Looking down at the shimmering floor this past spring, ICA Director Amy Sadao, who joined the museum last fall, seems rather tickled by the whole thing. She says that the exhibition Field Kallop is part of, Glitter and Folds, was created to examine “glitter and the cultural capital of glitter.” She points to another piece in the show, Carter Mull’s photograph Pascal’s Wager (Dream of a Perfect Life), and notes the “interesting detritus” in the print—“all this glitter and decrepitude and decay.” Then she moves on, striding toward a large exhibition of work by the late photographer Brian Weil.
While Mull is a familiar name in the contemporary art world, this is Kallop’s first museum exhibition and Weil’s first career retrospective. But ICA has never shied away from firsts. As a result, there’s no way to predict what a visit to 118 S. 36th Street—the museum’s location since 1991—will turn up.