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From interpreting classical Greek plays to choreographing for David Bowie and David Byrne, iconoclast Annie-B Parson creates work like none other. 

If you don’t know Annie-B Parson, you should. In addition to 25 years co-directing the New York-based company Big Dance Theater with artistic and life partner Paul Lazar, the consummate innovator has choreographed David Byrne’s musical Here Lies Love and the David Bowie musical Lazarus; created movement for marching bands, choruses, and inanimate objects; and developed a unique blend of dance, literature, and theater that is as incisive as it is irresistible.

Parson sat down with the ICA in advance of Big Dance Theater’s presentation of their 25th-anniversary celebration Short Form to talk inspiration, process, not selling your audience short, and what makes her “art heart” weep.

Short Form is a program of five short pieces celebrating your 25th anniversary, but the works are new, yes? How did you choose this approach? 

The dances were, by and large, new work when they premiered at the Kitchen in January. However, the final piece on the program, Goats, was a favorite work that Paul Lazar and I made for another company years back and wanted to revisit. I revised it based on my experiences working in the theater since the original production, and tailored it for Big Dance. 

Why work short?

It occurred to me, after sitting through many, many shows in downtown dance, that they all run roughly about the same length, and I wanted to disrupt that aspect of form. And, I had been reading very short fiction that seemed rooted in both poetic forms and our contemporary attention span. I found the short form compelling—it has different operating principles—so, I challenged myself to create works that are granular, brief—a short story rather than a tome. I got really involved in all things short for a little while.

Was it more or less difficult than you expected? 

It’s very difficult. In fact, I don’t think I’ve mastered it, but I enjoyed this period! It felt I was drawing rather than painting; the scale is lithe and flexible. However, I think I more organically understand how to develop materials and ideas over an hour-to-two-hour piece. Duration, it turns out, is personal. 

There are few authors who are masters of both the long and short form. Chekhov always wrote short pieces—he never wrote a novel. His novellas are my favorite works of his. I think Balanchine also worked best at a certain scale. Of course he made long-form pieces; we know them well. But he was a master at making the 15-to-20-minute piece.

Duration, it turns out, is personal. 

Big Dance Theater is celebrating its 25th anniversary. How did you come to develop the company’s particular language straddling dance and theater back in 1991? 

I was a young choreographer who trained in dance, and then I was asked by a theater company to choreograph for them. I stepped into three roles with this group that were formative: co-director/sound designer/choreographer—all in one—this combination of generative roles became central to my young voice. At the time, I didn’t know much about theater, but I knew my Balanchine, Cunningham, Judson Church…honestly, I had never really been interested in plays. Dance people can be quite sequestered in their art. 

At that moment, Pina Bausch came to town—I think these were her first pieces at BAM in the early 1980s. It was fascinating to see how she affected the dance community, because she really shakes down from a different family tree than the tree we were falling from. We were more like the children of the Judson Church family tree, where we prized pedestrianism, the prosaic, and the anti-theatrical. Before Pina, NYC was inventing a virtuosity of structure. And there comes Pina, with her costumes and her gigantic sets and her sense of Theater with a capital “T”! Off came the ubiquitous drawstring pants and I swear, for a while I saw lots of evening gowns and high heels on the downtown stages.

It was a really interesting moment, and I was very affected by Pina Bausch, both structurally and theatrically, as I was just starting. I didn’t notice that I was blending things—I was just playing out my imagination. I didn’t really think that I was living on this cusp between dance and theater. I never really thought about it. But I was certainly borrowing theatrical elements: character, causation, relationship, and mixing them with dance structures, yet always avoiding the straight-up narrative form of story ballet, or plays that tell stories and suggest moralities.  

I didn’t notice that I was blending things—I was just playing out my imagination.

Has the company’s tone or practice significantly changed over the 25 years?

It has. Some of that has to do with Paul [Lazar]: after I made the first couple large-scale pieces, he started to co-direct with me. He came from the theater tradition, and that perspective affected the work, of course. With Paul, we straddled the worlds of dance and theater more than ever, and sometimes even did plays. I wouldn’t have done a play on my own, but I was a dancer interested in literature—so it was exciting. Before he came in, I had made pieces that theatricalized and borrowed from literature (Flaubert, Pinter, the Greeks) but Paul brought in ideas around how to perform the self on stage, as well as how to technically approach text, and this changed the character of the work. 

In the past 25 years we have had the incredible good fortune to tangle with some extraordinary literature: Euripides, Chekhov, Anne Carson, Flaubert, Twain, Tanizaki, Sibyl Kempson, Mac Wellman—and “found” text is one of our favorite authors!

Yet dance remains the sacred object in the room. In Short Form, one of the things I wanted to do was return to making some pieces that are dance-based, simply. I hadn’t done that in a long, long time.

You’ve mentioned sensing audience discomfort with abstraction and non-narrative work. What can artists or presenting organizations like the ICA do to help audiences feel more comfortable with this kind of work? 

You’re asking the wrong person! I am really not supportive of hand-holding. Maybe the best thing we could do is warm up the audience with a vaudeville act—or karaoke! 

When the audience feels alert, their imaginations kick in, they wake up. Or, from a more intellectual perspective, presenting ideas around how to think about abstraction, and what abstraction is made up of, is helpful—not in terms of a particular work, like, “this is what the artist thinks they’re doing”—but concepts around abstraction and how it’s present in our world all the time. I’m looking at three lampshades right now, and you could say their relationship is non-narrative, so it’s abstract. Here, the subject matter is purely shape and light. What great content: shape and light! How can you look at abstract elements and see the world from the perspective of these elements?  But to explain work to audiences—no. That’s selling everyone short!

When I am moved by the art of the choreography I feel my art heart weeping.

A common response your work seems to be “I’ve never seen anything like it.” What feeds your creativity? 

Everything! Literature; stoop sales; overheard phone calls on the street; the structure of things; politics; taking a walk; how people behave toward each other, how they move and don’t move; even our conversation today. Really, as much as I can become aware of in any given moment and then synthesize it into what we are working on. When I am in the middle of creating a new work, my mind is a magpie and a scavenger, looking at everything as material.

Do you have a regular creative practice? 

I think choreography is like playing the violin: you have to practice constantly. I feel like I’m always working, but I don’t have a studio, so it’s not regulated.

Outside of Big Dance Theater, you’ve choreographed for David Byrne, St. Vincent, Nico Muhly, and the recent David Bowie musical Lazarus, among many other projects. How do you decide whether to take on a project? 

The music. If I can relate to the music from an artistic perspective, I am drawn to the project. If I personally understand and am compelled by it, have a take on it from a dance perspective that is my own, then I want to do the project. 

