Vermelha (Red) Chair. Designed by Fernando Campana and Humberto Campana, 1993. Epoxy powder-coated steel; aluminum; cotton-covered acrylic cord and metalized polyester mixed with polyamide. Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Photo: Aaron Igler

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The Fabric Workshop and Museum presents Simply Red, on view through April 28, 2007. The exhibition explores the expressive effects a single design element—color—can have in contemporary art and design. Simply Red draws from the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, and is curated by Donna Corbin, Associate Curator, PMA, in consultation with Marion Boulton Stroud, Founding/Artistic Director, FWM, and Kathy Hiesinger, Curator, PMA.
Red is a color with strong and varied cultural associations and design implications. In Simply Red, the work on view shares a color, but otherwise represents a full spectrum of artistic and design choices. It includes work by key contemporary artists and designers such as Dale Chihuly, Joe Colombo, Renée Green, Anish Kapoor, Glenn Ligon, Donald Lipski, Jorge Pardo, Gaetano Pesce, Ettore Sottsass, Robert Venturi, and Yukinori Yanagi. Red is typically very visually potent, however, amassing so many red objects in one space can, after a while, cause the color to recede from the eye and let other design elements, which it would normally overshadow, emerge. Simply Red, which takes place in conjunction with DesignPhiladelphia, an annual Philadelphia design festival, allows the viewer to focus on these visual differences and see more than just red. (courtesy www.Artdaily.org)