The Big Nothing: Participating Venues

Philadelphia, PA- ICA's exhibition "The Big Nothing" initiates a Philadelphia-wide initiative that includes projects by nearly forty museums, science centers and performing arts groups to address "nothing" in its many forms. Working with a core-group of curators and organizers over the past year-from the Philadelphia Museum of Art to the Edgar Allan Poe House to the American Philosophical Society-the various independently conceived projects will occur throughout the summer all around the city. ICA will print a map-brochure outlining the events and exhibitions. Complete details on the ICA exhibition can be found at The Big Nothing A full listing of all events and exhibitions, with detailed descriptions, will be on line on March 15. Check the ICA homepage for details.

PARTICIPATING VENUES
(Descriptions Below)

VENUE PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS

Abington Art Center
515 Meetinghouse Road
Jenkintown, PA 19046
(215) 887-4882
www.abingtonartcenter.org
Monday-Friday, 10am-5pm
Open Thursdays to 7pm through August 5th.

No Boundaries
July 22-August 27, 2004
Opening reception: Thursday July 22, 6-8pm
An exhibition of prints by Janet Towbin, revealing the process of change in carborundum etchings from dark to light, from something visible to something invisible.

African American Museum in Philadelphia 701 Arch Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 574-0380
www.AAMPmuseum.org

Defying Invisibility: Black Independent Film
May 1-August 31, 2004
Taking a historical look at Black independent cinema industry Defying Invisibility counters negative stereotypes of African Americans in popular culture. Documentaries include: Louis Massiah's W.E.B DuBois and William Greaves' 'A Passion for Justice' to Haile Gerima's Sankofa, Julie Dash's Illusions, and Zeinabu Irene Davis's Mother of the River and A Powerful Love Thang.

American Philosophical Society
Franklin Hall
427 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 440-3400
www.amphilsoc.org

Black Holes and the American Philosophical Society
June 16, 2004, 6:30pm
A talk on black holes at the American Philosophical Society. See Temple Gallery for details on an exhibition inspired by the Society's Black Holes Collection.

Arcadia University Art Gallery Spruance Art Center
450 Easton Road
Glenside, PA 19038
(215) 572-2131
www.arcadia.edu

Open
June 9-July 31, 2004
Solstice Reception: Sunday, June 20, 8pm
This exhibition investigates the threshold of awareness to emphasize the process of looking and curiosity. Up to forty invisible or barely-perceptible artworks will be shown,- including significant conceptual pieces from the 1960s, in addition to site-specific works made in direct response to an international call to artists. Co-curated by Sandra Firmin, Associate Curator, University at Buffalo Art Gallery, and Richard Torchia, Director, Arcadia University Art Gallery.

In August a project by Berlin-based artist Olafur Eliasson coincides with the closing of the The Big Nothing. Eliasson's installation will explore the physiology of vision through the production of unique and prominent afterimages for each spectator.

ARM/Cinema 25 at the ICA
www.armcinema25.com

Sleep, 1963 (dir. Andy Warhol, 5 hours, 21 minutes)
July 21, 2004, at dusk (9pm)
With soundscape crafted by DJ Dan Buskirk
Comprised of complexly structured, achronological 16mm fragments of poet John Giorno performing the titular action, Warhol's notorious conceptual film is a densely minimal treatise on spectatorship and the politics of ennui. Often discussed and rarely seen, Sleep is a provocative exploration of the empty.

Arthur Ross Gallery
University of Pennsylvania
220 South 34th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 898-2083
www.upenn.edu/ARG

Café Nothing
July-August, 2004
In keeping with the tradition of a café, as a place where intangibles are raised and discussed, the gallery becomes an open forum for visitors to interact with and respond to ideas and nonexistent objects, rather than works of art.

Basekamp
723 Chestnut Street, 2nd Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 206-8176
www.basekamp.com

Strike
July 9-August 20, 2004
Opening reception: Friday July 9, 6-10pm
Curated by Gavin Wade; Adjusted by Liam Gillick
Strike is a large-scale exhibition of responses to two questions: How does/could/would the withdrawal of art affect the world? And does the answer to the first question reveal ways that art can affect the world or strike a blow on the structures of the world? Originally created in 1973 by Conrad Atkinson, this version was curated in 2002 by Gavin Wade for Wolverhampton Art Gallery, England, and involves 125 artists, curators, architects,writers, others.

