Institute of Contemporary Art
The James and Audrey Foster Prize Exhibition
Yu-Wen Wu, Yu-Wen Wu, 2023-24. Installation view, 2023 James and Audrey Foster Prize, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, 2023-24. Photo by Mel Taing.
ICA Studio visit with Yu-Wen Wu
The 2023 James and Audrey Foster Prize exhibition is organized by Anni A. Pullagura, Assistant Curator.
First established in 1999, the James and Audrey Foster exhibition (formerly the ICA Artist Prize) nurtures and recognizes exceptional Boston-area artists. The 2023 James and Audrey Foster Prize exhibition presents the work of Cicely Carew (born in Los Angeles), Venetia Dale (born in Winfield, IL), and Yu-Wen Wu (born in Taipei, Taiwan). Each presentation includes both recent and new artworks that engage with the theme of states of change. Carew’s suspended sculptures and wall-based paintings wield found and repurposed materials to generate ideas of movement and freedom in the painted line. Dale’s metal and fiber sculptures—presented in this gallery—gather the fragments of her personal life to reflect the changing circumstances of everyday life within the home. Wu’s video, installations, and drawing practice assemble both ephemeral and precious materials such as tea, gold, and porcelain to consider themes of migration, memory, and cultural ties to family and community. Experienced together, the exhibition examines our tenuous relationships to expressions of care and the passing of time through the transformation of artistic materials in the making of an artwork.
—Anni Pullagura
Yu-Wen Wu (born in Taipei, Taiwan) centers her subjectivity as an immigrant in all her artworks, which examine issues of displacement, arrival, and assimilation in a new country. Each of her works begins with meticulous research, drawing on diverse fields of study to investigate the structures and systems that make up our social worlds. As a multidisciplinary artist, Wu is primarily interested in translating the individual components of one’s life into a visual form. Tea, lotus leaves, gold, porcelain, and stone are among the most common materials in her work, each speaking to the different aspects of Wu’s personal history and artistic practice.
—Anni Pullagura
