ICA is a launchpad for contemporary art and ideas, and a place of possibility. We create transformative experiences with art across disciplines and encourage bold experimentation, deep connection, and boundless curiosity among artists and audiences alike.

Our Mission is informed by our core values of Collaboration, Experimentation and Learning: 

• Collaboration: We believe that working in partnership creates a more resilient, thriving, and joyous world. We engage with artists and organizations to build inclusive, vibrant creative ecosystems on campus, throughout Philadelphia, and beyond.

• Experimentation: We believe that risk-taking leads to the freedom necessary for cultural transformation. We support artists to make daring, cross-disciplinary projects that defy expectations, disrupt form, and challenge the status quo—advancing practices across the fields of art and culture.

• Learning: We believe that creative thinking is foundational to how we grow as individuals and collectively evolve. We are an evolving community of practice that produces vital scholarship and generous, bold programming that inspire conversations across disciplines, experiences, communities, and perspectives.

The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania (ICA Philadelphia) is a global hub for contemporary art and ideas. Free and open to all, ICA Philadelphia is dedicated to supporting artistic practices across disciplines and to serving as a laboratory for risk-taking, community-building, and knowledge-creation. Since 1963, ICA Philadelphia has championed the University’s commitment to cultivating the next generation of imaginative creators and thinkers. Through commissions, exhibitions, programs, publications, and special projects, ICA Philadelphia fosters bold experimentation, curiosity, and discovery.

CHAIR
Mark W. Strong

VICE-CHAIR
Bryan S. Verona

Eric W. Apple, Esq.
Debbie August
Sascha Bauer
Eric Birnbaum
Laura Tisch Broumand
Catherine Carrafiell
Jung Chai
Julie Nelson Davis**
Suzanne Doft
Benjamin M. Frost
Glenn Fuhrman
Stacey M. Goergen

Andrea B. Laporte
Lina Lazaar
Marc J. Leder
Rochelle Ludwig
Jennifer Otto-Klein
Tricia Pantzer
Timothy Rommen**
Tara Mark Rosenblum
Katherine Sachs*
Nina Bauer Shapiro
David E. Simon

* Emerita
**Ex-officio

Contacts

Resnicow and Associates
ICAPhilly@resnicow.com

The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania is a place to engage with the art of our time. Since our founding in 1963, we have become nationally and internationally recognized as a non-collecting institution that develops and presents exhibitions, commissions, events, publications, and special projects that champion new, experimental, and underrecognized artists and ideas. ICA is committed to developing research at the intersection of interdisciplinary artistic practice and creating impactful experiences through our projects that support audiences in having meaningful connections with art and artists and encourage an exchange of ideas on art and society.

We support ambitious projects by emerging and underrecognized artists – beginning with ICA’s inaugural show of paintings by the then lesser known Abstract Expressionist Clyfford Still, and followed in 1965 by an exhibition of works by Andy Warhol – his first museum exhibition, organized at ICA.

ICA is committed to supporting artists, research, and dialogues that contextualize and resonate with the important conditions of our time.

Positions

Programs Manager
Spiegel Wilks Fellow

If you have any questions about our job openings, the application process, or working with us, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Our Human Resource team is happy to assist you. Contact Carli Condon, Associate Director, Human Resources at ccondon@upenn.edu

Top (left to right): (1) Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick at ICA, 1965; (2) Visitors viewing First Among Equals, 2012; (3) Visitors viewing Six Visions, 1973; (4) Visitors embracing during ICA’s Spring 2023 Exhibition Celebration 

Bottom (left to right): (1) Exhibition tour with artist Polly Apfelbaum, 2002; (2) Elementary school students visit Glenn Ligon: Unbecoming, 1998; (3) Artists Nayland Blake and Dusty Shoulders at ICA’s Spring 2018 Exhibition Celebration; (4) ICA staff holding posters for Street Sights, 1980.