It must be different to choreograph for people you don’t know as opposed to your own company. 

Well, we share no common vocabulary or memory for sure! But I love how non-dancers dance, when they dance with intentionality. I’ve choreographed for symphony orchestras and marching bands, objects, masses of singers; I like limitations. Once I understand these limitations, I can then be generative. Exploit the negative! as Richard Foreman says. 

That sounds like how you work with your company—finding common ground. 

Well, in the context of Big Dance, I feel I’m pushing people hard in my group, and seeing how they respond; its exciting—like playing an intense tennis match. It’s gigantically rare and precious to be allowed the time and space to make dance, so the stakes must be high. I become disinterested when I look at work where people don’t ask very much of their performers. 

It’s so difficult to explain to a non-dance lover how a piece moves or inspires you. How would you describe what you prize or value or what inspires you in a dance or theater performance? 

I think it’s hard to iterate because it’s purely kinetic—you can’t logic it out; you need to go into a liminal space to experience dance. There’s even a great term for it: kinesthetic empathy. This is the physical experience of you in the audience feeling like your body is moving as the performer’s body is moving, that you soar as they leap; it’s a falling in love, in a way. Dance owns this physical empathy with the audience. But dance must also operate as an art form that has structures that are as brilliantly constructed as a great technician. When I am moved by the art of the choreography I feel my art heart weeping. This is the highest experience for me viewing dance—more than a great leap—a virtuosic structure; it has to do with the boning, the architecture in the material. And it takes just a few minutes when you’re in the audience to see what the dance maker’s contract is with the audience. Once the dancemaker lays out her stuff, it’s like, “Ok, I see what you’re up to, now let’s see what you do with it.” And you watch it unfold. I find that really suspenseful. 

Before you go, we have to talk about the party, complete with ping-pong and beer, during the intermission of Short Form.

I initially envisioned the party as a piece called Intermission. It’s a piece that’s a party and the audience are the performers, but they don’t know that. Its also a device, both to create community in the theater, and as a tool to wake up the audience. After the intermission party, the audience returns to their seats, they seem very aware, listening and watching harder, because they’ve moved and talked and played. It works!

 

David Henry, the ICA’s Bill T. Jones Director of Performing Arts, shares his picks for the best dance in Boston and beyond this fall.

There’s tons to look forward to this season, including performances by two of the most adventurous and creative female choreographers working today — who both happened to develop these works in residencies as part of our Summer Stages Dance at the ICA/Boston program.

First up is Maria Hassabi’s STAGED at the Kitchen in New York October 4–8. Maria and her company of four dancers were at the ICA for two weeks this past July focusing on the choreography, staging, and lighting for this work. I like to refer to Maria’s work as the slowest dance ever, as the dancers move, almost imperceptibly at times, from one form to another. But upon close looking, which her work demands, you realize that they are in constant movement—their breath, the spasms of muscles, their gaze. And with that close, careful looking, you fall into their trance. It is intimate. It is hypnotic. It is beautiful. And it will be coming to the ICA in March!

…their breath, the spasms of muscles, their gaze. And with that close, careful looking, you fall into their trance. It is intimate. It is hypnotic. It is beautiful.

Next is Faye Driscoll’s Thank You for Coming: Play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, November 16–19. Faye and company were the Summer Stages Dance at the ICA/Boston artists in residence in 2015. It was here that they began work on this, the second part of Driscoll’s Thank You for Coming trilogy. (The first, Attendance, was staged here a year ago.) In her work, performers and audience members come together to explore the spaces between what we say and what we mean.

Also on my list, the French Institute Alliance Française puts on a festival in New York called Crossing the Line that is consistently amazing. This year is no exception, with shows by Rachid Ouramdane, Jérôme Bel, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Tim Etchells, and more. Sep 22–Nov 3

Because I have the great privilege of seeing some of the most creative contemporary choreographers from around the world, I always wish I had the capacity to present more. For this reason I am thrilled that New Movement Collaborative and Green Street Studios have come together with a new festival, “Lion’s Jaw.” Performances by 11 nationally recognized choreographers, including Miguel Gutierrez, The Body Cartography, Paul Matteson, K.J. Holmes, and Sara Shelton Mann, will present Boston a survey of what contemporary dance is now. Many of the artists will also be offering classes, workshops, and labs, giving the local dance community a chance to work closely with these innovative choreographers. Oct 7 + 8.

I hope I can get to BAM to see Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performing Group’s newest dance, Citizen in December. Reggie was a Summer Stages Dance resident artist in 2014 and presented Moses(es) during our 2014–15 season. He was already talking about this work then (it was the same year we had Claudia Rankin here to read from her book Citizen.) This brand new work is inspired by African-American figures throughout history who were conflicted and chose not to leave their home country in spite of pervasive racism. Five dancers perform in a series of provocative solos that overlap and intersect, asking: What does it mean to belong, and to not want to belong?

In addition to Driscoll and Wilson, BAM’s Next Wave Festival is also celebrating Stephin Merritt’s 50th birthday, Bill T. Jones is premiering a new work at the Joyce, and Lars Jan has a new work at New York Live Arts. All in all there will be too, too much. See you on the Northeast Corridor tracks! 

 

 

ICA staff share their recommendations for the best art, music, talks, film, participatory art projects, and pancakes to check out this fall.

The heftiest compendium of ICA staff recommendations yet.

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS: Yoko Ono’s Community-Sourced Art Piece Arising, in conjunction with the exhibition One More Story… at the Reykjavik Art Museum
Oct 7, 2016–Feb 5, 2017

This October, the Reykjavik Art Museum opens Yoko Ono’s latest exhibition, One More Story… In association with the exhibition, Ono has issued a call-to-action for women all over the world, inviting them to submit their own stories of harm, trauma, and harassment, along with a photograph of their eyes. The contributions will become part of an onsite work, Arising. Submissions can be delivered in person, through the mail, or via email. The work resonates strongly with me because there hasn’t been any woman I have known that hasn’t experienced some kind of transgression based on their gender. I encourage all woman to participate and let their stories be seen and heard!  —Carly Bieterman, Box Office Manager

Martine Gutierrez: True Story at Boston University Art Galleries
October 14-December 11 (Artist Talk October 13 at 6:30 PM)

RISD graduate Martine Gutierrez’s hauntingly seductive imagery explores the construction of gender and self. Her solo show at Boston University’s art galleries, True Story, will present video and photographic works by the Brooklyn-based performance artist. I recently became a big fan of Gutierrez’s music and look forward to spending time with her visual works in the galleries. —Lenny Schnier, Education Department Assistant

