycled materials archive to create assemblages and found object sculptures. Learn more about RAIR at rairphilly.org.
$10 Public | $5 FWM members + students with ID
All Ages Workshop
First Friday: Plexiglass Portraits
Friday, June 2, 2023
5:00–7:00 pm
Plexiglass is a material that has been used to protect and partition; the bodies it separates are visible to one another. Exploring themes of identity, visibility, connection, and division, join us to create drawings on plexiglass with ink, then make a monoprint of the results to take home.
$10 Public | $5 FWM members + students with ID
Weekly Family Workshop
Parkway Pals
Wednesdays from June 12–August 18
Sister Cities Park, 210 N. 18th St., Philadelphia, PA 19103
How can we see art in who we are, where we are, and what we already have? Inspired by Henry Taylor: Nothing Change, Nothing Strange, explore the resources within yourself and within your own city through printing, painting, assemblage, collage, map making, and mending with educators from FWM. We’ll have a new project each week so come back again and again!
Free | Drop-ins welcome
Download the Press Release PDF