Traces of Friday

Art, Tourism, Displacement
September 4 - December 14, 2003


Kim Sooja
A Needle Woman, (Shanghai, Tokyo, New York, New Delhi), 1999-2000, Color DVD installation, approximately 98 x 138 inches, Courtesy of the Artist
The discovery of a footprint in the sand and the prospect of meeting the "savage" made Robinson Crusoe revise his own self-constructed version of civilization. Would the meeting mean civilization's destruction, or would he be capable of incorporating the other -at the risk of being forever changed? Human displacement across borders (physical and cultural), and what it entails in terms of affinity and confrontation is the intriguing thesis of this exhibition. Tourism is taken as a contemporary metaphor of this cross-border exploration, through its most recurring visual icons: the map, the postcard and the souvenir.

The artists in "Traces of Friday" address the central themes of the exhibition: personal maps (Stanley Brouwn, On Kawara, Valerie Tevere, Marti Guixe); the souvenir and the snapshot as visual surrogates for the experience of the place (Julio Grinblatt, Jonathan Hernández & Alberto Baraya, Michael Light); random derives or planned walks (On Kawara, Francis Alÿs, Juan Fernando Herrán); borders and ways to bypass them (Eugenio Dittborn); and the encounter with the other (Kim Sooja, OnRamp Arts).


Michael Light
Image of Charles Duke's Family on Lunar Surface, photographed by Charles Duke, Apollo 16, 1972, From the project "Full Moon," 1999, Negative NASA; digital image ©1999 Michael Light, Courtesy of the Artist

They all examine the peculiar relationship between the traveler, his destination and the encounters that take place. For instance, Stanley Brouwn, in This Way Brouwn, visited Rome, asking strangers to draw him a map guiding him to the popular Basilica Dome. Always asking for the same map, he gathered multiple examples, each completely different, showing the many individual interpretations people had of their city

The Opening Reception, which is free and open to the public, is scheduled for Thursday, September 4, from 5 to 8pm. An exhibition walkthrough, led by Curator Jose Roca will take place on Friday, September 5 at 4:30pm.

The curator, Jose Roca, is the ICA 2002-2003 Whitney -Lauder Curatorial Fellow. "Traces of Friday" is the culmination of a year-long fellowship offered by the Lauder Foundation, in collaboration with the Whitney Independent Study Program (ISP) in New York. Since 1998 Roca has edited Columna de Arena, a monthly column on art criticism, http://www.universes-in-universe.de/columna/index.htm as well as curated exhibitions in the United States and Colombia. He currently manages the Temporary Exhibitions program at the Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango in Bogota, Colombia.

Funding support has been provided by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Dietrich Foundation Inc., the Board of Overseers for the Institute of Contemporary Art, friends and members of the ICA and the University of Pennsylvania. (Information complete as of 2/1/02.)