The Fabric Workshop and Museum
Fred Tomaselli
Matthew Ritchie
Yukinori Yanagi
Peter Kogler
Julie Mehretu
Sarah Sze
Shahzia Sikander
Michal Rovner
Trenton Doyle Hancock
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
C.E.B. Reas
Jason Salavon
Mark Bradford
Siebren Versteeg
Abbott Miller
Ellen Lupton
Group show
Group show
Guest-Curated by Abbott Miller and Ellen Lupton
The exhibition Swarm at The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia brings
together works that express swarming as a social effect generated by masses of
objects, images, data, or organisms. The exhibition features new work by Fred
Tomaselli, Matthew Ritchie, Yukinori Yanagi, and Peter Kogler, as well as recent
work by Julie Mehretu, Sarah Sze, Shahzia Sikander, Michal Rovner, Trenton Doyle
Hancock, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, C.E.B. Reas, Jason Salavon, Mark Bradford, Siebren
Versteeg, and the design teams of the Bouroullec brothers and Campana brothers. The
fascination with swarming reflects a contemporary view of nature, politics, and
social life—one that favors unplanned and decentralized modes of organization. Swarm
theory animates contemporary art, science, design, digital media, and social theory.
Swarm connects the social life of bees, birds, crowds, and cities to contemporary
aesthetics, as seen in the fascination of artists and designers with how simple,
discrete units accumulate into complex systems.
Swarm Related Public Events:
Artist’s Talk: Fred Tomaselli
Friday, 3 February 2006, 6 p.m.
Conversation with the Guest Curators
Friday, 3 March 2006, 6 p.m.
Moderated by Abbott Miller and Ellen Lupton
Miller and Lupton will convene a discussion of “swarming" as it reflects
contemporary views of nature, politics, and social life that favor unplanned and
decentralized modes of organization. They will be joined by Deborah Gordon,
Professor of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, author of Ants at Work: How
an Insect Society is Organized and Eugene Thacker, Assistant Professor at the School
of Literature, Culture & Communication, Georgia Institute of Technology, author
of Biomedia and The Global Genome: Biotechnology, Politics and Culture. This program
is partially funded by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council.
Swarm Catalog
96 page, full-color, illustrated catalog with contributions by Marion Boulton
Stroud, Abbott Miller, Ellen Lupton, and William Smith is available through The FWM
Museum Shop.
The Swarm publication is modeled on a field guide, particularly in its rounded edges
and journal-like format. Within its 96 pages, full-color reproductions of the
artworks featured in Swarm alternate with beautifully rendered information graphics.
The visual and tactile qualities of the publication situate swarming as something
both visceral and analytical, futuristic but also ancient and primal. The catalog
includes an introduction by Marion Boulton Stroud, Founder and Artistic Director of
The Fabric Workshop and Museum, as well as an essay by guest curators Abbott Miller
and Ellen Lupton, and contributions by William Smith. Woven into the gallery of
artists’ images are scientific diagrams and visualizations of swarms occurring in
the human and animal worlds—from army ants and honey bees to traffic and suburban
sprawl.
About the Guest Curators
Abbott Miller is a designer, editor, and art director. He is a partner in the New
York office of the international design firm Pentagram, where his clients include
the Guggenheim Museum, Harley-Davidson, The Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna, and
Knoll. He is editor and art director of the visual and performing arts magazine
2wice, and Creative Director of Steuben Glass. He has designed numerous books,
magazines, and exhibitions, and is co-author with Ellen Lupton of Design Writing
Research (1996) and The Bathroom, the Kitchen, and the Aesthetics of Waste (1992).
He teaches design at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore.
Ellen Lupton is a writer, curator, and graphic designer. She is director of the MFA
program in graphic design at MICA in Baltimore. She also is curator of contemporary
design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City, where she has
organized numerous exhibitions—each accompanied by a major publication—including the
National Design Triennial series (2000 and 2003), Skin: Surface, Substance + Design
(2002), Graphic Design in the Mechanical Age (1999), Mixing Messages (1996), and
Mechanical Brides: Women and Machines from Home to Office (1993).
About The Fabric Workshop and Museum
The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia is the only museum of its kind,
offering internationally renowned artists the resources to create new work in
experimental materials. Artists come from all media—including sculpture,
installation, video, painting, ceramics, and architecture—and use FWM’s facilities
and technical expertise to create works of art that they could not create on their
own. Research, construction, and fabrication occur on-site in studios that are open
to the public, providing visitors with the opportunity to see works of art from
conception to completion. FWM’s permanent collections include not only completed
works of art, but also material research, samples, prototypes, and photography and
video of artists making and speaking about their work. Access to the creative
process provides visitors with a point of entry into understanding challenging works
of contemporary art. FWM offers an unparalleled experience to the most significant
artists of our t
ime, students, and the general public.
The programs of The Fabric Workshop and Museum are supported by The Pew Charitable
Trusts, The Judith Rothschild Foundation, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, National
Endowment for the Arts, The Miller-Plummer Foundation, LLWW Foundation, The
Philadelphia Cultural Fund, Institute of Museum and Library Services, The Andy
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Nimoy Foundation, The Pennsylvania
Historic and Museum Commission, Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, Independence
Foundation, The Claneil Foundation, Pennsylvania Humanities Council, The Barra
Foundation, and the Board of Directors and members of The Fabric Workshop and
Museum.
The Fabric Workshop and Museum
1315 Cherry Street, 5th and 6th Floors - Philadelphia