The director of the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, Amy Sadao, announced today that Daniel W. Dietrich II has donated $10 million to the ICA’s curatorial program. His gift is the largest in the museum’s history, almost doubling its total endowment and “guarantees multi-year curatorial research and exhibition development opportunities…[allowing] ICA’s curators and artists wide latitude to engage with what is difficult and daring; to investigate unknown territories, new exhibition strategies, and alternative presentations; and to take invaluable risks.”
—Artnews

Dietrich said, “It is important for ICA to take risks and probe things that curatorially have not been possible before. The time aspect of research and building relationships with artists is enormous and the trajectory is as long as it takes. That is the whole purpose, the spirit of this, that sense of exploration out into space for what we don’t know.”
—Artforum

The gift, [Mr. Dietrich] said, “is really about exploring the notion of what it means to be an artist.” That means, he said, giving artists and curators the time necessary to probe all manner of ideas, even those that don’t necessarily lead in a direct line to exhibitions.
—Philadelphia Inquirer

Press Release (PDF)
ICA Benefit 2015$10 Million Gift Elevates ICA’s Artist-Centered MissionICA Annual Benefit 2015Save the Date: ICA Annual Benefit on April 29, 2015$10 Million Gift Elevates ICA’s Artist-Centered Mission