ART: Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons at Samsøn Gallery
Through Oct 15

I am mostly familiar with Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons’s pieces comprising multi-paneled, large-scale Polaroids; so I am excited to see this series of works on paper at Samsøn that she made in conjunction with her participation at the 2013 Venice Biennale. Across many different mediums, Campos-Pons’s work conveys ideas related to history, race, gender, memory, and the formation of identity.  —Chris Hoodlet, Membership Manager

DESIGN: Bryony Roberts, Tailored, at Pinkcomma Gallery
Through Oct 21 

I just found out about the wonderful small exhibition space Pinkcomma, run out of the studios of architecture and design firm Over, Under, in the South End. They’ve got a great interactive sculpture exhibition by the designer Bryony Roberts on now, and I’ll look forward to following their programming in the future. The small space has a big mission in Boston: “The gallery aims to foster and recognize a more creative and experimental scene that has grown out of one of the world’s most significant capitals of architectural education. For all the city’s stodginess, Boston’s six architecture schools and their instructors have unleashed some of the most provocative figures on the world scene. Why hasn’t this culture permeated the city’s own architectural sense of itself?” —Dan Byers, Mannion Family Senior Curator

For those holding onto summer with its deep, shadowy greens, and floral flourishes, this show’s for you.

ART: Milton Avery’s Vermont at Bennington Museum
Through Nov 6

Get yourself to bucolic Bennington, Vermont, for some of the most beautiful works on paper you will ever see in person. Milton Avery’s watercolors are some of the most sensitive, inventive, weird, delicate, and descriptive marking-making I have seen in some time. Unlikely, poetic color choices animate passages of dry hatching, lush and wet multi-color strokes, and an all-over surface that both evokes the natural world it illustrates and creates a field of deeply pleasurable abstraction. For those holding onto summer with its deep, shadowy greens, and floral flourishes, this show’s for you.  —Dan Byers, Mannion Family Senior Curator

ART: Sarah Sze at Rose Art Museum
Through Dec 11

Sarah Sze, who choreographed a performance piece with Trajal Harrell in Fiber: Sculpture 1960–present and represented the United States in the 55th Venice Biennale, recently created an immersive, large-scale installation piece for the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. The kinetic work, called Timekeeper, tracks her inventive and chaotic method of keeping time–an exciting concept to steep oneself in and explore in the museum’s largest gallery space. Catch a talk by the artist on Nov. 17 at 6:30.  —Shane Silverstein, Performing and Media Arts Assistant

ART: Vision and Justice: The Art of Citizenship at the Harvard Art Museums
Through Jan 8, 2017

The Harvard Art Museums have an illustrious history as teaching museums, and the crop of small exhibitions organized by faculty for their classes this semester demonstrates the beautiful possibilities of a teaching with art. Sarah Lewis’s show Vision and Justice: The Art of Citizenship “examines the contested relationship between art, justice, and African American culture from the 19th through 21st century in the United States” and includes elegant, provocative juxtapositions between formally innovative documentary photography from the 1960s and conceptually driven photographic practices of the current day. A rhyming back-and-forth between clothing and textiles, poignant gestures, and tightly framed bodies presents a pairing of Gordon Parks and Lorna Simpson that I will not soon forget.

Around the corner from Lewis’s show is a small presentation of a few great print works by Philip Guston and Ben Shahn, two of my first favorite artists (we’re definitely overdue huge surveys of both of those artists’ timely and urgent work). The pairing is part of Matt Saunder’s invitingly titled Painting, Smoking, Eating, a painting class that would send me back to undergrad in a second.  —Dan Byers, Mannion Family Senior Curator

Sophisticated, tough, smart, and dealing with some culture’s most urgent issues around education, race, gender, relationships, and the digital condition…

ART: UH-OH: Frances Stark 1991–2015 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Through Jan 29

I sadly missed Frances Stark’s survey exhibition when it opened at the Hammer in LA, so I’m happy that our friends at the MFA are bringing the show to our doorstep. Sophisticated, tough, smart, and dealing with some culture’s most urgent issues around education, race, gender, relationships, and the digital condition, Stark’s formal innovations never cease to amaze.  —Dan Byers, Mannion Family Senior Curator

FILM: kijidome Presents Lola Rocknrolla
Sep 17–Oct 22; Opening Reception and Screening Sep 17, 6–8 PM

A sucker for anything John Waters-esque or B-movie camp, I am looking forward to kijidome’s presentation of Lola Rocknrolla’s riotous and subversive films this fall. An amalgamation of counterculture, burlesque, drag, and an irreverent practice of taking stereotypes for a joyride and thereby turning them on their heads feels important, timely, and still fresh.  —Kate McBride, Marketing Associate

PERFORMANCE: 1 Minute Solos at Mobius
Sep 24

I am super excited about a performance event that I am involved with at Mobius! It will be an event of one-minute short performances based on the theme movement. I will be exploring how food responds and moves on my body.  —Carlie Bristow, Teen Programs Assistant

FESTIVAL: International Pancake Film Festival at the Brattle Theatre
Sep 29

The International Pancake Film Festival, now in its ninth year, brings a stack of homemade, pancake-centric short films to the Brattle Theatre on Thursday, September 29. For the first time, the festival will add a theme to the standard pancake motif: Nautical. Pancakes served at 7:30; show begins at 8.  —Shane Silverstein, Performing and Media Arts Assistant

TALK: Douglas Crimp at Boston University
Oct 6

More than any other art critic, Douglas Crimp was on the forefront of AIDS activism and theorizing the artistic strategies that would become known as “The Pictures Generation,” and post-modernism more broadly. These seemingly contrasting threads in his personal life and scholarship are the subject of his memoir, Before Pictures, which he will share at Boston University on October 6.  —Samuel Adams, Curatorial Research Fellow

MUSIC: Lake Street Dive at the Wang Theatre
Oct 7

Lake Street Dive are no strangers to Boston, having formed the band while studying New England Conservatory of Music, but I would argue they’re still underappreciated. Smart, spirited, and technically superb, they make even covers—including the Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back” and a genius interpretation of “Rich Girl” by Hall + Oates that surprises me every single time I hear it—sound both classic and totally new. Don’t miss this chance to hear them in the gorgeous Wang Theatre, before they get any bigger.  —Kris Wilton, Associate Director of Creative Content and Digital Engagement

In Edgar Arcenaux’s hands, the historical anecdote becomes like a massive fulcrum, lifting hefty objects and shifting understanding.

