The Fabric Workshop and MuseumCenter City

You Stretched Diagonally Across It: Contemporary Tapestry

Now showing16 July 2026 – 3 January 2027Free

Works by around two dozen international artists treat tapestry as a conceptual space, weighing authenticity, slow labour against technological speed, and how to depict vastness.

Exhibition website

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On now All of November 2026

A rodent sits in the pose of Rodin's Thinker, its pink tail curled into an S, and above it the weave darkens and is broken by deliberate holes. The Philly Occasional's critic read them as "cracks, stars, or nibblings." It is by Alicja Kowalska, who weaves her son Tomasz Kowalski's pictures.

The show came from Dallas Contemporary and now fills FWM's second and eighth floors with 25 artists. You walk past pine needles dyed with cochineal, a flowchart woven out of acrylic paint, and Josh Faught's shaggy columns of woven words. Philadelphia adds Qualeasha Wood's large new commission and a tapestry by David Hartt. Sarah Rosalena's Milky Way is made of pine needles, and it's still the clearest view of the galaxy you'll get in Center City.

The critic's one objection was Ed Ruscha's 23-foot Industrial Strength Sleep, which she called "icing without the cake." Entry is free, with a suggested $10 donation.

Editor's pick

A rodent sits in the pose of Rodin's Thinker, under a woven sky broken by deliberate holes. Twenty-five artists treat tapestry as an idea, from cochineal-dyed pine needles mapping the Milky Way to Ed Ruscha's 23-foot Industrial Strength Sleep.

Look for

Untitled (Thinker), Kowalska and Kowalski
Look for the brooding rodent with a swirling pink tail, under a darkening sky punctured by holes woven in on purpose.
Sarah Rosalena's Spiral Pine Red
Cochineal-red pine needles woven into black cotton, their stiff fringe sticking out both sides, in a pattern taken from Hubble images of the Milky Way's spiral arms.
Josh Faught's two columns of words
Two tall, shaggy hemp stacks of woven words; Bereaved on a Budget lists materials used in the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.
Analia Saban's woven flowchart
A flowchart for training AI to paint drapery, woven from acrylic paint and linen, with the bottom edge rippling like the drapery it describes.
Ed Ruscha's Industrial Strength Sleep
A 9-by-23-foot grey wool tapestry of clouds and text, made over three years in an FWM residency from a painting half its size.