The Material Workshop and Museum (FWM) is happy to current Gentle/Cowl, a significant exhibition spanning three galleries that will likely be on view from now by way of August 17, 2025. Gentle/Cowl surveys the numerous stunning methods artists have used cloth and screenprinting to create objects that relate to the physique. Specializing in the connection between textiles, vogue, and structure, the exhibition contains new and rarely-shown works from The Material Workshop and Museum’s assortment—every created by Artists-in-Residence in collaboration with FWM’s Studio workforce.
Based in 1977, FWM has devoted practically 5 a long time to serving to artists experiment, usually introducing them to textiles and the method of silkscreen on cloth. This inventive journey has traditionally been identified to alter the course of an artist’s observe by emphasizing new supplies and strategies.
Gentle/Cowl attracts inspiration from among the Workshop’s earliest residencies within the late Nineteen Seventies and early Eighties. Throughout its first decade, celebrated artists corresponding to Richard Tuttle, Lynda Benglis, Roy Lichtenstein, Vito Acconci, Louise Nevelson, and lots of others benefited from intensive three-week alternatives to discover the probabilities of screenprinting. Artists-in-Residence have created wearable objects from on a regular basis workwear to costumes, fits, attire, and pants. Whereas their works primarily targeted on the physique, these artists additionally expanded past clothes to design upholstery, bedding, umbrellas, furnishings, room dividers, large-scale installations, and shelters.
Seven artists had been invited to work in residence with the FWM Studio to develop new works for this exhibition: Mildred Beltré Martinez (b. 1969), Julia Chiang (b. 1978), Brendan Fernandes (b. 1979), John Killacky (b. 1952), Aimee Koran (b. 1982), Borna Sammak (b. 1986), and Armando Veve (b. 1988). Milan-based artist Jenny Walton (b. 1990) was additionally commissioned to contribute new works in dialog with FWM’s assortment. This new cohort has created new clothes, yardage, furnishings, shelters, and extra. True to the Workshop’s historical past, the residencies have opened pathways for these artists’ concepts, introducing new supplies and types to their ever-evolving practices.
DJ Hellerman, FWM’s former Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, who conceived and co-curated the exhibition with Katy Donoghue, Editor-in-Chief at Whitewall Journal, mentioned “This deep dive into FWM’s assortment has been an awesome journey and has allowed us to point out the tangible and expansive methods the Workshop has delivered on its mission and ethos from 1977 by way of right now. Katy and I got down to reply the query, ‘What occurs when artists convey imaginative pondering to vogue, clothes, and objects that relate to the physique in house?’ The outcomes are wildly experimental. I don’t count on audiences may have skilled a textile present like this earlier than.”
Guests will encounter wearables corresponding to shirts, boxers, capes, uniforms, swimwear, and jumpsuits displayed on concrete-coated armatures that jut into house and crisscross the gallery. The curators’ dynamic show seeks to create the chance for viewers to expertise clothes within the spherical whereas making an attempt to keep away from the usage of conventional mannequins, plinths, or pedestals.
“Efficiency actually performs a task in how we perceive works that suggest activation by the physique,” mentioned co-curator Katy Donoghue. “Past costumes, these artists are exploring the efficiency of on a regular basis life. We needed to ask ourselves, ‘How can we convey efficiency when the physique is eliminated?’ We envisioned a deconstructed division retailer organized in a means that leads your eye across the dimensions of a chunk. We hope it sparks curiosity and dialog.”
