ICA Spring Exhibitions
Polly Apfelbaum • s(how) • Das Hochzeitshaus (The Wedding House)

Preview Reception: Friday, May 2, 6 - 8pm

March 8, 2003

The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at the University of Pennsylvania is pleased to announce the ICA spring exhibition schedule. Three new exhibitions will open on May 3, 2003 and feature a broad array of talent. Taking over the two main galleries of ICA will be the first large museum survey of the paintings of Polly Apfelbaum. The exhibition will include important paintings from the last twelve years, a fully illustrated catalog and custom wallpaper created by Polly for the ICA installation. In the ICA Project Space, curatorial students from the University of Pennsylvania will present the exhibition "s(how)," the culmination of a year-long seminar on contemporary art and curating that addresses two distinct themes, visual ephemerality and bodily consumption, within the broader context of the curatorial process. For the ICA Ramp, Nadine Robinson will create a visual and aural installation, "Das Hochzeitshaus (The Wedding House)". Robinson's multi-media installation fuses popular myth, religion, and street-party culture.

The exhibitions open May 3, 2003 and continue through July 27, 2003. The Preview Reception, which is free and open to the public, is Friday, May 2, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. Exhibition walkthroughs will begin prior to the reception at 5:00pm. The ICA is located at 118 South 36th Street at the University of Pennsylvania. The ICA is open to the public, except during installation, from 12:00pm to 8:00pm on Wednesday through Friday and from 11:00am to 5:00pm on Saturday and Sunday. Admission is $3 for adults; $2 for students over 12, artists, and senior citizens; and free to ICA members, children 12 and under, PENN card holders, and on Sundays from 11:00am to 1:00 pm. For more information, call 215-898-7108/5911.

"Polly Apfelbaum"
Polly Apfelbaum creates what she calls "fallen paintings," hybrid works of rare beauty that exist in a contentious, ambivalent space between painting, sculpture, and installation. Often arranged on the floor, spreading around corners in indeterminate shapes, Apfelbaum's overall forms are comprised of intricate, nearly psychedelic layers of dyed fabric, as if myriad smaller paintings have accreted or grown from a central cluster of shapes and colors. Apfelbaum is known for her palette of stunning, eye-popping colors and hues. These works transform the colors of mass culture - television, saturated magazine ads, bags of Wonder Bread - into wild, oscillating spectra bordering on the organic. Dusk red blobs fan rows of yellow leaves; teardrop shapes of black nudge indigo shapes resembling paramecium, single-cells, or algae blooms. One of the most original artists working today, Apfelbaum's painting pushes past its traditional disciplinary forms, off the wall, and into pop culture. Apfelbaum's work calls for audiences to think about the pleasure of aesthetic experience - and to experience the pleasure of aesthetics.

ICA will give over the main galleries of both floors for this exhibition. This is a comprehensive survey of Apfelbaum's work and will include recent paintings, as well as a range of work since 1989. Apfelbaum will also design custom wallpaper for the ICA installation. Curated by ICA Director Claudia Gould and ICA Senior Curator Ingrid Schaffner, the exhibition will be accompanied by an 80-page catalog with essays by Ingrid Schaffner, art historian Irving Sandler, writer Tim Griffin, and an interview with the artist by Gould. The exhibition will travel to the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, Ohio (December 5th, 2003 - February 29th, 2004) and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri (June 4 - September 5, 2004).

Apfelbaum (b. 1955, Abington, Pennsylvania) is a graduate of Tyler School of Art and has had solo exhibitions at Kiasma, Museum of Contemporary Art NYKY, Helsinki, Finland; and Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine. She currently lives and works in New York.

"s(how)"
Presented in ICA's Project Space, "s(how)" is the culmination of a year-long seminar on contemporary art and curating taken by ten art history majors from the University of Pennsylvania. "s(how)" weaves two distinct themes - visual ephemerality and bodily consumption- around a single group of artworks, reflecting on how art is considered through the curatorial process. Each artwork simultaneously addresses both themes, demonstrating to the public the wide spectrum of possible interpretation. With its focus on the interpretive process of the curator(s), this exhibition is a reflection on its own making.

This exhibition will include artists that work in a variety of media and genres, among them: Stuart Netsky, Thomas Ruff, Vik Muniz, Jac Leirner, Oscar Muñoz, Jenny Holzer, Muntadas, Jeannie Yip and Nina Katchadourian.

