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Cynthia Hopkins, in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Must Don’t Whip ‘Um Memorial Quilt (detail, one side), 2015. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño. Cynthia Hopkins, in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Must Don’t Whip ‘Um Memorial Quilt (one side), 2015. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño. Cynthia Hopkins, in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Memorabilia (installation view), 2015. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño. Cynthia Hopkins, in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. This Clement World Memorial Quilt (one side), 2015. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño. Cynthia Hopkins, in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. The Truth: A Tragedy Memorial Quilt (one side), 2015. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño. Cynthia Hopkins, in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. The Success of Failure (or, The Failure of Success) Memorial Quilt (one side), 2015. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño. Cynthia Hopkins, in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Accidental Nostalgia Memorial Quilt (one side), 2015. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño. Cynthia Hopkins, The Success of Failure (or, The Failure of Success). Photo Credit: Paula Court.
Cynthia Hopkins, in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Must Don’t Whip ‘Um Memorial Quilt (detail, one side), 2015. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño.
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Cynthia Hopkins, in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Must Don’t Whip ‘Um Memorial Quilt (one side), 2015. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño.
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Cynthia Hopkins, in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Memorabilia (installation view), 2015. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño.
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Cynthia Hopkins, in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. This Clement World Memorial Quilt (one side), 2015. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño.
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Cynthia Hopkins, in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. The Truth: A Tragedy Memorial Quilt (one side), 2015. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño.
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Cynthia Hopkins, in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. The Success of Failure (or, The Failure of Success) Memorial Quilt (one side), 2015. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño.
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Cynthia Hopkins, in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Accidental Nostalgia Memorial Quilt (one side), 2015. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño.
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Cynthia Hopkins, The Success of Failure (or, The Failure of Success). Photo Credit: Paula Court.
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Cynthia Hopkins:

Memorabilia

September 12, 2015–EXTENDED through January 3, 2016

Opening Reception:

Public Reception: Friday, October 2, 2015 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm
Featuring Requiem for Five Deceased Musical Performance Works,
a Members-only Performance of a Musical Composition by Cynthia Hopkins at 5:30 pm

 
Press Release                  Press Images
 
 

Past Events:
Saturday, November 7, 2015 from 1:00–3:00 pm
Family Program Memory Pillows: Print and Stitch Your Memories!

Wednesday, October 7, 2015 at 6:00 pm:
The Review Panel Philadelphia, hosted by The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA)  in association with artcritical.com's David Cohen., Wednesday, October 7, 2015 at 6:00 pm., at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 118 North Broad Street, Philadelphia. David Cohen will be joined by guest panelists Mark Blavat, Jennifer Samet and A.M. Weaver.



The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) presents Memorabilia, an exhibition of new work by multi-instrumentalist, composer, and theater artist Cynthia Hopkins (Brooklyn, NY) that memorializes several of the artist’s large-scale, music theater performances. In Memorabilia, the materials collected from the detritus of Hopkins’ performance pieces—such as hundreds of pages of hand-written notes the artist scribbled during the process of devising songs, stories, characters, and costumes, as well as fragments of her costumes and props—are “woven” into  five double-sided large-scale “quilts” made in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum. Each piece allows Hopkins to communicate a story about a specific performance piece in fragmented, folkloric form through arranged materials, embroidered lyrics, and hand-drawn diagrams. Hopkins’ new sound piece will permeate the installation to create a cohesive narrative for the new works on display.
 
This exhibit, Memorabilia, will serve the purpose memorials are intended to serve: to celebrate, and put to rest, what is no longer living (so that those mourning the loss of the person or thing can move on with their lives) while simultaneously enriching the present with a remembrance of things past (so that those who may not be familiar with the thing memorialized may potentially learn from it, or be curious about it, or shed a tear for its loss). — Cynthia Hopkins
 
Cynthia Hopkins: Memorabilia is part of FWM’s ongoing series, Convergence: Declarations of Independence, which presents to the Philadelphia community the energy and creativity of artists working outside traditional centers of the art world.
 
Funding for this exhibition is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Arcadia Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the Board of Directors and Members of The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM).


Bio

Cynthia Hopkins (Brooklyn, NY) is an internationally acclaimed musical performance artist. Her multi-media performance works incorporate music, text, video, and theatrical design to create imaginative stories interweaving truth with outlandish fiction. She is best known for “The Accidental Trilogy,” a series of full-length pieces consisting of Accidental Nostalgia, which premiered in 2004 (2005 Bessie Award for Creation); Must Don’t Whip ‘Um in 2007 (2007 Bessie Award for Design); and The Success of Failure (or, The Failure of Success), which premiered in 2009 at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. In addition to her theater work, Hopkins was a founding member of the band Gloria Deluxe, which recorded eight full-length albums while active from 1999 to 2009. The band developed an enthusiastic following for its blend of folk, rock, blues and country music, opening for legendary musicians David Byrne and Patti Smith. In addition to the many Bessie Awards won for “The Accidental Trilogy,” she is the recipient of a 2001 Obie Award, the 2007 Alpert Award in Theater, a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 2015 Doris Duke Artist Award. Hopkins’ work has been presented at venues across the world, including MASS MoCA; On the Boards, Seattle; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Philadelphia Performing Arts Festival; the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; St. Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn; and Les Subsistances, Lyon, France.