ART: Edgar Arcenaux: Written in Smoke and Fire at the MIT List Visual Arts Center
Oct 14, 2016–Jan 8, 2017

Many artists mine history, often for those arcane stories that, when levied, teach us a lot. In Edgar Arcenaux’s hands, the historical anecdote becomes like a massive fulcrum, lifting hefty objects and shifting understanding. I am simply thrilled to be able to see his new performance installation Until, Until, Until… based on Broadway star Ben Vereen’s infamously misunderstood blackface performance at Ronald Reagan’s 1981 inaugural event, in addition to two other significant works.  —Ruth Erickson, Associate Curator

ART: Now’s the Time, at UMass Boston’s University Hall Gallery
Through Oct 17

Todd Pavlisko rarely stays within any boundaries set by galleries, museums, or the visual arts. He has shot a gun down a museum hall of great master paintings, cast discarded coins he’s found in gold, and hammered a nail through his own foot. Last I checked in with him, he was working with students and an engineer at Wentworth to create a functioning catapult. Adventurous, humorous, and earnest (in a cheeky Midwestern way), Pavlisko surely has something interesting up his sleeve for his solo show at the UMass art gallery.  —Ruth Erickson, Associate Curator

MARKETPLACE: Boston Public Market’s Harvest Party
Oct 20

I’ve been a huge fan of Boston Public Market since it opened last summer – all my favorite local vendors are there; plus I’ve discovered so many new things to love! Their Harvest Party in October sounds like all my favorite things – food, cooking, music, and more food – and the ticket price supports their operating costs as a nonprofit.  —Hannah Gathman, Associate Director of Special Events and Outreach

TALK: Zanele Muholi lecture at MassArt
Oct 25

The fall season is often over-packed with incredible events and programming, but I am particularly excited about Zanele Muholi’s lecture at MassArt on October 25. The South African photographer’s poignant and impactful portraits of individuals from black LGBTI communities in her native country have garnered well-deserved international attention and critical acclaim over the past few years. Muholi’s images, some taken a decade earlier, resonate to this day and speak profoundly to our current socio-political climate. As she is based in Johannesburg, it is a treat to have her in the area and should be illuminating to hear her discuss her own work and practice.  —Jessica Hong, Curatorial Assistant

ART: Embodied Absence: Chilean Art of the 1970s Now and Renée Green: Pacing, both at Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
Oct 27, 2016 – Jan 8, 2017 + October 2016–April 2018 respectively

In advance of leaving the Carpenter Center for California College of the Arts this fall, former director James Voorhies solidified some incredible programming, including Embodied Absence: Chilean Art of the 1970s Now, coordinated by guest curator Liz Munsell of the MFA. Looking back at Chile’s violent coup d’état and its aftermath, the exhibition will smartly carry forward works and documentation from that period into the present through responsive performances and collaborations by a younger generation of Chilean artists. Also starting in October is artist Renée Green’s two-year Institution (Building) residency and exhibition. A professor in MIT’s program in Art, Culture and Technology since 2011, Green has yet to receive the institutional visibility in Boston that her work deserves, so a two-year deep dive is both timely and necessary.  —Jeffrey De Blois, Curatorial Assistant

ART: Bruce Conner: It’s All True at MoMA and then SFMoMA
Until October 2 + Oct 29, 2016–Jan 22, 2017

When I first saw Conner’s pulsating 1966 black-and-white dance film Breakaway, I was mesmerized, and then I learned about his funky assemblage sculptures from Kevin Hatch’s revealing study, and I was hooked. I am not sure I am going to get to see this major survey at MoMA in New York, but I am going to make a special trip to San Francisco to see it at SFMoMA and, while I’m there, scope the newly renovated and massively expanded museum.  —Ruth Erickson, Associate Curator

TALK: “Art After Democracy” at the Clark Art Institute
Nov 1

On November 1, the Clark Art Institute will host a conversation on “Art After Democracy,” allowing thinkers such as Tania Bruguera and Boris Groys to respond to neoliberal practices that have spectacularized and commodified cultural production over the last twenty-five years.  —Samuel Adams, Curatorial Research Fellow

…it hits you in the gut and won’t easily be forgotten.

ART: Doris Salcedo: The Materiality of Mourning at the Harvard Art Museums
Nov 4, 2016–Apr 9, 2017

I was lucky enough to see an exhibition of Doris Salcedo’s work at the MCA Chicago last year, and I can’t believe I have a second chance to experience it so soon again in her solo exhibition Doris Salcedo: The Materiality of Mourning at the Harvard Art Museums. I have a longstanding interest in memorials and monuments, especially quieter, less monumental ones. Among the most poignant I’ve seen are Salcedo’s sensitive, even feminine works memorializing individuals lost to political violence in Colombia, such as A Flor de Piel, a room-sized tapestry of thousands of carefully pressed, hand-stitched rose petals. Like her work Atrabiliarios in the ICA’s collection, it hits you in the gut and won’t easily be forgotten. Also, don’t miss the excellent film about Salcedo’s incomparable public works.  —Kris Wilton, Associate Director of Creative Content and Digital Engagement

MUSIC: The Berlin Philharmonic at Symphony Hall
Nov 11

The Berlin Philharmonic is one of the finest orchestras in the world, with a bottom-heavy, brassy tone that is rarely heard in American orchestras. Their beloved, outgoing conductor, Sir Simon Rattle, leads them in a special concert that includes Gustav Mahler’s monumental 7th Symphony in Symphony Hall on November 11 as part of Celebrity Series of Boston.  —Samuel Adams, Curatorial Research Fellow

 

 

The collector and benefactor reflects on art, empowering women, and how her life’s work aligns with the ICA’s mission.

Barbara Lee has been instrumental in advancing the ICA and establishing The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women. Over the past ten years, Lee has donated more than 65 works of art to the ICA, by artists including Louise Bourgeois, Ellen Gallagher, Mona Hatoum, Eva Hesse, Marisol, Doris Salcedo, Cindy Sherman, Lorna Simpson, Kiki Smith, Kara Walker, and many more. As the ICA prepared to open First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA, featuring an exhibition of work from The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women, we spoke with Lee about the personal and the political in art, collecting, and her support of the ICA.

Barbara Lee Headshot.jpeg

For more than two decades, you’ve been a member of the ICA’s Board of Trustees and one of its most ardent supporters and advocates. How did you choose to de­vote yourself to the ICA in this way?

The ICA’s vision powerfully aligns with my own. The museum has a spirit of independence, defies expectations, and chal­lenges the status quo—all the things that embody my life’s work to empower women. I have a longstanding passion for the ICA as the innovative, groundbreaking art institution in my hometown. I’m proud to have helped cultivate its place as a leading contemporary art museum in the world.

What have been your guiding principles in collecting and gifting works of art?

