ICA head to leave post this fall

Patrick Murphy, the director of Penn's Institute of Contemporary Art for the last eight years, announced yesterday that he will resign his post this fall and return to his native Ireland for a similar position. Murphy will step down in mid-November, but will remain with the 35-year-old ICA -- which helped launch the careers of artists like Andy Warhol -- in an adjunct status until the summer. After that, he will head to Dublin to take a post as the first professional director of exhibitions at the Royal Hibernian Academy, a recently revived and renovated art gallery and school. Murphy explained that a gallery like the ICA, which functions as a temporary exhibition space with constantly changing shows, needs to change its leadership after a certain time. "It's a bittersweet thing for me to leave, really," Murphy said. "I love this organization, but it's time." He likened himself, as the director of the ICA, to the editor of a magazine -- as opposed to an encyclopedia. "And like a magazine, we're highly editorialized," Murphy said. "The editor can't stay too long." Murphy's decision to resign was "entirely his own," according to Interim Provost Michael Wachter. Murphy leaves the ICA after having repaired its previously "shaky" financial situation. The institute had a $200,000 deficit last year. In April, the Provost's Office approved a plan Murphy submitted that will eliminate the ICA's current deficit over a three-year period. The ICA's budget has been reorganized to filter more money into its programming while consequently cutting down on staff. Financial issues aside, various artistic controversies highlighted Murphy's tenure at the ICA. He began his post during the height of the furor surrounding a controversial exhibit of the work of late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. In 1988, the ICA showed the exhibit, which was denounced as pornographic and homoerotic by some members of Congress. The controversy sparked a long debate about the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts -- which funds the ICA and many of its artists. Murphy came on board in 1990, just as Congress was tightening its procedure of awarding NEA money to Penn's ICA. "In ways the issue was argued in Washington," Murphy recalled. "But there was a lot of media attention here." A few years later, Murphy exhibited the work of Andres Serrano, whose works of provocative antireligious art -- including the now-famous "Piss Christ" -- were also the focus of several Congressional debates. The institute has a history of taking bold artistic steps. In 1964, a year after it opened, the ICA exhibited the work of the then-unknown Warhol and became the first public space to show his work. Murphy said he is returning to a cultural scene in Ireland that's completely different from what he left behind 10 years ago, describing it as "just a very vibrant situation." The search for Murphy's replacement has not yet begun. Wachter said Penn will seek "someone with exceptional artistic credentials," as well as management and financial experience. Murphy is the only director the ICA has had in its current space at 36th and Sansom streets, which it has occupied since 1991. It had previously been housed in other campus locations.

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