December 1, 2016

The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at the University of Pennsylvania and Mural Arts Philadelphia are very pleased to present a new temporary mural installation in conjunction with ICA’s current exhibition, The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now, on view through March 19, 2017.

Young students from Olney Charter High school will be painting a temporary mural installation on the 36th Street side of ICA’s building. The mural is a contemporary take on the Wall of Respect, a mural created in Chicago in 1967, composed of African American creative heroes of the time.

Students researched and created their own list of heroes to memorialize after learning about the civil rights movement and representational portraiture in class. Featured on the wall are Malcolm X, Michelle Obama, Alicia Keys, Janelle Monae, Cornbread, and Kevin Hart. Students will be joined by muralist Willis Humphrey—designer of the mural—and lead teaching artists Michael Konrad and Sydney Carter, who teach in the Mural Arts after-school program.

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