ICA Philadelphia opens Shaker survey amid renewed interest
"A World in the Making: The Shakers" opens Saturday at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and runs through Aug. 9, part of a wider surge of Shaker-inspired projects including films, dances and museum expansion. The traveling exhibition, a joint undertaking with the Vitra Design Museum and the Milwaukee Art Museum, presents more than 100 objects from the Shaker Museum in Chatham, N.Y., alongside works by seven contemporary artists.
Highlights cited in the ICA preview include seed-packaging, velvet-trimmed sewing boxes, a 1920s radio assembled from mail-order parts, a walk-in cardboard meetinghouse by Amie Cunat, funerary objects woven by Christien Meindertsma and a short film based on choreography by Reggie Wilson.
The show aims to move beyond the familiar oval box and chair, stressing the Shakers’ technological and commercial skills as well as their communal practices. Hallie Ringle, chief curator at the ICA, said, “What does it mean to build tomorrow for today? That is the question that the Shakers have been asking since their inception, but it feels more contemporary than ever.” The exhibition arrives alongside other Shaker-related developments: the film "The Testament of Ann Lee" and the recent appointment of Claudia Gould as executive director of the Shaker Museum.
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