It's 3 p.m. on a Friday and your friends are planning a trip to the wonderfully trashy Atlantic City (A.C. to everyone who is anyone). Your interests are gambling and using your fake I.D. so this trip has a lot of potential, but the idea of riding through South Jerz drunk on a NJ Transit train just isn't your idea of a sexy party. If you're like any grandma in the tri-state area and you're only in for a game of craps, then the new Matthew Ritchie exhibit at the Fabric Workshop and Museum might actually be a better choice. "Craps?! Fabric?!," you ask? Affirmative.
The opening room of Ritchie's latest work, entitled "Proposition Player," simply contains a craps table, and visitors are encouraged to participate in Ritchie's scientific rendition of the game. Based on what the player rolls, images are projected onto the white walls surrounding the table, making the visitor the real creator. Upstairs, however, is a very different scene.
Representations of the suits of a deck of cards is continuous throughout, signifying chance and randomness in everyday life -- though that is really open to interpretation (damn you, abstract art). The rest of the pieces in this room work off of this same theme, but each is very unique. On one wall hangs a giant hologram illuminated by fluorescent light and on another hangs a large silk screen print of a very similar pattern.
But one of the most interesting parts of the exhibit is a colorful puzzle-like image that covers the floor, and, get this...you're allowed to walk on it! In fact, it's encouraged. You could even do a little dance on it ... they don't mind.
Lauren Rosenblum, a Gallery Guide at the Fabric Workshop, explains that a main focus of Ritchie and other artists affiliated with the Workshop is the "constant redefinition of media." Even though only a handful of the pieces look like they would have been made in the Workshop (which is literally its own workshop), almost everything is created on the spot. So whether you come for the really unusual art or for the game of dice, everyone walks out having read the same message on the wall: "You may already be a winner," and that self-esteem booster should be enough to get all you underachievers to this exhibit.
