Institute of Contemporary Art

118 S. 36th Street
University of Pennsylvania campus
tel: 215-898-5911 fax: 215 898-7108
web: http://www.icaphila.org
Hours: 12 - 8 pm Wednesday - Friday; 11 am - 5 pm Saturday and Sunday
Admission: $3 for adults; $2 for students over 12, artists, and senior citizens
Free to ICA members, children 12 and under, and on Sundays from 11 am to 1 pm

Milk and Honey(detail), 1994-1996
(2000 hand-thrown porcelain vessels)
collection: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

 

 

Charles LeDray


May 10 - July 14, 2002

 

 

 

About the Exhibition

Opening reception:
Friday, May 10, 6 - 8 pm

Artists in Dialogue - exhibition walkthrough with Charles LeDray
Friday May 10, 5 pm

The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania is organizing the first museum survey of the works of Charles LeDray. LeDray creates sculpture notable for its range of scale and wide variety of materials such as bone, fabric, and porcelain. His objects embody the conviction that ideas are experienced not only through the life of the mind but also through the skill of the hand. The exhibition opens May 11, 2002 and continues through July 14, 2002. The Preview Reception, which is free and open to the public, is scheduled for May 10, 2002 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. The ICA is located at 118 South 36th Street at the University of Pennsylvania.

In his sculpture, LeDray's meticulous attention to detail and personal subject matter elicits a strong response from the viewer. This is evident in such works as Milk and Honey, (1994-1996), in which 2000 unique, hand-thrown porcelain vessels are incorporated into a huge multi-tiered vitrine. For his clothing-based sculptures he embroiders patches, constructs zippers, and fabricates hangers. His oeuvre also includes human bone which has been sculpted into buttons, furniture, a shaft of wheat and Tellurian, (2000), a complex planetary model.

This comprehensive exhibition of recent works will feature approximately 30 pieces created by LeDray since 1989. Included are several of LeDray's early works such as untitled/Broken bear (1993), as well as his clothing based sculpture Come Together (1995-1996), and other pieces drawn from private and public collections.

The exhibition, curated by ICA Director Claudia Gould, will be accompanied by a full-color catalog. It will include an introduction by Gould, as well as an interview between her and the artist, and an essay by Russell Ferguson, Deputy Director of Exhibitions and Programs and Chief Curator, UCLA Hammer Museum. Following its opening at the ICA, the exhibition will travel to the Arts Club of Chicago, September 20-December 21, 2002; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, January 25, 2003-April 6, 2003; and the Seattle Art Museum, April 26-July 27, 2003.

Charles LeDray's work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 1993 he received the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award and in 1997 the Prix de Rome from the American Academy in Rome.
About the ICA

Founded in 1963 at the University of Pennsylvania, the Institute of Contemporary Art provides a forum for the presentation and documentation of recent developments in the visual arts. ICA challenges the public's understanding of contemporary art by presenting innovative work of established artists and the work of emerging artists through critically-acclaimed exhibitions, educational programs, and publications. New this year is a Project Space gallery designed to present smaller, one-person shows of emerging artists, and to serve as a laboratory for artists at various junctures in their careers to test new ideas and create experimental works.

See Space 1026: Scratch Off the Serial also currently at the ICA
See the ICA's previous exhibition