There is a saying: Don’t air your dirty laundry in public. Upending this maxim is the first solo exhibition from the Philadelphia-based artist Jonathan Lyndon Chase. The outcome of their 2019 residency at the Fabric Museum and Workshop, “Big Wash” is a sculptural installation that’s a laundromat at heart. Circling the washing machines or strung up along clotheslines are hand-painted portraits on fabric—homages to the queer Black community—and soft sculptures of sinks and detergent. “Now, more than ever, we’re so separated from each other, so I was thinking of different ways that we could connect with each other,” Chase told ARTNews last year, explaining one of the show’s more playful aspects, the boxers exchange program: each undergarment is made from Chase’s lovingly screen-printed fabrics, and then delivered to friends with a spray of baby’s breath. Here, your intimates are an opportunity for connection and fellow feeling, rather than a blush. —C.J.F.

Jonathan Lyndon Chase: Big Wash
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Fabric Workshop and Museum / Philadelphia / Art
Fabric Workshop and Museum / Philadelphia / Art
Jonathan Lyndon Chase (in collaboration with the Fabric Museum and Workshop, Philadelphia), “Big Wash,” 2020. Photo: Carlos Avendaño.
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