The Clay Studio
139 North Second Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 925-3453
www.theclaystudio.org

Mahmoud Baghaeian, Pascal Chlemar and Bernardo Hogan
June 4-June 27, 2004
Opening reception: Friday June 4, 5-9pm
An exhibition about the void in vessels, inspired by a quote of Lao Tse's "We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move. We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want."

Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site
22nd Street and Fairmount Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19130
(215) 236-3300
www.EasternState.org

The New Installations
April 1-November 28, 2004

Linda Brenner: The Ghost Cats. White plaster casts throughout the cellblocks commemorate three decades of feline residents at the abandonned penitentiary.

Ian the Jackson: Cellblock Nine. Faces projected onto the floor of Cellblock Nine links past prisoners at ESP to the invisible inmates of today--people who are made inaccessible to the outside world.

Timothy Nohe: 142 Ways to Mark Time. Nohe uses 142 audio recordings of ambient sounds to create an immersive sonic environment in Cellblock Ten.

Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site
532 North Seventh Street
Philadelphia, PA 19123
(215) 597-8780
Wednesday-Sunday, 9am-5pm

Ranger-guided tours of the house that inspired some of Poe's most famous tales, which were published when he lived here from 1843-34. Conducted on the hour.

The Empty House Tour
June 12th, 13th, 19th and 20th at 2:00 pm
This special tour by poet Tom Devaney, in collaboration with Drexel University librarian Emily Missner reveals Poe's continuing presence by exploring the empty space of the house, phantom black cats, walled-in windows, and surprise-whispers.

The Fabric Workshop and Museum
1315 Cherry Street, 5th and 6th Floors
Philadelphia, PA 19107
(215) 568-1111
www.fabricworkshopandmuseum.org
Monday-Friday, 10am-6pm
Saturday12-4pm

David Hammons: Phat Free
June 18-August 14, 2004
Nothing of consequence seems to be depicted in David Hammons' 1995/1999 video installation, which begins with a blank screen and segues to the image (and sound) of man kicking a metal bucket down the street. In conjunction with "The Big Nothing" survey exhibition at ICA.

Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial and The Philadelphia Print Collaborative
719 Catharine Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147
(215) 922-3456
www.fleisher.org
www.printcollaborative.org

Several Steps Removed
July 5-August 6, 2004
Opening reception: Friday July 9, 5:30-7:30pm
Sequences of prints reveal the concept of the void as central to a process, in which an image is determined by the negative space of the plate, block, or screen. And infinity is implied by the act of replication.

Gershman Y
The Borowsky Gallery at The Gershman Y
401 South Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147
(215) 446-3027
www.Gershmany.org

Subtle Nothings
May 2-August 30, 2004
Opening reception: Sunday May 2, 5-8pm
Extraordinary nuance in multi-media works by artists, who include Antennae (Sigi Moeslinger and Masamichi Udagawa), Andy Holtin, David McQueen, Meridith Monk, Liz Phillips, Ray Rapp, Chris Vecchio.

InLiquid.com
123 North Orianna Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 592-1310
www.inliquid.com

Avoid
May 1-August 1, 2004
Following the example of Oulipo author Georges Perec, this on-line project explores the ways in which silence and absence can serve as organizing principle for artists: Susan Arthur, Rena Leinberger, Jane Marshing, Julia Marsh, Trevor Paglen. Organized by Gerard Brown.

Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania
118 South 36th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
(215) 573-9975
www.icaphila.org
Wednesday-Friday, 12-8pm
Saturday & Sunday, 11am-5pm

The Big Nothing
May 1-August 1, 2004
Opening reception: April 30, 6-8pm
The void, the ineffable, the sublime, refusal, nihilism, zero-all are encompassed by "nothing." Over 60 artists' works from 1970 to the present; and ephemera about the closed or empty gallery as a contemporary gesture. Curators: Ingrid Schaffner, Bennett Simpson, Tanya Leighton

Whenever Wednesday, July 21, 8pm
Nothing Cabaret. An evening of poetry, music, slight of hand, and silence that culminates in a screening of Andy Warhol's Sleep.

