PAFA Presents Traction Company Exhibition

Showcasing work and workspace of artist collective comprised of PAFA alumni & faculty

July 2 – October 11, 2015

Press Preview: Wednesday, July 1, 11 a.m.

PHILADELPHIA (June 8, 2015) — The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) presents Traction Company, an exhibition that takes a micro-to-macro look at a groundbreaking group of young PAFA alumni, on view in PAFA’s Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building, 128 N. Broad Street, Philadelphia.

Traction Company was founded by, and is composed entirely of, PAFA graduates. The collective has been based since 2007 in an 8,000-square-foot former trolley manufacturing warehouse in West Philadelphia, where the 12 current members work on both collaborative projects and individual large-scale sculptural pieces.

Traction Company toys with the viewer’s sense of scale in playful and dramatic ways, by showcasing a gigantic truss the collective is fabricating for their building along with an impossibly small and detailed reproduction of their entire workshop.

The exhibition includes subTRACTION, the group’s first collaborative project that painstakingly recreates their enormous workspace by hand in amazingly precise 1:6 scale miniature. But this is no dollhouse: The contents of subTRACTION include impossibly tiny power tools, acetylene torches, safety goggles, coffee cups, and work tables covered with wood scraps, clamps and calipers.

“Each component of subTRACTION … is handmade to Traction Company’s characteristic level of perfection,” notes Jodi Throckmorton, Curator of Contemporary Art at PAFA. “This shared respect for craft and tradition unites 12 artists whose practices are otherwise disparate.”

Another key element of the Traction Company exhibition is the Truss project, an homage to the eight 19th-century trusses that support the historic Traction warehouse. The group is building a to-scale duplicate truss, using wood sourced from a now-demolished Philadelphia building from the same era and employing construction methods from the period.

“The components of the truss work together to support the load of the building,” Throckmorton states, “an apt metaphor for the workings of a collective and its sustainability

Traction Company will meet at PAFA on Fridays for the run of the exhibition, as they do at their warehouse workspace, to hold their weekly meetings and do discuss their ongoing building maintenance projects. Individual work by all of the Traction Company’s current members also will be on view.

The Traction Company’s workspace produced in mind-blowing miniature, alongside the massive truss that will soon become part of the actual building, together provide a surprising and unique understanding of the space from both a figurative and a literal perspective.

“The connection that the artists feel for this historic structure and their singular devotion to its survival are embedded in the objects they create,” Throckmorton says. “Yet it’s their collective efforts and spirit of artistic camaraderie and friendship that give the building new life.”

Traction Company is supported by the Alter Family Foundation, the Edna W. Andrade Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation, Barbara B. and Theodore R. Aronson, Peter Bullough, Lis and Michael Kalogris, Anne E. McCollum, and an anonymous donor.

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About PAFA:

Founded in 1805, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is America's first school of fine arts and museum. A recipient of the 2005 National Medal of Arts, PAFA is a recognized leader in fine arts education with world-class permanent collection of American art that continues to grow.

About Traction Company:

Through sharing tools and facilities necessary for making artwork, Traction Company promotes the exchange of the resources and knowledge of its members. This collective effort creates a wide variety of opportunities through a combined network. Founded in May 2007, Traction Company is currently a hub for the diverse work of its members, representing a wide scope of form, expression, and technique.