For a feature in Apollo, Hyunjee Nicole Kim travels around the city to see Philadelphia’s best offerings of contemporary art, including ICA’s current Rodney McMillian and Louise Fishman shows:
“Academic institutions, such as the Moore College of Art and Design, Tyler School of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the University of the Arts, provide a base for young artists to begin their careers in the city. In west Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) has, since 1963, led discourse on global contemporary art by featuring both the pioneering and the established. At the time of my visit, Rodney McMillian’s foreboding exhibition ‘The Black Show’ occupied the institute’s ground-floor gallery, exploring themes of race, class, and history, while the second-floor gallery featured a tightly curated show on the work of Louise Fishman and her investigation of small-scale objects (both until 14 August).”