Associate professor of sculpture Corin Hewitt has been doing some independent archaeology, and his new show “Shadows Are to Shade” at the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU showcases the history he’s unearthed. Hewitt began excavating underneath his two-story home and studio in the Fan last year, and he’s since discovered that his 1915 house was once owned by the Ford family. The artifacts and research materials from his project will be on view at the ICA throughout the summer. Plus, the dig site at Hewitt’s home is open to interested visitors once a week.
This history is the foundation for the exhibition, which combines video, scrim walls, land alterations and artifacts — real and fabricated — divided between the second floor of the ICA and a room in Hewitt’s home, which will be open to visitors once a week.
“I’ve always been interested in the relationship of bases to sculpture — what the ground is that the figure stands on,” Hewitt says. “We expect that when we’re standing somewhere there’s a stability to what we’re standing on. I really like to think about unpacking that, the historical stability and the firmament that’s under that, [even] thinking about that politically.”