Mineral Spirits
Anne Chu and
Matthew Monahan

September 15 - December 5, 2010
Opening Reception:
Wednesday, September 15, 6-8pm

Anne Chu and Matthew Monahan are known for uniquely individual bodies of work that mine forms ranging from antiquity to Buddhism and classicism to modernism, as well as the history of sculpture and drawing. By placing these two artists' works side by side, this two-person exhibition of sculpture and drawing constructs a place to explore their distinctive take on the figure. Using combinative methods—for example, figures are often broken down and reassembled—Chu's and Monahan's sculptures look at once ancient and utterly contemporary. Though their work shares various sensibilities, the included sculptures and drawings are selected to exemplify the very distinct ways these two artists see and make the figure. Working with a range of materials, from aluminum to foam to paper, each addresses the figure as a fertile mode within which to explore abstraction, drawing, and craft.


Curator Jenelle Porter in conversation with artists Anne Chu and Matthew Monahan

Anne Chu (b. 1959, New York City, lives Queens, New York) has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina; Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, California; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; and Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Ohio. Her work was included in The Puppet Show, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia and the 54th Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh; Sculptors Drawing, Aspen Art Museum, Colorado; and Shuffling the Deck: The Collection Reconsidered, Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey.

In 2001 Chu was the recipient of the Anonymous Was a Woman and Penny McCall Foundation awards. She was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2010. She received a BFA from Philadelphia College of Art and an MFA from Columbia University.

images: Aaron Igler/Greenhouse Media

Matthew Monahan (b. 1972, Eureka, California, lives Los Angeles) received a BFA from Cooper Union School of Art. He studied at Gerrit Rietveld Academy, and De Ateliers, Amsterdam, and in Japan at the Kitakyushu Center for Contemporary Art. His work was the subject of a solo show at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. He has been included in Sonsbeek Sculpture Exhibition, Arnhem; Life on Mars: 55th Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh; Unmonumental, New Museum, New York; Eden's Edge: Fifteen LA Artists, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and the 2006 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum, New York.

Mineral Spirits: Anne Chu and Matthew Monahan is organized by Curator Jenelle Porter, and is accompanied by a fully-illustrated brochure.

ICA acknowledges the generous sponsorship of Barbara B. & Theodore R. Aronson for the exhibition publication. We are grateful for support from Toby Devan Lewis; the Nancy E. and Leonard M. Amoroso Exhibition Endowment Fund; the Dorothy H. and Martin N. Bandier Endowment Fund; the Wendy Fisher Fund; and the Pamela Spiegel Sanders C'78 Exhibition Endowment Fund established by the Emily & Jerry Spiegel Family Foundation, Inc. Additional funding has been provided by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; The Dietrich Foundation, Inc.; the Overseers Board for the Institute of Contemporary Art; friends and members of ICA; and the University of Pennsylvania.


Related Public Programs

Exhibition Walkthrough (ICA Members Only)
Whenever Wednesday, September 15, 5PM
With artist Anne Chu and ICA curator Jenelle Porter

Why the Figure?
Whenever Wednesday, October 13, 6:30PM
ICA Curator Jenelle Porter lectures on the figure in modern and contemporary art, followed by Penn History of Art Chair Holly Pittman, who will take us farther back in time.


Images, top to bottom: Anne Chu, Epipsychidion, 2008, anondized aluminum and rope, 56 x 18 x 20 inches overall. Courtesy of 303 Gallery, New York. Anne Chu, Figurine, 2008, ceramic and oil paint, 84 x 15 x 14 inches.
Courtesy of 303 Gallery, New York. Matthew Monahan, Untitled, 2007, charcoal on paper on canvas with wood, 42 x 42 x 42 inches. From the collection of Alison and Alan Schwartz. Matthew Monahan, Roots for Ryan, 2008, glass, drywall, pigment, fabric strap, and wax, 96 x 24 x 24 inches. Private collector.


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