White Petals Surround Your Yellow Heart

February 6 through July 28, 2013

OPENING RECEPTION WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 6-8PM, FREE FOR ALL!
WALKTHROUGH WITH CURATOR ANTHONY ELMS (ICA MEMBERS AND DONORS ONLY), 5PM

Artists: Hilton Als; Lynda Benglis; Bernadette Corporation; Genesis Breyer P-Orridge; Dexter Sinister with Halmos; Leif Elggren; Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven; Karen Kilimnik; Irena Knezevic; Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin; Erin Leland; Zoe Leonard; Wardell Milan; Paulina Olowska; Seth Price; Rammellzee; Nick Relph; Carissa Rodriguez; Aura Rosenberg, John Miller & Frank Lutz; Nader Sadek; Frances Stark; Catherine Sullivan; Scott Treleaven; and Amy Yao.

White Petals Surround Your Yellow Heart presents the work of artists engaged with clothing, adornment, and self-presentation to highlight the inventive design, tactical implementation, or sartorial sense by which we multiply and complete our personalities. On view in ICA's First Floor Space February 6 through July, 28, 2013, this group exhibition takes inspiration from this definition by novelist JG Ballard—"Fashion: A recognition that nature has endowed us with one skin too few, and that a fully sentient being should wear its nervous system externally."

Artworks in a variety of media infuse garments with a distinctive sense of pose—the exclusive province of neither the advertisement nor the runway—to stand, statue-like, with an attitude perfumed by immense mediation and an unsteady social sphere. With examples from outlandish costumes to self-published magazines, jewelry to sculpture, performance to painting, this sensibility permeates all fields. Oscillating between branding, self-recognition, sexuality, political uniform, and economic indicator, our adornment always reflects a chosen position in and with society. Told time and time again that ours is a narcissistic age, how do we positively reveal or covertly enact desires before the mirror of our time?

This exhibition is organized by ICA Associate Curator Anthony Elms, and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.

Dexter Sinister with Halmos, Watch Wyoscan 0.5 Hz, 2012, digital watch with custom electronics. Courtesy of the artists.

Related Programming

Performance by Artist Irena Knezevic
Wednesday, February 6, 7PM
ICA First Floor Space

Artist Irena Knezevic activates her work, "Nine Hour Delay," in White Petals Surround Your Yellow Heart. The showcase is on shoes, purchased throughout the former Yugoslav republics of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia (the artist's home country). The shoes, manufactured by a company incorporated under the former Yugoslavian Communist government, were designed to be worn by working women before the country’s split in the 1990's. The shoes and factory are one of the last functioning remnants of the prior regime and country.

Screening: Cleopatra
Wednesday, February 20, 7PM
International House (3701 Chestnut Street)

A rare screening of Cleopatra, Michael Auder's improvisatory and campy take on Joseph Mankiewicz's 1963 Hollywood classic, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Featuring a cast of regulars from Andy Warhol's ensemble including Viva, Louis Waldon, Taylor Mead, Ondine, Andrea Feldman, Gerard Melanga, and others.

Performance: Leif Elggren
Wednesday, April 17, 6:30PM
ICA First Floor Space

The renowned Swedish performance artist, writer, and musician Leif Elggren offers a rare stateside sound performance at ICA.

Performance: Frances Stark at International House
Saturday, May 4 at 7:00PM
International House (3701 Chestnut St.)

Get absorbed in the world of Frances Stark, an artist noted for her delicate works on paper, performances, videos, and insightful and funny essays. Stark presents a performative multimedia event at International House (3701 Chestnut St.).

Sponsored by the Hilarie and Mitchell Morgan Endowment Fund.

Lecture: Hilton Als on "Diane Arbus in Manhattan"
Wednesday, May 22 at 6:30PM
ICA Tuttleman Auditorium

Explore Diane Arbus's relationship with the city of her birth and death with writer and theater critic for The New Yorker, Hilton Als, whose work is featured in the exhibition.

Screening: Bernadette Corporation Hell Frozen Over and Get Rid of Yourself
Wednesday, July 17 at 7:00PM
International House (3701 Chestnut St.)

Confound your expectations with two provocative videos by Bernadette Corporation that look at identity through the lenses of fashion, protest, Chloë Sevigny, nothingness, and Mallarmé.

images (top to bottom): Karen Kilimnik, Kate Moss, 1996, video,7:01 min. Courtesy of the artist and 303 Gallery, New York. Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, NonPlus, 2012, collage, drawing, mixed materials on pastel paper. Courtesy of the artist and Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp. Wardell Milan, Naomi and Landscape #1, 2009, chromogenic prints from collage. Courtesy of the artist.

ICA is grateful to CRW Graphics for sponsorship of this exhibition. ICA acknowledges the generous sponsorship of Barbara B. & Theodore R. Aronson for the exhibition catalogue. Additional funding has been provided by the Nancy E. & Leonard M. Amoroso Exhibition Endowment Fund; the Steven & Cheri Friedman Fund; the Amanda & Andrew Megibow Fund; the John & Lori Reinsberg Exhibition Fund; the Howard and Patricia Bleznak Silverstein Exhibition Endowment Fund; the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; the Dietrich Foundation, Inc.; the Overseers Board for the Institute of Contemporary Art; friends and members of ICA; and the University of Pennsylvania. Programming associated with this exhibition has been supported by the Spiegel Fund to Support Contemporary Culture and Visual Arts and the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation. Free admission to ICA for the public is sponsored by the Amanda (C95) & Glenn (W87/WG88) Fuhrman Fund. General operating support provided, in part, by the Philadelphia Cultural Fund and the Barra Foundation. ICA receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. ICA thanks La Colombe for providing complimentary coffee at public events. ICA acknowledges Le Méridien Philadelphia as our official Unlock Art™ partner hotel.