Over time, I’ve shifted my collecting focus from iconic images of women to iconic images by women. I’ve invested in women artists who are pioneers, whose work is an important influence on other artists working today.

My collection is personal and political. It showcases women’s explorations of female identity, highlights my own values, and reflects my 25-year history with the ICA. The museum’s exhibitions introduced me to the work of many of the artists in my collection.

Despite decades of activism, female artists are still underrepresented in the majority of museum collec­tions—an imbalance you’ve sought to reduce. Why did this issue jump to the fore for you personally? What impact do you believe it would have if women creators were equally represented in the cultural sphere?

Work by women artists reflects my own experience and values. The Guerrilla Girls’ activism awakened me to the reality of how few women are represented in museum exhibitions and collections. One of their posters perfectly captures the senti­ment of their work: “Do women have to be naked to get into a museum?”

In the 1990s, two parts of my life came together when I realized women were underrepresented in both the world of politics and the world of art. Art imitates life. Women haven’t been fully valued in society; when they are depicted in art, they are often objectified. Just as women have fought to have a seat at the table in politics, so too have they struggled to be taken seriously as artists.

There is a palpable shift when courageous leaders like Ellen Matilda Poss Director Jill Medvedow support the work of underrecognized artists.

This is the first time that this group of works will be on display together. What does that mean for you? Are there any you’re especially looking forward to seeing?

Celebrating ten years as a collecting institution is a dream come true. We set out to accomplish a cultural shift for Boston and beyond, and First Light supports this important achievement.

The piece I most look forward to seeing is Cornelia Parker’s Hanging Fire (Expected Arson). I acquired this sculpture knowing it would not fit in my home, and hoping the ICA would choose to become a collecting institution. The charred remains of an actual suspected arson are suspended in mid-air like a phoenix—signifying beauty rising from destruction.

Any favorite moments from this decade on the waterfront?

I will always remember the excitement of putting that first shovel in the ground to build this museum. The shovel is hanging in my office as a reminder of that day. It’s thrilling to see how far we’ve come. And this is just the beginning.

 

Barbara Lee photo by Goat Rodeo Productions

Four impressive (and supremely cool) ICA teens active in this week’s Teen Convening share their experiences working with the ICA, finding themselves, making art + meeting Whoopi Goldberg. These teens have got it going on.

Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director of the ICA, has been known to say that the ICA Teens are the heart and soul of the institution. The members of the ICA Teen Council work on site several times a week for years, and their faces are as familiar around the offices as those of the staff. Students in the Fast Forward program may spend more after-school time here than anywhere else.

Their engagement with the ICA combines hard work (organizing huge events), artist encounters (meeting or making art with artists, choreographers, authors, and musicians), creative projects (making films), and amazing opportunities (meeting Michelle Obama, Whoopi Goldberg, and Harvey Weinstein at the White House).

This week, four standout ICA teens will take active roles in the 8th annual National Convening for Teens in the Arts , the ICA’s groundbreaking opportunity for teens from around the country to gather and work toward increasing and improving teens’ role in museum settings, serving as emcees and moderating panels. We asked each of them to share their thoughts on the Convening and some of their most memorable experiences with the ICA.

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Name: Amireh 
Hometown/neighborhood: Cambridge, MA
School: Homeschooler
Plans for after graduation: To take advantage of the possibilities

This year’s Convening is called After the Bell, and is about alternative spaces that contribute to teens’ education. How has the ICA contributed to your education? What does this space mean to you? What can teens get from spaces like the ICA that they might not get in school?

The ICA is a great reminder of how I can learn outside a traditional classroom. We never have homework or tests when we’re at the ICA, but I still learn a lot. Having the experience to lead tours in the galleries, plan events, and give formal presentations in front of large audiences has helped me to develop skills not often taught in school.

What can young people stand to gain from regular exposure to making, seeing, and talking about art?

When we spend time in the galleries with Teen Arts Council or museum visitors, the conversations we have are always different. Spending time engaging with art, whether it be making art, seeing art, or talking about it, opens up new ideas and possibilities.

Spending time engaging with art, whether it be making art, seeing art, or talking about it, opens up new ideas and possibilities.

What are you most excited about for this year’s Teen Convening?

Since I also attended last year’s Teen Convening, I know that there are so many exciting things to look forward to. However, my favorite part is seeing all the presentations the different museums give. It’s interesting to know what other teen programs are doing across the country and to be able to use it as inspiration for our own events.

What is the weirdest or most memorable thing you’ve ever done at the ICA?

On the Teen Arts Council everyone jokes about living at the ICA, but for one night this past year we all did! Having a sleepover at the ICA is definitely the most memorable and weirdest thing I have done at the ICA. It was also a perfect ending to our Teen Arts Council meetings for the year.

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Name: Beatrice
Neighborhood: Jamaica Plain
School: Boston Latin Academy
Plans for after graduation: Going to the Philippines for a month, camp counseling for two weeks, then college. 

This year’s Convening is called After the Bell, and is about alternative spaces that contribute to teens’ education. How has the ICA contributed to your education? What does this space mean to you? What can teens get from spaces like the ICA that they might not get in school?

The ICA’s year-long film program, Fast Forward, has been the only source of art education in my high school career. My creativity now has a constructive home to manifest in, thanks to the support of museum educators who are passionate about film and work to make class a safe space. My life isn’t separate from my work when I’m in the ICA, so after the bell on Friday afternoons I go to class in the museum’s digital studio and I feel like I can really be myself and share my ideas. 

What can young people stand to gain from regular exposure to making, seeing, and talking about art?

Art can challenge, affirm, and open up the thoughts of a young person who is viewing it. Art is a way of being exposed to experiences other than one’s own that the viewer would normally not have access to. Young art viewers can make connections and learn about themselves while seeing the work of others. 

Art is a way of being exposed to experiences other than one’s own that the viewer would normally not have access to.

What are you most excited about for this year’s Teen Convening?

I’m so excited to meet the other teen museum representatives in person! I’m kind of obsessed with them already from just talking with them on the online forums leading up to the conference… I hope they have fun at Teen Night. 

What is the weirdest or most memorable thing you’ve ever done at the ICA?

Another Fast Forward student asked me to act in his film… I did it and it was cool to see how other people shoot their films, but at the screening it was so strange and cringe-inducing watching my moving image on the screen acting as a cool girl punk singer. 

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Name: Nick
Neighborhood: East Boston
School: MassArt
Plans for after college graduation: Travel cross-country

This year’s Convening is called After the Bell, and is about alternative spaces that contribute to teens’ education. How has the ICA contributed to your education? What does this space mean to you? What can teens get from spaces like the ICA that they might not get in school?

