What’s A Public For? Exhibition I

What's A Public For? Exhibition I (2024 MFA Thesis Show) is on view March 21 - March 30, 2024. The opening for What's A Public For? II is on April 4, 2024. 

Organized by DJ Hellerman, chief curator, The Fabric Workshop and Museum

Featuring work by jordana perrie bernstein, Rain Jacobson, Di Tian, Victoria Antoinette Megens, Jeiming Tsai, Gabe Seamon, Catching on Thieves, Lin Li, Erin Morris

What’s A Public For?
Making art and exhibiting art are two aspects of the vast contemporary art ecosystem. Each has a distinct temporality, methodology, philosophy, and purpose. Sometimes art making and exhibition making are synchronized; sometimes they’re not. Each artist in this show has been asked to present work that best represents what they are currently thinking about.

The practice of making, when characterized by iterative thinking and experimentation, creates specific types of embodied knowledge. These periods of intense growth are amplified by increased pressure and focus, and are often followed by instability – a tentative footing – and a necessary awkwardness that accompanies the pursuit of what’s unfamiliar and unknown. This process almost always happens privately, while exhibiting new work happens publicly. Showing art allows an artist to see the work working, to test if it holds up, and to further understand its language and modes of articulation.

What’s A Public For? is a choreographed, generative, and communal activity designed to bring the acts of making and showing closer together. The exhibition title is intended to encourage a deeper thinking about each artist’s disposition. In addition to focusing on individual artworks, the viewer is invited to pay particular attention to how the artists engage the world around – and within – them to gain a better understanding of their relationship with the public.

If you require any accessibility accommodation, such as live captioning, audio description, or a sign language interpreter, please email news@design.upenn.edu. Please note, we require at least five (5) business days’ notice.