"Das Hochzeitshaus (The Wedding House)"
Nadine Robinson's specially commissioned sound and sculpture installation at the ICA is the latest in her series of Boom Paintings, named after the ubiquitous boombox portable radios. "Das Hochzeitshaus" incorporates a complex speaker system playing multiple tracks including laughter and pentacostal glossalalia, or speaking in tongues, synched to fluorescent lighting. Robinson's work fuses popular myth, religion, and street-party culture, turning this transitional space into a chamber of hypnotic associations and holy laughter.

Robinson (b. London, England 1968) is a graduate of New York University and has participated in group exhibitions including "Tempo" at The Museum of Modern Art, Queens; and "Inside Out/Unabdie" at Kunstbunker, Berlin, Germany.

Curators Perspective/Exhibition Walkthroughs
Friday, May 2, beginning at 5:00pm.

• "Polly Apfelbaum"
  With artist Polly Apfelbaum, art historian Irving Sandler and ICA Director Claudia Gould.
  
  
• "s(how)"
  With University of Pennsylvania Lecturer Jennie Hirsh and ICA Seminar students Nancy Oster and Justin Belmont.
  
  
• "Das Hochzeitshaus (The Wedding House)"
  With artist Nadine Robinson and ICA Senior Curator Ingrid Schaffner.

• "Polly Apfelbaum"
• "s(how)"
• "Das Hochzeitshaus (The Wedding House)"

Open Video Call
Wednesday, July 16, 8:30pm sign up; 9:00pm screening
ICA's popular open video call is back. An on-going program developed to support and access the region's experimental and documentary video talent. The first twenty artists to submit videos at 8:30pm screen up to three minutes of their work. Selected works are subsequently shown in ICA's video station. Shown under the stars on the ICA Terrace. Free and open to the public, refreshments served.

ICA
Founded in 1963 as part of the University of Pennsylvania, ICA presents a year-round exhibition schedule that defines, analyzes, and explores the contemporary visual arts. A non-collecting museum, ICA offers one-person, thematic, and group exhibitions, including commissioned works. ICA diversifies its examination of art to include interdisciplinary work such as film, video, performance, architecture, and design. ICA plays a vital role in introducing American audiences to rising international artists and is also committed to the regional arts community. ICA has been at the forefront of contemporary art for nearly 40 years, presenting the first museum solo exhibitions of artists Andy Warhol, Robert Indiana, Lisa Yuskavage, Charles LeDray and many others.

Funding Acknowledgements

Polly Apfelbaum
ICA acknowledges the generous funding support awarded by The Buddy Taub Foundation, the Peter Norton Family Foundation, and Altria Group, Inc. ICA is also grateful for the generous support of the members of ICA's New York Leadership Circle: Christopher J. Carrera Foundation; Ashley & Jason Bernhard; Cecile & Christopher D'Amelio; Karen Finerman; The Ford Family Foundation/Virginia & David Ford; Glenn R. Fuhrman; James N. Gray Foundation; Katherine Greenberg; Amy Segal & Phillipe Heilberg; K. Hovnanian Enterprises, Inc.; Janedesign, Inc.; Craig Beresin; Anurag Bhargava; Paula & Robert Hoy; Nicole & Michael Kubin; Eric S. Lane; Marc Lisker; Ladd McQuade; Amy & John Phelan; Pamela & Arthur Sanders; The Right Stuff Foundation; Daniel C. Scheffey; Joey & Christopher Schlank; Victoria Voytek & Robert Fogelson; & Candace Worth. Additional support has been provided by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Dietrich Foundation Inc., the William Penn Foundation, William G. Butler, Chris Mattsson, the Overseers Board for the Institute of Contemporary Art, friends and members of ICA, and the University of Pennsylvania. (Information complete as of 2/26/03.)

s(how)
ICA acknowledges primary sponsorship for this project from The Buddy Taub Foundation and generous funding from the Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation. Additional support has been provided by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Dietrich Foundation Inc., the William Penn Foundation, the Overseers Board for the Institute of Contemporary Art, friends and members of ICA, and the University of Pennsylvania. The exhibition brochure for "s(how)" was generously funded by the Department of the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania and its James and Nan Farquhar Fund. (Information complete as of 2/25/03.)

Das Hochzeitshaus (The Wedding House)
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. (Information complete as of 2/24/03.)

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