Over the past 40 years, ICI has built an unparalleled network of collaborators that includes curators, artists, and art spaces of all sizes, with the goal to support independent practice locally, and encourage the sharing of independent thought across the globe. This has been true since day one, and ICI today continues to build upon this rich history of supporting independent projects.
Exemplifying this support is ICI's current collaboration with Martha Wilson, which has roots in the late 1970s. Martha Wilson – an evolving retrospective of the artist’s work – and the Martha Wilson Sourcebook: 40 Years of Reconsidering Performance, Feminism, Alternative Spaces, continue ICI’s partnerships with the artist. Just three years after ICI was established, and at the same time as Wilson founded the alternative space Franklin Furnace, ICI produced Artists’ Books U.S.A, a unique survey exhibition of artists’ publications, co-curated by Wilson and Peter Frank. The show included well over a hundred examples of book art – showing a broad range of attitudes towards publishing, from ad-hoc to ephemeral, experimental to activist. From 1978 to 1980, it expanded the often informal distribution of these publications, reaching broad audiences in art spaces across North America. ICI has remained committed to supporting independent publishing as an artistic and curatorial practice, and regularly organizes panel discussions, events, and book launches, both at its Curatorial Hub and beyond.
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