The ICA has provided me with an education in film that my high school could not. Being a part of the Fast Forward program was such an enriching experience that it influenced my major in college. This space has provided me with many opportunities that stem from challenges I wished to face. I was pushed to make ideas like “movie about pizza”—something that has substance and is interesting. Allowing me and encouraging me to bring ideas to life, no matter how ridiculous, the ICA has been a place where I have really developed as a person and understood what it’s like to create art.

What can young people stand to gain from regular exposure to making, seeing, and talking about art?

I think being regularly exposed to art allows young people to recognize art around them much more easily. Being encouraged to analyze something one might not fully understand or be comfortable with can help in so many other different aspects of life. I’m not saying everything is art, but it probably could be.

I did yoga with Whoopi Goldberg at the White House.

What are you most excited about for this year’s Teen Convening?

I’m excited to meet the other teens and learn about what their lives are like and see how they connect and relate to mine.

What is the weirdest or most memorable thing you’ve ever done at the ICA?

Because of the ICA, I was “punched in the face” in the same spot that Martin Sheen landed on when he was thrown off the roof in The Departed, and I did yoga with Whoopi Goldberg at the White House.

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Name: Sienna
Hometown/neighborhood: Lower Mills
School: Boston Latin Academy
Plans for after graduation: College

This year’s Convening is called After the Bell, and is about alternative spaces that contribute to teens’ education. How has the ICA contributed to your education? What does this space mean to you? What can teens get from spaces like the ICA that they might not get in school?

The ICA has contributed the art education that my school didn’t provide. Without it, I would have no real connection to the art world. I’ve learned how to give tours, how to plan events, how to work in groups, and I even had the chance to do job shadowing! Learning about art careers and meeting artists is the best art education I could have. Museum spaces have always seemed exclusive and far removed, but the ICA encourages teens to jump into the museum space and feel comfortable in it. There’s something enriching about talking to an artist about their work, while you’re standing in the middle of piece or having artists talk to teens, as teens. Teens can definitely get an immersive look at the contemporary art world at the ICA. They can meet artists, see their work, and have in depth discussions about the pieces with the artist! They can make the museum space their own and remove the air of exclusivity that sometimes surrounds museums.

Learning about art careers and meeting artists is the best art education I could have.

What can young people stand to gain from regular exposure to making, seeing, and talking about art?

We can stand to gain a new perspective. As simple as that is, it’s really important. Interacting with art, especially if you don’t interact with it normally, can give you new ideas, different outlooks on life, and more creative ways to solve problems.

What are you most excited about for this year’s Teen Convening?

Meeting all the visiting teens, our presentations, and, of course, Teen Night!

What is the weirdest or most memorable thing you’ve ever done at the ICA?

Being a cherub for Yanira Castro’s Court/Garden performance.

Current exhibitions and recent acquisitions at the ICA show photography’s diversity and how our relationship with it has evolved over recent decades.

We are living through an image explosion. The internet’s advent and subsequent online sharing platforms connect us to disparate geographies and time zones. Everything is easily sharable, and one of the simplest things to share with a virtual audience is an image or photograph. Arguably, the virtual photograph is the representative object or product of this era. Using available statistics, New Yorker web and technology writer Om Malik estimated that we, across the globe, take an average of four billion photographs a day, thanks in part to our smartphones. The photograph or image exists in the physical and virtual realms, and with new virtual reality technologies, those realms can be intermixed. The idea of the photograph as window, and one that is exclusively evidentiary, documentary, or archival, has essentially been dismissed. Especially as new software programs are able to alter the original image into entirely new ones—creating novel scenes, contexts, and meanings—it transforms the photographic window into a virtual screen of infinite potential.

As rapidly as we take and reproduce images, we wanted to take the time to reflect on the photographic medium. This summer and fall, the ICA/Boston is presenting a vast array of photography, including the solo exhibitions Geoffrey Farmer and Liz Deschenes, as well as several works in First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA. Furthermore, with the ICA’s recent acquisitions and current holdings of photography, we are able to consider the diversity of the medium and how it, as well as our relationship with photography, has evolved over recent decades.

Since its inception, artists have experimented with photography and the camera apparatus, exploring the medium’s aesthetic and technical possibilities. In the age of mass reproduction, much of that exploration has addressed the medium itself and its enduring effects. In the late twentieth century, artists of what is now known as the Pictures Generation (named after the pivotal 1977 exhibition Pictures, organized by art historian and critic Douglas Crimp at New York’s Artists Space), represented in the ICA’s collection by Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, and Cindy Sherman (see their work this summer and fall in First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA), notably appropriated and modified the panoply of images reproduced in mass media. They investigated the fraught constructions of gender, race, sexuality, and identity generated by the commercial sphere. These thematic strands and methodological strategies continue today, as seen in work by artists like Sara VanDerBeek and Leslie Hewitt, also represented in our collection. Rather than merely continuing the legacy of the previous generation, however, they spearhead these innovations into new, multidisciplinary realms, as many contemporary artists no longer work in only one medium, with many incorporating photography into their broader practice; if working primarily in photography, they do so through expansive means.

Artists Nan Goldin and Rineke Dijkstra, both represented in depth in the ICA’s collection, seemed to presage the rise of today’s selfie culture, through very different means, in their groundbreaking work of the 1970s and 80s. Nan Goldin began taking photographs of her loved ones and family members in this period; these private moments are framed to imply a greater narrative as she engages with subject matters such as gender and identity. Rineke Dijkstra, contrastingly, captures stark portraits of subjects caught in life’s transitional moments, from new mothers to young military recruits. Using a large-format 4 x 5 camera with long exposure, she privileges time and the temporality of the medium. Though Dijkstra and Goldin took these photographs in moments that have already passed, they resonate in today’s image-saturated and self-reflexive environment. As our personal lives have moved into the public realm, these images may now appear all too familiar. However, unlike today’s virtual mass of images, these contemplative works require us to stop before them. Their intimacy and boldness augment the images’ psychological effects, expanding into the viewers’ space, forcing us to contend with the depicted subjects.

Photography that provides insight into social issues is a significant strain throughout the medium’s history. Nicholas Nixon’s portraits of George Gannet in the ICA’s collection (part of the larger series “People with AIDS”) explore the intimate lives of individuals living with the disease. This series’ initial critical reception, taken and exhibited at the height of the AIDS crisis, revealed the fraught politics of representation and largely the convoluted relationship between art and politics that we still contend with to this day. LaToya Ruby Frazier’s photographs examine issues of politics as well as individual agency. In her series Notion of Family, she partnered with her mother, composing revealing portraits of their private lives in her hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania, to also act as broader investigations into the city’s socioeconomic and environmental downturn. Frazier’s works often include references to African-American life and culture, as do Ellen Gallagher and Lorna Simpson’s works in the ICA collection. These artists scrutinize in distinct ways—using magazine advertisements or employing techniques of ethnographic photography—black culture and the societal effects on black bodies, particularly black female bodies. These artists use photography to present their individual voices, providing nuanced perspectives and understanding to complicated, yet potent issues in today’s sociopolitical climate.  

