Raid the Icebox Now with Simone Leigh

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of its exhibition Raid the Icebox I with Andy Warhol, the RISD Museum has engaged contemporary artists and designers Pablo Bronstein, Nicole Eisenman, Pablo Helguera, Beth Katleman, Simone Leigh, Sebastian Ruth, Paul Scott, and Triple Canopy to create new bodies of work or create a unique curatorial project using the museum as a site for critical, creative production and presentation. Employing the galleries and digital platforms as well as spaces beyond the museum walls, these artists will question dominant narratives and highlight the strengths and idiosyncrasies of the museum’s collection, which includes more than 100,000 works spanning ancient times to the present. A landmark example of artist-curated museum exhibitions, Raid the Icebox I with Andy Warhol (1970) presented entire sections of objects as they appeared in storage, with little or no connoisseurial regard for their condition, authenticity, or art historical status. It remains one of the most celebrated and subversive exhibitions in contemporary art history.

Raid the Icebox Now is created using Ziggurat, an open-source publishing tool. Ziggurat was built by the RISD Museum in collaboration with Oomph, Inc. Our in-house project team includes creative direction from Jeremy Radtke and art direction by Derek Schusterbauer. Carson Evans and Brendan Campbell provided design. Oomph, Inc. project team includes design and UX support by J. Hogue, engineering support including architecture and site-build by Kathy Beck. John Picozzi is the senior Drupal architect and Ellen Diamond is the account manager. Our unending thanks to Evangelia Plezia, whose deft project management held it all together.

This publication accompanies the exhibition Raid the Icebox Now, on view at the RISD Museum September 13, 2019-September 6, 2020. Raid the Icebox Now is made possible by a lead grant from the National Endowment for the Arts with additional support from the RISD Museum Associates, Judy and Robert Mann, Taylor Box Company, and a generous in-kind gift from Meyer Sound Laboratories.

RISD Museum is supported by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and with the generous partnership of the Rhode Island School of Design, its Board of Trustees, and Museum Governors.

RISD Museum Director

John W. Smith

Deputy Director, Exhibitions, Education, and Programs

Sarah Ganz Blythe

Assistant Director, Digital Initiatives

Jeremy Radtke

Assistant Director of Museum Publications and Senior Editor

Amy Pickworth

Digital Media Fellow

Carson Evans

Content Producer

Carolyn Gennari

Senior Graphic Designer

Derek Schusterbauer

Graphic Designer

Brendan Campbell

Photographer

Erik Gould

ISBN 978-0-578-61190-7

All content including images, text, audio, video, and interactive media in this publication are available under CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0), Public Domain Dedication, unless otherwise noted.

Raid the Icebox Now was published online in December 2019 by the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design.

Errors will be corrected in subsequent editions.