International House of Philadelphia
3701 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
(215) 387-5125
www.ihousephilly.org
Admission is $6.00 general
$5.00 students, seniors

Three Short Films About Nothing. Two nights of film exploring the great cosmic law of nothingness.

Friday, July 16 at 8pm
The Exterminating Angel (dir. Luis Buñuel, 1962, 95 mins) Death, a double suicide, and general ennui reign in this nightmarish vision of the good life.

Saturday, July 17 at 8pm
FluxFilm Program (ed. George Maciunas, 1966-70, 40 mins) An anthology of works (1966-70) by adherents to the Fluxus film movement, including Yoko Ono, John Cale and Nam June Paik.

N:O:T:H:I:N:G (dir. Paul Sharits, 1968, 36 mins) "Based, in part, on the Tibetan Mandala of the Five Dhyani Buddhas / a journey toward the center of pure consciousness (Dharma-Dhatu Wisdom) / space and motion generated rather than illustrated / time-color energy create virtual shape / in negative time, growth is inverse decay." -- Paul Sharits

The Flicker (dir. Tony Conrad, 1966, 30 mins) Continuous strobophobic flicker effect of great complexity.

Kelly Writers House at ICA
3805 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104
(215) 573-9748

A Conversation About The Big Nothing
Saturday June 3, 6:30-8pm
Event Location: Institute of Contemporary Art/University of Pennsylvania
118 South 36th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104

A conversation on negative theology, language, law and mysticism; with live and prerecorded multimedia presentations. Featuring Aryeh Botwinick, Professor of Political Science at Temple University, artist Andrew Zitcer, film-makers Sean Purtill and Melanie Wilson. Moderated by poet Tom Devaney.

Lighting for Urban Rooftop Environments (LURE)
931 Carpenter Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147
(215) 922-2410
www.lureprojects.org
Contact: Aaron Igler

Dust
May-July, 2004 (specific dates to be announced)
Media-based interventions by LURE bring to light an accumulation of gestures throughout the city by artists Joy Feasley, Tristin Lowe, New Humans, Paul Swenbeck, and Richard Torchia. To be inaugurated in June 2004 is Torchia's public artwork Shade Tree, which appropriates the common, urban light phenomena of tree shadows cast onto the facades of buildings.

Main Line Art Center
Old Buck Road and Lancaster Avenue
Haverford, PA 19041
(610) 525-0272
www.mainlineart.org

Past Presence: Contemporary Reflections on the Main Line
April 24-October 22, 2004
Curated by Denise Markonish
The Main Line's history and environment are examined by four newly commissioned works. Bob Braine looks at the Mill Creek drainage basin; Mark Dion re-creates an 18th Century cemetery dedicated to Philadelphia's noted naturalists; Kelly Kaczynski exposes obsolete milestones; and Nari Ward investigates material culture through yard sale finds. The artists' proposals will be on view in the gallery April 16 to May 16.

Mütter Museum, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia
19 South 22nd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 563-3737
www.collphyphil.org

9 Mütter XX 04
May 19-June 11, 2004
Opening reception: Tuesday May 18, 2004, 6pm
Different kinds of perceived "nothingness" related to blindness, deafness, loss of limbs, and even death itself are the subject of new works by François Bucher, Liam Gillick, Karen Kilimnik, Peter Lasch, Ulrike Mueller, neurotransmitter, Jesse Olanday, Olav Westphalen, and Thomas Zummer.

Friday June 4, 1pm
A thematic tour on "nothing" of the artists' works and the collection by Gretchen Worden, Director of the Mütter Museum, and ICA's Tanya Leighton.

New Paradise Labs
747 Corinthian Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19130
(215) 763-1563
www.theatrealliance.org

New Paradise Labs will perform an experimental theater piece. Please visit the above website for further information.

