ICA Benefit 2023 - ICA Philadelphia

About

ICA’s Benefit celebrates the meaningful connections ICA offers to art, artists, and audiences. Proceeds provide critical support for ICA’s exhibitions and engagement programs.

On Thursday, April 27, 2023, join us for an extraordinary evening honoring Maori Karmael Holmes, founder and Chief Executive and Artistic Officer of BlackStar Projects, and Ken Lum, artist, Marilyn Jordan Taylor Presidential Professor and Chair of the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design.

Event Details

6:30PM | VIP Reception featuring University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill
8PM | Benefit opens to all ticket holders with an honoree program and musical performance by Omar’s Hat

Click here to view the event program (PDF)

Event Location

Fitler Club
24 S. 24th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103

Registration

To purchase tickets, click here.

About the Honorees

Maori Karmael Holmes is a curator, filmmaker, and writer. She currently serves as Mediamaker-in-Residence at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and Curator-at-Large at Penn Live Arts at Annenberg Center. Maori is also curator of the current exhibition at ICA, Terence Nance: Swarm.

Among her many accomplishments, Maori founded BlackStar in 2012 and serves as its Chief Executive & Artistic Officer. She has organized programs in film at a myriad of organizations including Anthology Film Archives, ICA, Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), The Underground Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. As a director, her works have screened internationally including her feature documentary Scene Not Heard: Women in Philadelphia Hip-Hop. She has directed and produced works for Colorlines.com, Visit Philadelphia, as well as the musicians India.Arie, Mike Africa, Jr., and Wayna. She is also a recipient of the 2022 Philadelphia’s Cultural Treasures Fellowship.

Her writing has most recently appeared in Seen, Documentary Magazine, The Believer, Film Quarterly, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, How We Fight White Supremacy: A Field Guide to Black Resistance, and Collective Wisdom: Co-Creating Media Within Communities Across Disciplines and Algorithms. In 2019, she was included in Essence Magazine’s Woke 100 List and in 2022 she was included among Philadelphia Magazine’s 100 Most Influential Philadelphians as well as the “Best Film Ambassador” and named to the Kennedy Center’s Next 50 list of national cultural leaders.

Ken Lum is an internationally recognized artist with an extensive exhibition record that includes Documenta, the Venice Biennale, São Paolo Bienal, Shanghai Biennale, Gwangju Biennale, Havana Biennial, Carnegie Triennial, and the Whitney Biennial. A longtime professor, he is Marilyn Jordan Taylor Presidential Professor and Chair of the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design in Philadelphia. Ken will also be one of the featured artists in ICA’s fall 2024 exhibition, Moveables.

He is co-founder and founding editor of the Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art. He is a prolific writer with numerous essays and reviews in academic and non-academic publications. He was keynote speaker at the 2022 congress of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics, the 2010 World Museums Conference in Shanghai, the 2006 Biennale of Sydney in Australia, and the 1997 Universities Art Association of Canada. A book of his writings titled Everything is Relevant: Writings on Art and Life 1991 – 2018 was published in 2020 by Concordia University Press. In 2020, he wrote a screenplay titled The Cook about Chinese contract laborers in the 19th century which is currently under contract.

Lum has worked on numerous major permanent public art commissions including for the cities of Vienna, Rotterdam, St. Louis, Leiden, Toronto, and Vancouver. Lum has a curatorial record including co-curating Shanghai Modern: 1919 – 1945; Sharjah Biennial 7, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates and Monument Lab: Creative Speculations for Philadelphia. Lum is the co-founder and Senior Curatorial Advisor to Monument Lab, a public art and history thinktank. He was also Project Manager for the seminal Okwui Enwezor curated exhibition, The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa 1945 – 1994. Lum is represented by Magenta Plains Gallery, New York, Royale Projects, Los Angeles, Galerie Nagel-Draxler, Berlin and Misa Shin Gallery, Tokyo.

For questions about ICA Benefit 2023, please contact Taja Jones, Associate Director of Development, at (215) 573-0217 or tajaj@ica.upenn.edu.

ICA Benefit 2023 Co-Chairs

Laura Tisch Broumand
Benjamin M. Frost

ICA Benefit 2023 Sponsors:

Visionary Sponsor

Sun Capital Partners Foundation

Muse Sponsors

Brielle and Charles Block
Freeman’s
Cheri and Steven Friedman
Josephine Magliocco
Lisa Plepler
Caroline Gittis Werther and Daniel Werther

*List complete as of April 24, 2023

A limited-edition print by honoree Ken Lum is available to Visionary, Golden Muse and Muse sponsors of the event.

Ticket options are as follows:

Visionary Sponsor ($20,000)
• Ten VIP event tickets with early admission at 6:30 PM
• One limited-edition print from Ken Lum
• One private tour of ICA for up to 10 guests
• Prominent recognition on the digital supporter wall at the event

Golden Muse Sponsor ($10,000)
• Six VIP event tickets with early admission at 6:30PM
• One limited-edition print from Ken Lum
• One private tour of ICA for up to 6 guests
• Recognition on the digital supporter wall at the event

Muse Sponsor ($5,000)
• Four VIP event tickets with early admission at 6:30PM
• One limited-edition print from Ken Lum
• Recognition on the digital supporter wall at the event

Luminary ($2,500)
• Two VIP event tickets with early admission at 6:30PM
• Recognition on the digital supporter wall at the event

Champion ($1,250)
• One VIP event ticket with early admission at 6:30PM
• Recognition on the digital supporter wall at the event

Patron ($500)
• One VIP event ticket with early admission at 6:30PM

Advocate ($250)
• One ticket to the event, entrance at 8PM

Friend ($100)
• One ticket for artist, student, or arts professional, entrance at 8PM

For questions about ICA Benefit 2023, please contact Taja Jones, Associate Director of Development at tajaj@ica.upenn.edu.

If you are unable to attend ICA Benefit 2023, but would like to make a donation to ICA in support of the event, you can do so by visiting the ICA Benefit Gifts Fund webpage.