If you missed the Institute of Contemporary Art’s opening event, mark your calendars for the next one. It was the sceniest place on campus this Wednesday, attracting Penn students, Penn faculty, local families and West Philly hipsters. There really is no excuse not to go—it’s free and it’s right at 36th and Sansom (for those of you who took last week’s feature to heart, that’s right next to the Urban Outfitters). Socialization component aside, the new exhibitions are definitely worth seeing. And, though you may have missed the free empanadas, wine and live music, the free art will be there for you to enjoy for the rest of the semester.
The ground floor gallery is dedicated to a new exhibition by Christopher Knowles. Curated by Hilton Als, the exhibit has been in the works for years, and is a very experimental breakdown of what traditional “Art” is. At first, it’s not particularly surprising—what modern artist doesn’t incorporate political references, children’s penmanship and numerous mediums, all enigmatic and dubious in meaning? Names like Romney, Obama, Trump, Dole appear on several canvases, many also featuring the hands of a clock.
Your eye is instantly drawn, however, into the next room, whose high walls and floor are covered in newspaper pages. The piece is a set, and everything from the floor of the piece to fold-up chairs are covered in newspaper. Alarm clocks, some ticking, some frozen at seemingly random times, are placed throughout, and three large white cones, one with colored stripes, one with pictures of alarm clocks and one with what looks like a child’s self portrait with the caption “The Sundance Kid is Beautiful” take up the rest of the space. A green window frame is suspended above, and every few minutes, a bell rings and the lights go out.
It is difficult to read the pages of newspaper without stepping directly on the piece (not recommended), but if you squint you can make out a picture of Miley Cyrus and also a female tennis player with the caption “slam into history.” Perhaps it is not politics that captivates Knowles, but fame. This, juxtaposed with the theme—or perhaps obsession—with time throughout the exhibit, as well as a few capitalist references reminiscent of pop-art, recalled to me the work of Andy Warhol and his immortal words: “In the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.”
This piece, “The Sundance Kid is Beautiful,” though clearly the highlight of the art experience at the ICA, is far from the only attraction. Upstairs are two more exhibits, one by Becky Suss and one by Josephine Pryde. Suss paints scenes of domesticity that ought to be comforting. The collection is depictions of rooms in her grandparents’ house, memories from her childhood, but memories as she wishes them to be, not as they are. The color scheme and often clashing patterns, however, are reminiscent of those employed in Post-Impressionist painter Henri Rousseau’s depictions of the jungle. Turbulent and ominous, they both excite and unsettle the eye.
Josephine Pryde’s exhibition, “lapses in Thinking By the person i Am” could be more accurately advertised as “Photos of Hands Touching Things.” Two of the photos show hands using iPhones, the only electronic device depicted. There is a small train on a linear track that runs through the room, and visitors are encouraged to ride it while looking at the art—an opportunity of which, at the opening event, many people chose to take advantage. Although meant to be a means by which to experience communication in transit, one of the central themes of the exhibit, visitors seemed to be more caught up in childish behavior than in the art. While the train was going backwards along the track, one man sporting a “man-bun” saw a man with a similar hairstyle he waved so excitedly that the train tipped over.
