The International Art Critics Association (AICA/USA) has awarded the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at the University of Pennsylvania the First Place award for Best Show in a University Gallery for Dirt on Delight: Impulses that Form Clay, organized by curators Ingrid Schaffner and Jenelle Porter, with art historian Glenn Adamson. ICA accepted this honor at the AICA/USA awards ceremony on February 16, 2010 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.

The artists included in Dirt on Delight: Impulses that Form Clay included: Ann Agee, Robert Arneson, Kathy Butterly, Nicole Cherubini, Lucio Fontana, Viola Frey, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Jane Irish, Jeffry Mitchell, Ron Nagle, George Ohr, Ken Price, Sterling Ruby, Adrian Saxe, Beverly Semmes , Arlene Shechet, Rudolf Staffel, Paul Swenbeck, Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, Peter Voulkos , Beatrice Wood and Betty Woodman.

The exhibition at ICA (January 15–June 21, 2009) which included the work of 22 artists is documented in a fully-illustrated, 120-page scholarly catalogue with essays, and traveled to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota (July 11-November 29, 2009). At ICA, the exhibition garnered reviews in publications including Art in America, Ceramics Monthly and Frieze magazine, and on the front page of The New York Times Arts section.