Nexus, Foundation for Today's Art
137 N. Second Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 629-1103

Who Died When I Died?
Retinal afterimage portraits by Nick Cassway
May 7-30, 2004
Opening reception: Friday May 7, 5-9pm
The fleetingness of fame and cult of personality are reflected upon by this installation of 52 portraits that appear like those images that persist after a flash of bright light.

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Broad and Cherry Streets
Philadelphia, PA 19102
(215) 972-7600
www.pafa.org

The Sublime Landscape
June 19-August 1, 2004
Awe before the overwhelming vastness of nature is the sublime which 19th-century artists sought to capture. Luminist, Hudson River School, Pre-Raphaelite, and Barbizon School landscapes on view from the permanent collection. Organized by Alex Baker, Curator of Contemporary Art.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art
26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia, PA 19130
(215) 763-8100
www.philamuseum.org
Tuesday-Sunday, 10am-5pm
Wednesday & Friday, 10am-8:45pm

Find nothing at the PMA! Selected works from the modern and contemporary collection-including Brancusi's Bird in Space, Duchamp's 50 cc of Paris Air, Mondrian's Composition with Blue, and Richter's 180 Farben-are highlighted by specially-designed labels that speak to themes of nothing.

Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art
615 North Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19123
(Congregation Rodeph Shalom; entrance and parking on Mt. Vernon Street)
(215) 627-6747

Responsa: Eileen Neff, Jennie Shanker, and Richard Torchia
April 15-August 15, 2004
Opening reception: Thursday April 15, 6-8pm
Absence, dislocation, loss, and removal, as well as the possibility of adaptation, return, and renewal are themes that resonate with thousands of years of Jewish experience in the Diaspora. These themes are evoked through site-specific works by Eileen Neff, Jennie Shanker, and Richard Torchia.

Philadelphia Print Collaborative
Collaboration with Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial, see Fleisher.

Pig Iron Theatre Company
PO Box 17275
Philadelphia, PA 19105
(215) 873-0883
www.pigiron.org

The Neutral Person
July 2004 (date and location to be determined)
In this workshop for non-psychological approaches to theater (derived from the pedagogy of Jacques Lecoq), actors are asked to look for 'the neutral' on stage: the neutral walk, the neutral gaze, the neutral person. Open to student and professional actors, directors, and dancers.

The Print Center
1614 Latimer Street (Between Spruce and Locust)
Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 735-6090
www.printcenter.org
Tuesday-Saturday, 11am-5:30pm

Infinitely Visible
April 24-June 26, 2004
Opening Reception: Friday, April 23, 2004, 5.30-7.30pm
Two poles of the infinite appear side by side in prints by Mike Stifel, depicting the movement of subatomic particles, and photographs by Robert Asman, showing clouds and the celestial activity beyond.

Relâche at the ICA
715 South Third Street, Studio 208
Philadelphia, PA 19147
(215) 574-8248
www.relache.org
Event Location: Institute of Contemporary Art/University of Pennsylvania
118 South 36th Street
Philadelphia, PA

Entr'acte
July 15 & 16, 2004 / Continuous Showings 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
For the infamous November 27, 1924, Dada premiere of Relâche, a packed Théâtre Champs-Élysee was greeted with literally no performance. In homage to their namesake, the new music ensemble Relâche will present in absentia, an audio installation that re-stages René Clair's cinematic Entr'acte with its original musical accompaniment by Erik Satie. Relâche, in collaboration with Space 1026, will revise Picabia's original broadside campaign with posters for Relâche throughout the city.

The Rosenbach Museum & Library
2008-2010 Delancey Place
Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 732-1600
www.rosenbach.org

R is for Rosenbach
In conjunction with its 50th anniversary, the museum will present the exhibition R is for Rosenbach, which portrays the Rosenbach as a cabinet of wonders and curiosities. Within the exhibition, there will be written materials and/or labels that make connections between objects and the subjects of nothingness, nonsense, and/or the ordinary (nothing special).

The University of the Arts
The Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery
333 South Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
(215) 717-6480

Traces
June 15-August 15, 2004
Minimally about something and not "nothing," this exhibition tracks traces, stains, indexes, residues, folds, shadows, etc., in art.