As our collective image trove has proliferated, artists such as Geoffrey Farmer and Walid Raad have mined archives, extracting and examining images to show how we represent, or even make, history through these images. The Atlas Group, a fictional entity conceived by Raad, presents archival, photographic documents related to real events in Lebanon. The artist probes the distinctions between fact and fiction in relation to the constructions of histories of art in the Arab world. Geoffrey Farmer engages similarly with the image, as he uses reproduced photographs to create near-fantastical sculptural installations that he modifies each time they’re installed. These large-scale, photo-based sculptural works, for which he is best known, chart our historical and cultural landscapes. Scanning or hand-cutting images from outmoded art history textbooks to old Life magazines, Farmer, like Raad, examines the power of images and how they shape our social and cultural imaginaries. As these artists, however, work in different contexts, they expose the divergent, multiple facets and consequences of an image—how it can be used, even manipulated for various ends.

Moving from constructions of knowledge to actual architectural surrounds, Liz Deschenes, working at the intersection of photography, sculpture, and architecture, creates stunning sculptural installations exploring various photographic techniques that respond to the environment of a given site. Her works incorporate shifts in light, reflections, and movements of visitors, ultimately analyzing the mechanics of seeing. Deschenes’s non-figurative works are unique phenomenological experiences, and expand the possibilities of the photographic medium and what an image can be and do. The Artist’s Museum, opening at the ICA this fall, will also feature a selection of compelling photographic works that contend with the sculptural and spatial, embracing and enhancing a holistic understanding of the medium.  

From Nan Goldin’s portraits to Geoffrey Farmer’s malleable installations, all of these artists either anticipated or remain cognizant of our image-based, digital world. Subjects in Collier Schorr and LaToya Ruby Frazier’s photographs in the ICA’s collection appear to have a natural relationship with the now-ubiquitous camera lens, while artists including Frazier reveal everyday hardships many face silently throughout the country in images that can now go publicly viral. The blurring of reality and fiction, and public and private, seems to be a through-line with many of these artists. However, even though these artists all employ photography, they demonstrate the diverse and near-boundless possibilities of the medium and—from technological capabilities to the overtly political—what we are able to communicate through photography. Today, we are living in an era of image overload, and the exponentially growing virtual milieu has fully entered into our physical lives. Considering how expansive photography has become in the larger cultural sphere, it is important to contemplate its effects and consequences, and will look forward to the possibilities and further influence of the medium in the coming future. 

For the rest of June and all of July, Boston Harbor Cruises is offering FREE rides on its Cultural Connector, a commuter ferry connecting major Boston cultural institutions.

Stops include Fan Pier (for the ICA), Central Wharf (for access to the New England Aquarium), and Fort Point Channel (for the Boston Children’s Museum, Tea Party Ship and Museum, the Rose Kennedy Greenway, and more).

For more information and schedules, go to bostonharborcruises.com. 

The groundbreaking choreographer discusses her daring movement installation ON DISPLAY, coming to the ICA in June.

#hldondisplay

For four weekend days in June, choreographer Heidi Latsky will present her movement installation ON DISPLAY at various locations around the ICA.

ON DISPLAY confronts our tendency to judge people by their physical appearance. For four hours on each of four days, more than 30 local performers representing the dance and disability communities will place themselves on display in this commentary on the body as spectacle and society’s obsession with body image. By reverting the gaze, the performers draw attention to the complex relationship between viewer and viewed, an attention that permeates the everyday existence of people who are different in some physical way. 

Latsky has had a longtime interest in dance that pushes conventional boundaries. A former dancer in the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, she has presented work at the ICA on two previous occasions: in 2009, when she presented the groundbreaking GIMP Project, for disabled and nondisabled dancers, and in 2011 as part of a reunion of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company dancers. 

For International Day for Persons with Disabilities on December 3, Latsky is working to organize a worldwide event in which local groups all over the world will present ON DISPLAY in their own communities.

The ICA spoke with Latsky about ON DISPLAY.

How did you get interested in working with people with disabilities?

It’s a Boston story, actually. Jeremy Alliger invited me to go to his International Festival of Wheelchair Dance there, but I didn’t understand it, and I never went. Then in 2006, he met a visual artist who was a bilateral amputee—she had no fingers and no lower legs—who had just gotten a grant to make a solo for herself and perform it. She didn’t have a lot of training, and she really didn’t know how she was going to do it, so she wanted to find a choreographer to work with. Jeremy thought I might be interested in this project, and I grabbed the opportunity. I talked to her on the phone, I loved her voice, and then I met with her in New York for the first time for lunch.

As I was walking into the restaurant, I thought, I’m going to have lunch with someone I don’t know, who has no fingers. And then I was up against that whole thing: Do I look? Do I not look? Do I say something? Do I not say something? Do I acknowledge the fact that her hands look different? But I didn’t have to worry, because she was so gracious and put me immediately at ease. So we started the work process, and through that process, she became my muse. I kind of fell in love with her. I had such an interesting time creating this 25-minute solo for this woman and learning about the disability community—I didn’t know anything about disability—and I started wondering, could I do this again? And that was the beginning of the GIMP Project.

Isn’t it interesting that the onus is often on the person who is different to put the other at ease?

I can’t even remember how she did it, but I think she just acknowledged her disability, and we got it out in the open and then we could get past it. It was my issue that I hadn’t ever met anybody with a disability that I knew of, and I was uncomfortable. But the more I was exposed to people with disabilities, the easier it became. And that’s a lot of what I’m trying to do with my work: expose people to people with all kinds of bodies, on stage or in an art installation, with the hopes that seeing a diverse group will redefine what they see as beautiful, or virtuosic—to shatter stereotypes, have people see things in a different way.

How did ON DISPLAY come about?

In 2009 I received a Creative Capital grant, and as part of that grant they invite you to a retreat where you give a seven-minute presentation to an audience of funders, presenters, and fellow artists. I can talk about my work at great length, but in my experience, people don’t really get it unless they see a visual. There are so many preconceived notions of the kind of dancers I have and what it means when you say disabled or nondisabled. So for the presentation it was important for me to show a five-minute clip of GIMP.

