The Plant That Heals May Also Poison is the first major United States exhibition of artist Ree Morton (1936-1977) in nearly four decades. The exhibition features several rarely seen works, including a selection of installations, drawings, sculptures, paintings, and archival materials which span a single decade of artistic production before Morton’s untimely death in 1977.
Throughout her career, Morton produced a philosophically complex body of work rich in emotion. Though celebrated by peers and younger artists, Morton’s influence on contemporary art remains considerable yet muted, her legacy widely underrecognized. The eclectic arc of Morton’s practice was rooted in Postminimalism, the inclusion of personal narrative—through literary, theoretical, and autobiographical references—and use of bold color and theatrical imagery infused her objects with sly humor and a concern with the decorative, generating a feminist legacy increasingly appreciated in retrospect. Reimagining tropes of love, friendship, and motherhood, while radically asserting sentiment as a legitimate subject of artmaking, Morton’s conceptually rigorous work demonstrates generosity towards the viewer, its spirit of playfulness and joy inflecting all aspects of the exhibition.
Organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, the exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue co-published with Dancing Foxes Press with texts by Kate Kraczon, the exhibition’s curator; artist Nayland Blake; Kathryn Gile; and scholars Roksana Filipowska and Abi Shapiro.
Please note: this exhibition has been extended due to ICA LA’s closure in response to the local and statewide COVID-19 stay-at-home order.
Ree Morton: The Plant That Heals May Also Poison is organized by The Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, and curated by Kate Kraczon, Curator, David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University. The ICA LA presentation is organized by Jamillah James, Curator.
Support for Ree Morton: The Plant That Heals May Also Poison has been provided by the Inchworm Fund. ICA Philadelphia was recognized as part of the inaugural Sotheby’s Prize (2017) with a commendation that applauds the breadth and depth of ambitious exhibition research for Ree Morton: The Plant That Heals May Also Poison. Additional support for has been provided by the Edna W. Andrade Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation, Nancy and Leonard Amoroso, Amanda and Andrew Megibow, and Norma and Lawrence Reichlin.
The ICA LA presentation is made possible thanks to the DEW Foundation, Leslie and Bill McMorrow, and Deedie Rose. Additional support is provided by Barbara Bluhm-Kaul and Don Kaul, Agnes Gund, Karen Hillenburg, Stella and Astrid Karron, Jill and Peter Kraus, the Wilhelm Family Foundation, and Friends of Ree Morton: Tim Disney; Kathleen and Chip Rosenbloom.
ICA LA is supported by Curator’s Council, Fieldwork, and 1717 Collective.
Virtual ICA LA: Ree Morton
360° exhibition documentation of Ree Morton: The Plant that Heals May Also Poison
Curators in Conversation
Kate Kraczon, curator of Ree Morton: The Plant That Heals May Also Poison and Jamillah James, ICA LA Curator
Sunday, February 16, 2020