The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education
8480 Hagys Mill Road
Philadelphia, PA 19128
(215) 482-7300
www.schuylkillcenter.org
www.philasculptors.org

Extinct/ Extant
July 11-December 30, 2004
Opening reception: Sunday July 11, 2-5pm (to include a walking tour with selected artists and Director of Land Restoration).

Nature left untouched, the extinction of the species, the destruction of habitats, the problems created by invasive species, the disappearance of urban green spaces are the premises for Philadelphia Sculptors to create new works on the grounds of the Schuylkill Center.

Temple Gallery of Tyler School of Art
45 North Second Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 925-7379
Wednesday-Saturday, 11-6pm
Open until 9pm on the First Friday of each month.

Mixmaster Universe
June 4-July 10, 2004
Opening reception: Friday June 4, 7-9pm
Notebooks from the John Wheeler Archive on Black Holes at the American Philosophical Society are the fodder for new works by artists including: M. Ho, Thom Lessner, Roxana Pèrez-Mèndez, Sue Patterson, David Guinn.

See The American Philosophical Society for details on a lecture about Black Holes.

The University of the Arts
Sol Mednick Gallery & Gallery 1401 at the Media Arts Department
211 S. Broad Street, 15th and 14th Floors
Philadelphia, PA 19107
(215) 717-6300
www.uarts.edu

Three exhibitions.

April 30-August 1, 2004 Opening Reception: Friday April 30, 5-7pm
Michael Lonier: Any-Place, Any-Time, Nothing-Special, Every-Day.
Inspired by Hemingway's notion of nada (which turns out to be everything) and the gnarled, flat featureless Florida landscape, the artist conceived of these 'nadagraphs'.

June 4-August 13, 2004
Leah Oates: PARADURA.
Oates blurs the gestures, motions, words, sounds, and images that go into each passing moment as fluid constructions.

June 4-August 13, 2004
Lynn Cazabon: Discard.
The crevice between obsolescence and new technology is highlighted by the transformation of Super-8 films (from a highly personal archive) into a digital work of art.

Vox Populi
1315 Cherry Street, 4th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19107
(215) 568-5513
www.voxpopuligallery.org
Wednesday-Saturday, 12-6pm

Erasure
Curated by Yana Balson
July 2-August 1, 2004
Opening Reception: Friday July 2, 6-9pm
Gallery Talk: Wednesday July 14, 6:30pm
In homage to Robert Rauschenberg's Erased DeKooning, this group exhibition of local and out-of-town artists treats destruction, nihilation, dissolution, and nostalgia for the destroyed object, idea or person.

Wagner Free Institute of Science
1700 West Montgomery Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19121
(215) 763-6529
Tuesday-Friday, 9am-4pm

Beyond Nothing
June 1-August 13, 2004
Amidst a collection of over 100,000 natural history specimens includes skeletons, fossils, shells, minerals and mounted animals, explore the concepts of zero, infinite space, and emptiness in 19th century scientific thought. The exhibit, on display in the Institute's historic reference library, will highlight materials from the Library and Archives.

Woodmere Art Museum
9201 Germantown Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19118
(215) 247-0476
www.woodmereartmuseum.org
Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-5pm
Sunday, 1-5pm

No Big Thing
May 1-August 1, 2004
"Does nothing exist?" and if so, "How can nothing be big?" are among the questions that sculptor Gary Miller will attempt to answer with a sixteen foot-tall "nothing"-a humorous and philosophical work with a touch of Zen haiku. The artist's muse, to ease his dread/Whispers, "Build it large!/ Paint it red!"

Something from Nothing
July 11-August 1, 2004
A vervy environment of drawings and sculptures created by children (ages 8-12) with artist Jonathan Hertzel in a studio class (that runs June 28-July 9, for more information call: 215-247-0948).

All events and times are subject to change. Please contact the respective organization for confirmation. A brochure and map will be available in early April with additional details on all events and exhibitions. ICA will also publish information on special hotel and travel packages on March 15. Please check the ICA website for details.

ICA is open to the public, except during installation, from 12pm to 8pm on Wednesday through Friday and from 11am to 5pm 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 cardholders, and on Sundays from 11am to 1pm. For more information, call 215-898-5911/7108, or visit www.icaphila.org.

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.

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