March 24 – August 7, 2011
"Hicks's exceptional body of work blurs boundaries between art, design, and architecture just as deftly as it crisscrosses cultures. "
The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) presents Sheila Hicks: 50 Years, the first major retrospective to honor this extraordinary American artist. Sheila Hicks has built an international reputation with her two- and three-dimensional works in fiber. Her remarkably far-reaching artistic focus has encompassed painting, sculpture, photography, weaving, fabric design, writing, publishing, teaching and collaborations with architects. Her early work of the 1960s was at the forefront of experimentation in sculpture. By the 1980s it had taken hold. Since that time, her unique work has explored the dynamic interactions of color and the skills required to hone an aesthetic vision in multiple media.
Featuring more than 90 of her most important works, including a major installation of a work on loan from Target's headquarters in Minneapolis displayed in an entirely new iteration, this exhibition offers insight into Hicks's thinking, her processes, and her approach to materials, both fibers and found objects. The project reveals the continuities between the artist's small weavings, and free-standing wrapped sculptures, and a colossal 20-foot high work suspended from ceiling and cascading from wall.
Hicks's exceptional body of work blurs boundaries between art, design, and architecture just as deftly as it crisscrosses cultures.
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