iCI is dedicated to enhancing the understanding and appreciation of contemporary art through traveling exhibitions and other activities that reach a diverse national and international audience. Collaborating with a wide range of eminent curators, iCI develops innovative traveling exhibitions, accompanied by catalogues and other educational materials, to introduce and document challenging new work in all mediums by younger as well as more established artists from the United States and abroad.

Acting as a laboratory of ideas and innovative curatorial approaches, iCI exhibitions feature a thought-provoking mix of subjects and artists. In this way, iCI provides opportunities for artists—frequently their first—to have their work seen widely in a critical context.

iCI substantially underwrites the exhibitions' booking fees through its fundraising efforts. By doing so, it fulfills one of its basic objectives: to make iCI exhibitions accessible to a wide range of arts institutions and thus to enable many different audiences to experience the art of our time.

Since its founding in 1975, iCI has created over 100 exhibitions that collectively have included the work of more than 3,000 artists. iCI exhibitions have been presented by over 500 museums, university art galleries, art centers, and alternative spaces in the United States and twenty-one other countries, and have been seen by some 5 million people.

iCI exhibitions provide diverse audiences with the opportunity to learn about significant developments in contemporary art internationally, and to understand those developments in relation to other current cultural trends and issues. The catalogues that accompany all iCI exhibitions enhance their educational impact by placing the exhibited work in art-historical, socio-political, or philosophical contexts. Additional educational materials are provided with each exhibition.

iCI is a non-profit organization with tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) status, supported, in part, by contributions and grants from individuals, foundations, corporations, the iCI Exhibition Partners, the iCI International Associates, and the iCI-Independents.