A museum curator sought me out afterwards and confessed that he was very ashamed of his response to the video. He said he saw the inherent beauty of a sculpture with an atypical shape, but he could not experience that with a real person.  

As he expressed both shame and fascination, I more fully comprehended the complexity of his reactions. He’d been living in museums for so long, and really appreciating and thinking how beautiful the artifacts are—some of which are bodies without arms or limbs—and then when he saw a real person, in a film, who only had one arm, he was repulsed. He was compelled, and saw the beauty in it, but also repulsed.

When I heard that, something clicked in my head. I thought, what would happen if these sculptures were real people? Would that help people shift their perceptions about beauty? ON DISPLAY developed as a vehicle to address what I perceived as this common response to my work.

Initially I was thinking we could have real people alongside sculptures, in a museum. I was toying with the idea of a sculpture garden, or if it was indoors, a sculpture court—that was actually David Henry’s idea [David Henry is Bill T. Jones Director of Performing and Media Arts at the ICA]. Then for the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 2015, I went into partnership with the New York City Mayor’s Office, specifically the Commissioner for People with Disabilities; he wanted to have events all throughout the city to expose the public to people with disabilities. So I started doing this sculpture court, in Times Square, in Chinatown, on the High Line, in Brooklyn Bridge Park. I also made a more elaborate version of ON DISPLAY, which included a film and a score that’s like a ticker tape of objective physical descriptions of 30 different people recited in a robotic voice. (The text also appears on a screen.) That version is much more choreographed, with dancers moving on certain prompts. It’s about a 20-minute set, and when the words go really slowly across the screen, the dancers move really slowly as well. That’s the full version of ON DISPLAY.

The sculpture courts, like we’re doing at the ICA, are beautifully elegant in their simplicity. They’re performed in silence. The cast or sculptures are unified by wearing white because white represents/reflects all colors.

It seems like it must be really intense for the performers.

I have a group of 35 performers, some of whom had never performed before, and mostly not dancers. Every time I reach out to them, they want to do it. It’s truly a meditative experience, because once they drop into the task, they aren’t listening to anybody but themselves. When they’re all breathing together, when it falls into place, it feels like they’re a real community, and it feels really good. The only complaint I’ve ever had is when we’ve been on a cold, hard ground, like standing in Times Square barefoot.

It’s not difficult to be so on display?

That’s the beauty of it—they’re out there being watched, but they’re also watching. So the viewers become the viewed, and the relationship keeps shifting.

So the performers really respond to their surroundings.

Each person chooses how they respond to their surroundings in their own way and within the structure of the improvisation. We’re creating a real sculpture court, where people can walk around and get close to the performers. We encourage people to take photos and post about it and talk about it online. When a performer opens their eyes, it’s possible that somebody’s right there. And they have the choice of continuing to look at them, or closing their eyes and moving again.

The other day a viewer said that at first it felt like the performers were very uniform, but then everybody’s choices – how they opened and closed their eyes, how their body was moving – were so unique to each person. It made me really happy that she got that, because that’s what it’s about.

And the group is a combination of dancers and non-dancers?

Yes, it’s not just dancers. That wouldn’t work. And it can’t be only people with disabilities either. In order to fulfill our vision it has to be very, very diverse—all shapes, sizes, ethnicities, races, people with disabilities, people without disabilities. There are people who have some dance experience and want to use their bodies and those who have never done anything with their bodies but want to experience something like this.

That’s wonderful. So you look for a range of body types as well?

Yeah. For our performance at the NYU Skirball Center, we had a woman who was eight months pregnant. She was huge, and it was amazing. She loved doing it and I loved having her pregnant state out there in all its glory. In addition, that cast of 30 included performers from Indian and African American heritages, your typical very tall model person, a couple of deaf actors, a burn victim, wheelchair users, a transgender person, people with cerebral palsy, older people, heavyset people, little people. It was really diverse, although I think sometimes people don’t see the uniqueness of each individual until they watch for a while. That’s why we encourage viewers to really take their time, find their favorite person, photograph them, experience them.

Summer is just around the corner! Our summer lineup includes: 

The tans may fade, but the memories won’t. Oh, those summer nights. 

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A Guggenheim curator dives in to daily life at the ICA – and is inspired by what she finds.

The Center for Curatorial Leadership program offers curators the opportunity to focus on honing their leadership skills through a combination of Columbia Business School classes, meetings with cultural leaders, a diversity mentoring initiative, and a residency with the director of another museum. I was incredibly lucky to be paired with my first choice, the ICA’s own Ellen Matilda Poss Director Jill Medvedow.

I had shared with Jill my desire to learn more about what it’s like to work inside a museum in the United States. This may sound crazy for you readers who see that I am a curator at the Guggenheim. The reality is that in the twelve years I have worked there, our offices have been in downtown Manhattan, far from the Frank Lloyd Wright museum on Fifth Avenue, and a majority of my projects have unfolded in other countries.

During my week at the ICA, I was able to leave a curatorial meeting about an upcoming collection show and go straight to the galleries to study the current collection display and reflect upon the plans for a large-scale summer collection exhibition being organized by Barbara Lee Chief Curator Eva Respini and her team. I later got to meet members of the Teen Arts Council and sit down for a chat with David Henry, Bill T. Jones Director of Performing and Media Arts, before going together to the dress rehearsal of Court/Garden, an interactive performance that involved all of us. I was so energized, by the teens especially, whose enthusiastic engagement encouraged me to forget that it was the end of a long (but exciting!) day and join in the action.

I was so energized, by the teens especially, whose enthusiastic engagement encouraged me to forget that it was the end of a long (but exciting!) day and join in the action.

Jill also arranged for me to visit other museums around the city. I went to the MIT List Visual Arts Center, the Harvard Art Museums, the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art at the Hutchins Center at Harvard, and the Museum of Fine Arts. I had the chance to visit the Barbara Krakow Gallery, where Barbara and I spoke about some of the artists and exhibitions that have meant the most to us. At each stop, colleagues welcomed me and openly discussed some of the challenges and opportunities we face as arts professionals trying to deliver meaningful experiences to our audiences.

Upon returning to the ICA from my sojourn around the city, I reflected upon its unique contributions to the Boston art scene and beyond. Be it the historic survey Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957 or the current exhibition Walid Raad, the ICA is presenting shows that are not just about looking at objects. They take the viewer on a journey across time and space, reinforcing the central importance of history and memory and the vital role of performance in contemporary art.

I am tremendously grateful to Jill Medvedow and the ICA staff and board, as well as the many other colleagues I met, for reminding me that art can be surprising, exciting, and catalyzing.