Who's Afraid of the ICA?

In mid-March, like other area cultural institutions, the 2-year-old Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University shut its doors and canceled all remaining programs and exhibitions for the spring semester due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It should've been a time of celebration for the Richmond-based ICA, which was named as one of America’s “Ten Best New Museums” by USA Today earlier this year, the only contemporary art museum on the list. It also earned a rave from The New York Times, calling last year’s group exhibit “Great Force,” which examined white privilege and African American resistance, one of the art world’s unmissable events.

My in-depth Richmond Magazine feature on the ambitious Institute details its long-festering genesis, unusual design, long-term sustainability, and the reactions of the local arts community to the challenging, politically-charged exhibitions in its first two years. I talked to more than two dozen people for this article, and I hope it shows. 

Read Abstract Mission" by clicking this spot.

And for more on the Institute for Contemporary Art, take yourself here. 

(Photo of “Provocations: Guadalupe Maravilla, ‘Disease Thrower’ ” in the ICA’s True Farr Luck Gallery by David Hunter Hale courtesy ICA at VCU)