“I Dread to Think” installation by Nina Chanel Abney
November 16–August 1, 2025
Annenberg Center
Nina Chanel Abney, I Dread to Think (detail), 2012. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the Neumann Family Collection.
The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation, Arthur Ross Gallery, and Penn Live Arts present a unique opportunity to experience contemporary artist Nina Chanel Abney’s epic sixty-foot panting cycle, I Dread to Think (2012), which will be installed in the lobby of the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, from November 2024 to August 2025.
This installation is presented as part of the Arthur Ross Gallery exhibition, After Modernism: Selections from the Neumann Family Collection, which will be on view from January 10–March 1, 2025.
The installation of I Dread to Think is a collaboration between Arthur Ross Gallery, Penn Live Arts, and The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation.
About the Artist
Nina Chanel Abney (b. 1982, Harvey, Illinois) is a contemporary artist working across the mediums of painting, printmaking, and large-scale murals. Abney received a B.F.A from Augustana College in 2004 and an M.F.A from Parsons School of Design in 2007. The artist currently lives and works in New York.
Combining representation and abstraction, Nina Chanel Abney’s paintings capture the frenetic pace of contemporary culture. Broaching subjects as diverse as race, celebrity, religion, politics, sex, and art history, her works eschew linear storytelling in lieu of disjointed narratives. The effect is information overload, balanced with a kind of spontaneous order, where time and space are compressed, and identity is interchangeable. Her distinctively bold style harnesses the flux and simultaneity that has come to define life in the 21st century. Paying homage to the sophisticated color theories of Matisse, continuing the legacy of cubists Picasso and Léger, and connecting with the synesthetic sensibilities of Harlem Renaissance greats Douglas and Lawrence, Abney brings these historical movements into contemporary pertinence.