Image: Michelle Lopez, Barricade, 2018, walnut, paint, steel, reflective fabric, paracord and rubble, 57 x 80 1/2 x 62 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Simon Preston, New York.

Marking the first major institutional exhibition of Michelle Lopez, the ICA has invited the Philadelphia-based artist to produce her most ambitious exhibition to date—a site-specific installation that reduces a city to rubble inside the museum. The exhibition will see the artist, known for creating sculptural works that subvert histories of minimalism through a feminist lens and deconstructing symbols of nationalism, power, and identity through a process of formal reduction, alchemy, and violence, expanding on her previous body of work, House of Cards (2018). Barricades, borders, scaffolding, and the remains of street protests responding to the destruction are suggested, interpreted, and meticulously crafted by hand. The work invokes an urban landscape fabricated out of real estate speculation and political discord, causing it to precariously teeter on the brink of collapse.