Philly's ICA: Free Contemporary Art, From Video to Installations

ICA charges nothing at the door, and nothing for the exhibitions. The Condition of Being Near fills the main galleries with cross-cultural networks, where Wifredo Lam, Yinka Shonibare, Candice Lin and Ming Wong are among nine artists tracing what Black, African and Chinese diasporas built from shared proximity. Wilmer Wilson IV: SKIRL! is the inaugural show of R+D, ICA's new annual research residency, following the eastern gray squirrel into the racial and ecological politics of civic life. And in the relaunched Project Space, Waste Scenes is Maia Chao and Fred Schmidt-Arenales's two-channel video, 40 minutes long, made inside a working Philadelphia recycling center. All of it is up through February 21, 2027.

Give the rooms ninety minutes, then walk six minutes to the Arthur Ross Gallery inside the Fisher Fine Arts Library, the Frank Furness building on 34th Street. It is free too, and stays free whichever show is on. Through December 13, 2026, At Liberty sets 41 paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture about how Philadelphia pictured itself around the founding — Krimmel's 1813 street scenes, a restored Gilbert Stuart portrait of the abolitionist Samuel Romilly, canvases by Benjamin West — with loans from the Met, PAFA, Winterthur, Pennsylvania Hospital and Penn's own collection. Allison Zuckerman: Remixed and Reclaimed stays up to March 18, 2027, so the second stop still earns the walk after it closes.

The two keep different hours. ICA runs Wednesday to Sunday 11 to 6, Thursdays until 8, closed Monday and Tuesday. Arthur Ross opens Monday to Thursday 11 to 6 and Friday to Sunday noon to 5, and shuts for University holidays and over the winter break of December 25 and 26 and January 1 and 2, so Wednesday and Thursday are the days both doors open at 11.