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The Plant That Heals May Also Poison

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The Plant That Heals May Also Poison

September 14, 2018 @ 12:00 am - December 23, 2018 @ 12:00 am EDT

The Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, is pleased to present the first major United States exhibition of artist Ree Morton (b. 1936, Ossining, New York; d. 1977, Chicago) in nearly four decades.

Ree Morton produced a prescient body of work rich in emotion and philosophically complex. Long celebrated by peers and younger generations, Morton’s influence on contemporary art remains considerable yet muted, her legacy widely underrecognized. Gathered in this exhibition are works produced during her short but prolific career, which span mediums and materials; reimagine tropes of love, friendship, and motherhood; and radically assert sentiment as a legitimate subject of artmaking.

Though the eclectic arc of Morton’s practice was rooted in Postminimalism, a poetic approach to language and symbolism progressively distanced her work from easy categorization. The inclusion of personal narrative—through literary, theoretical, and autobiographical references—and use of bold color and theatrical imagery infused her objects with sly humor and a concern with the decorative, generating a feminist legacy increasingly appreciated in retrospect. Morton’s conceptually rigorous work can seem esoteric at times, yet her intention is ultimately one of generosity towards the viewer, and it is in the spirit of playfulness and joy that this exhibition hopes to expand.

Morton’s practice was profoundly shaped by her time in Philadelphia, where she attended graduate school at the Tyler School of Art and taught for several years at Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts). A major sculptural work, Sister Perpetua’s Lie, was created for a 1973 exhibition at ICA and is currently on view in this retrospective. The exhibition features several of these rarely seen installations, along with a selection of drawings, sculptures, paintings, and archival materials which span a single decade of artistic production before Morton’s untimely death in 1977.

Ree Morton: The Plant That Heals May Also Poison is organized by Kate Kraczon, Laporte Associate Curator, and will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue co-published with Dancing Foxes Press with texts by the curator, artist Nayland Blake, Kathryn Gile, and scholars Roksana Filipowska and Abi Shapiro.

Details

Start:
September 14, 2018 @ 12:00 am EDT
End:
December 23, 2018 @ 12:00 am EDT
Event Category:
Website:
https://icaphila.org/exhibitions/ree-morton-the-plant-that-heals-may-also-poison/

Organizer

Institute of Contemporary Art
Phone
(215) 898-7108
Email
hello@ica.upenn.edu
View Organizer Website

Venue

Institute of Contemporary Art, Tuttleman Auditorium
118 S. 36th St
Philadelphia , PA 19104 United States
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