Institute of Contemporary Art

Riverbend, Poetics of Dimension & Kathleen Ryan

INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART SAN FRANCISCO

NEW HOME – THE CUBE

345 MONTGOMERY STREET

HOURS:

Wednesday – Sunday: 11am – 5pm

Open late Thursdays: 11am – 7pm

ADMISSION ALWAYS FREE

Since its official launching in October 2022, ICA SF has presented eight world class exhibitions with FREE admission; pop-ups with over 120 Bay Area creatives; a public mural; programs; educational activities, and much more.

ICA SF has embraced a “startup mode” approach to their method of operations. In said startup mode, ICA SF’s hallmarks are: flexibility, creativity, and resilience. It maintains no permanent collections, allowing ICA SF to rapidly respond to current interests in the art world. (A “rapid response” in the museum world means planning less than two years in advance.)

Now officially housed in the unique, historical building, The Cube, and paying no rent for the first two years, ICA SF expects to establish financial sustainability in this new location. The goal is to build towards long term success and fully commit its resources to excellent contemporary art and artists.

The Cube is in the heart of the Financial District and near galleries and institutions like SFMOMA, MoAD, YBCA, the [currently closed] Contemporary Jewish Museum, and the Asian Art Museum. ICA SF’s new location will allow it to have a greater presence in the Bay Area’s creative ecosystem that continues to entwine itself with the fabric of The City.

ICA SF was founded with the commitment to staying nimble, examining the contours of what an art institution can be, enabling artists to experiment, and offering FREE admission for all. Looking forward, it will embrace non-traditional exhibition formats and invite artists to respond creatively to the unique architecture of The Cube, with its five-story atrium with endless light, complete with a grand entry staircase and cantilevered stairs connecting each floor.

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ICA SF is launching at The Cube with three exhibitions – Ongoing – February 23

RIVERBEND

Maryam Yousif debuts new site-specific installations. The ceramic and mixed-media relief sculptures incorporate snippets of personal memory, Mesopotamian and Assyrian mythology, and Iraqi art and architecture. Connecting with the rich tradition of Bay Area ceramics, Yousif interprets ancient objects and symbols alongside contemporary pop culture.

In 2003, an anonymous young woman in Baghdad, Iraq started a blog under the pseudonym Riverbend. She documented everyday life under American occupation, posting about everything from the anxieties of war and the complexities of presidential politics to the small comforts of family life. For readers around the world, Riverbend harnessed the power of the early internet to challenge Western propaganda about the Iraqi people.

Inspired by this legacy, San Francisco-based artist Maryam Yousif blends her own experience with Riverbend’s narrative. Wooden architectural structures frame snippets of Yousif’s early memories growing up in Baghdad. Women’s faces, channeling modernist painter Jewad Selim, gaze out at us from their windows. Ducks perch on trees, bridges, and doorways. A teapot and tray wait patiently for their guests. One lone palm tree floats disconnected from its roots.

The medium of clay itself bridges past and present—once fired, ceramics do not decompose. Like the blogger recording the shifting world around her, and the ceramic women making their witnessing known, Maryam Yousif asks: “What am I making permanent?”

Maryam Yousif was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1985, and lives and works in San Francisco CA. She received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2017.

SPOTLIGHT

KATHLEEN RYAN

Kathleen Ryan’s sculptures reimagine the detritus of American consumerism, creating a spectacular vision of beauty and abundance now marred by decay. Originally inspired by some holiday kitsch – artificial fruit ornaments – Ryan enlarges these trinkets into monumental sculptures, mixing precious materials with salvaged objects.

Over weeks, Ryan observes actual decaying fruit in her studio. Mimicking their blooming mold and soft bruises on gem-encrusted sculptures, she builds a universe of rotting excess where materials of luxury now symbolize mortality. Fruit slowly dies while mold grows and thrives. Ryan intentionally crafts the rinds of her lemon sculptures from simple mass-produced beads and the rotting bits from precious stones, crystals, and pearls. Embracing the double entendre of “lemon” itself, she toys with cultural assumptions of value.

For example, with her sculpture, Screwdriver, (below) Ryan began by salvaging the trunk of a classic 1968 AMC Javelin from a junkyard. She then transformed the automotive metal into the rind of an orange slice. Topped with a cherry and skewered by a found patio umbrella, the piece now becomes a cocktail garnish. Deeply influenced by growing up in Southern California, Ryan’s practice has a distinctly West Coast flavor. If California represents an ultra-American promise of decadence, these sculptures reveal an ugly, yet inevitable, decay. Faced with such seductive, larger-than-life symbols of our own overconsumption, we are asked to confront the tenuous and illusory conditions of American culture.

Kathleen Ryan (b. 1984, Santa Monica) studied art and archaeology as an undergraduate at Pitzer College, and received her MFA from UCLA.

POETICS OF DIMENSIONS

The "Poetics of Dimensions" illuminates artists who transform everyday objects – durags, shoelaces, felt, leather, single-use plastic – into powerful artistic expressions. Grounded in exploration and experimentation, these works alchemize “non-art” materials into poetic landscapes. Like poetry, visual art has the capacity to dive beneath the surface and reveal new perspectives on invisible forces around us. This exhibition finds the beauty in the unnoticed and the extraordinary in the mundane.

Each work on view is an homage to overlooked histories – amplifying voices, perspectives, and materials long consigned to the periphery. Artists pull from their cultural heritage, personal narratives, and social realities to forge a unique aesthetic language that resonates across boundaries.

Previously presented at Art Basel Miami Beach 2023, as a smaller installation, this exhibition encourages viewers to explore the dynamic relationship between form, function and meaning, and reconsider materials that shape our world.

Artists: Anthony Akinbola, Miguel Arzabe, Sonia Gomes, Melissa Joseph, Hugo McCloud, Rodney McMillian, Nengi Omuku, Esteban Ramón Pérez, Shinique Smith, Moffat Takadiwa, and Nari Ward.

EXHIBITION SOUNDSCAPE

(Created for "Poetics of Dimensions")

Vibe out to a special exhibition soundscape on Spotify curated by Carolyn “CC” Concepcion.

Carolyn “CC” Concepcion is a multifaceted artist whose work resists easy categorization, because it grapples directly with the complex systems that make business and culture work. CC's insights create unique opportunities to shape the future, foster community, and expand the realm of what’s possible.

CC is also one of the co-founders of the collective ARTNOIR.

For more information about ICA SF and the exhibitions, click here.