Paul Thek: Processions | Installation in progress (30 October – 11 November), Completed work (12 November – 4 December), 1977 [group of photographs]

Philadelphia: ICA Institute of Contemporary Art, 1977 (10), 12,7×17,7 cm [full sheet]. Group of 3 original photographs by Dave Menninger (whose photographs are also featured in the exhibition catalogue) on Kodak watermarked paper documenting Thek and crew during the installation of his enigmatic works. Important, previously unpublished (to the best of our knowledge) material. ICA labels with details pasted verso.

Joined: Paul Thek / Processions – Philadelphia: Institute of Contemporary Art; University of Pennsylvania, 1977. Exhibition catalogue. VG+ condition

Processions 1977. The Tower of Babel, 45 feet in height and 12 feet in diameter at its base, was erected above the Cave and Uncle Tom’s one- room shanty in ICA’s lower gallery. The Tower epitomizes man’s technological achievement but with the sinister suggestion that, to Thek at least, technology raises the sinful Babylon in a new form. To a pessimist, the Cave, Cabin, and Tower appear to sink into the Sea of Sand, while to an optimist, the forms are rising from the sea of time. In Thek’s iconography, sand is suggestive of the intersection of the timeless with time. (excerpt from the catalogue)