Ramp Project: Judy Pfaff

May 1-August 1, 2004

ICA is pleased to announce the sixth installation in the ICA Ramp Project by internationally renowned artist Judy Pfaff. Once referred to as a "collagist in space", Judy Pfaff is known for installation environments that draw paint, plastic, glass, metal, wood, found objects, fabric, resin, steel-anything that comes to hand- into spiky vortexes of pictorial abstraction. A pioneer of site-specific installation in the 1970's, Pfaff has consistently redefined this art form with works that respond to and incorporate their surroundings. Initially urban in feeling, but increasingly organic, Pfaff's work over the past three decades transmits a generosity of spirit, which the artist considers essential to her practice. Collaboration is a central component of Pfaff's work and students from PennDesign at the University of Pennsylvania will assist her in the installation. Given her impact on current artists, the responsive nature of her process and the recent achievements of her work, ICA eagerly anticipates this new commission by Judy Pfaff.

installation views > click to enlarge

This is not the first time that Judy Pfaff has created a site-specific installation in Philadelphia. For a 1998 feature in Art in America, critic Nancy Princenthal opened with this comment on Pfaff's cirque CIRQUE, at the Philadelphia Convention Center: "Judy Pfaff's biggest and most ambitious work to date." More recently, Pfaff was hailed "at the top of her form" with an installation at Ameringer Yohe that critic Roberta Smith described as: "It surrounds you, yet it seems almost transparent; you can see through it but also see most of it at once, simultaneously taking in modernist I-beams and grids, a bright Chinese pagoda column; the roof line; molding and tin ceilings of a 19th-century American house…" Pfaff has established a reputation for diffuse sculptures that seem to question the boundaries between painting, sculpture and installation. Less concerned than some contemporaries with mass, gravity and truth to materials, she uses every type of material, traditional and untraditional, even employing pieces of wire, plastic tubing and fabric that had been discarded as refuse. Her work presents an opportunity to consider her approach and its influence in light of a successive generation of artists including Polly Apfelbaum, Jessica Stockholder, and Sarah Sze. The exhibition will be accompanied by a brochure publication.

Judy Pfaff (b. 1946, London, England) received her B.F.A. from Washington University and her M.F.A. from Yale University. Her innovative work has brought her wide acclaim from galleries and museums throughout the United States, Europe, and the Far East. Her work can be found in such prestigious collections as the Detroit Institute of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She was recently featured in a solo installation, Neither Here nor There, at Ameringer & Yohe, Fine Art, NYC.

Judy Pfaff Studio

ICA Ramp Project
Since 2000, ICA has commissioned artist installations for its 92' ramp, a transitional space that connects the first and second floor galleries. With its striking architecture and soaring windows overlooking 36th street, the Ramp has been transformed into a dynamic programmed exhibition space, exposing the public to the contemporary art that is central to the ICA's mission.

ICA acknowledges the generous sponsorship of the William Penn Foundation for this project. 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. ICA is also grateful for the in-kind support of Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz. (Information complete as of 4/16/04.)

share this current exhibitions upcoming exhibitions past exhibitions curatorial hot picks