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A new anchor in the ICA collection, LOVE IS CALLING goes on view September 24, 2019

(Boston, MA—March 20, 2019) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) opens Yayoi Kusama’s LOVE IS CALLING (2013) to the public on September 24, announced Jill Medvedow, the ICA’s Ellen Matilda Poss Director. Recently acquired by the ICA, LOVE IS CALLING is the largest and among the most immersive of the artist’s existing Infinity Mirror Rooms. A focused presentation drawn from the ICA’s collection titled Beyond Infinity: Contemporary Art after Kusama accompanies the Infinity Mirror Room, offering audiences insight into Kusama’s influences and her important legacy on contemporary art.

“We are thrilled to share Yayoi Kusama’s groundbreaking work, beloved by audiences around the globe. LOVE IS CALLING offers visitors the opportunity to experience the artist’s notion of the infinite, as well as her public performances that connect personal and political ideas about peace and connectivity,” said Medvedow.

“Yayoi Kusama has indelibly shaped some of the most important art movements of the twentieth century, including Minimalism, Pop art, and feminist and performance art. LOVE IS CALLING encompasses many aspects of Kusama’s unique visual language, including mirrored architectural space, brilliant color, signature polka dots, and the illusion of infinity,” said Eva Respini, the ICA’s Barbara Lee Chief Curator. “Beyond Infinity, the 14th annual presentation of the ICA collection, considers how Kusama’s prescient artistic practice, including her feminist voice and experiments with form and environment, has shaped contemporary art in unique ways.”
 

LOVE IS CALLING

Yayoi Kusama
Sep 24, 2019—Feb 7, 2021
Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929, Matsumoto, Japan) is one of today’s most recognized and celebrated artists. In addition to her widely popular Infinity Mirror Rooms, Kusama creates vibrant paintings, works on paper, and sculpture with abstract imagery. LOVE IS CALLING features vividly colored, tentacle-like, inflatable sculptures covered with the artist’s signature polka dots and encased in a dark mirrored room to create an illusion of infinite space. As visitors walk throughout the installation, a sound recording of Kusama reciting a love poem in Japanese plays continuously. Written by the artist, the poem’s title translates to Residing in a Castle of Shed Tears in English. Exploring enduring themes including life and death, the poem poignantly expresses Kusama’s hope to spread a universal message of love through her art. The largest of Kusama’s existing Infinity Mirror Rooms, LOVE IS CALLING is the first one held in the permanent collection of a New England museum. In 1966, the ICA exhibited an Infinity Mirror Room, now titled Endless Love Show, in the exhibition Multiplicity; the museum also owns a 1953 drawing by the artist. LOVE IS CALLING is organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator.
 

Beyond Infinity: Contemporary Art after Kusama

Sep 24, 2019—Feb 7, 2021
Beyond Infinity: Contemporary Art after Kusama features approximately 15 works from the 1950s to today, encompassing sculpture, painting, film, photography, and drawings. Primarily drawn from the ICA collection with select loans, the exhibition will focus on Kusama’s legacy in three key areas—repetition, the self, and the kaleidoscopic. Beyond Infinity will provide visitors with a deeper understanding of how the immersive environment of LOVE IS CALLING embodies the artist’s longstanding exploration of accumulation, repetition, luminescence, life and death, and happenings. Works featuring Kusama’s obsessive repetition of symbols, patterns, and forms will be paired with works by contemporaries such as Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, and Ana Mendieta, as well as current practitioners such as Nick Cave, Tara Donovan, Jimmy DeSana, Josh Faught, Ellen Gallagher, and Josiah McElheny, whose work reflects the legacy of post-minimalism, performance art, and Pop art. Beyond Infinity: Contemporary Art after Kusama is organized by Ellen Tani, Assistant Curator.
 

Press preview

Tue, Sep 17, 9:30 AM
Media are invited to experience Kusama’s work and tour the exhibition. RSVP to Margaux Leonard, mleonard@icaboston.org
 

Member preview days

Thu, Sep 19—Sun, Sep 22
ICA members are invited to preview LOVE IS CALLING and Beyond Infinity before they open to the public.
 

Exhibition-related programs

The presentation of LOVE IS CALLING and Beyond Infinity will be enriched by a variety of public programs, including gallery and curator talks. More details to be announced soon.
 

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and augmenting art’s role as educator, incubator, and convener for social engagement. Its innovative exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. Spanning two locations across Boston Harbor, the ICA offers year-round programming at its iconic building in Boston’s Seaport and seasonal programming (May-September) at the Watershed in an East Boston shipyard.
 
The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

One of the best-loved works in the ICA’s permanent collection goes back on view

(Boston, MA—January 23, 2019) On February 13, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) opens Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors, a monumental nine-channel sound and moving-image installation of a performance staged at Rokeby Farm, a historic 43-room estate in upstate New York. One of the best-loved works in the ICA’s permanent collection and a sentimental portrayal of friendship, love, and loss, Kjartansson’s celebrated The Visitors (2012) features the artist with some of his closest friends and fellow musicians, who occupy different rooms of the rambling and opulent estate, performing a sixty-four-minute arrangement composed by Kjartansson and Davíð Þór Jónsson. Through its unique arrangement of music in space, The Visitors creates a distinctively layered portrait of the house and its musical inhabitants. On view through July 28, 2019, this presentation is organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator.

Each of the nine channels shows a musician or group of musicians—including Kristín Anna and Gyða Valtýsdóttir, founding sisters of the Icelandic band Mùm; Kjartan Sveinsson, former member of Sigur Rós; and Davíð Þór Jónsson, Kjartansson’s longtime collaborator—playing instruments either alone or in groups, separately but simultaneously, occupying different rooms of the romantically dilapidated estate. As the performers leave their individual rooms, the screens turn black until, at the end, the entire group is seen on a single screen walking away from the house through a field.

The arrangement’s lyrics are taken from the poem “Feminine Ways,” written by artist Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir. The title alludes to the 1981 album of the same name from Swedish pop band ABBA, the group’s last record to date, as divorce and internal strife ended their professional and personal relationships. The musical composition coheres in the work’s installation, presenting a dynamic and moving ensemble performance Kjartansson refers to as a “feminine nihilistic gospel song.”

A musician as well as an artist, Kjartansson draws on a variety of cultural sources—from American musical traditions to the landscapes of his native Iceland—to create memorable works that investigate the boundaries between reality and fiction. His videos are often humorous, placing the performer against extreme conditions. Through repetition, Kjartansson’s videos create unexpected meanings, eliciting contradictory feelings of pleasure and anxiety, humor and sincerity, sentimentality and skepticism.
 

About the artist

Ragnar Kjartansson (b. 1976, Reykjavik, Iceland) has had solo exhibitions at the Reykjavík Art Museum, the Barbican Centre, London, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Park, Washington D.C., the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, the New Museum, New York, the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, the Frankfurter Kunstverein, and the BAWAG Contemporary, Vienna. Kjartansson participated in The Encyclopedic Palace at the Venice Biennale in 2013, Manifesta 10 in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2014, and he represented Iceland at the 2009 Venice Biennale. The artist is the recipient of the 2015 Artes Mundi’s Derek Williams Trust Purchase Award, and Performa’s 2011 Malcolm McLaren Award. The artist lives and works in Reykjavík.
 

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and augmenting art’s role as educator, incubator, and convener for social engagement. Its innovative exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. Spanning two locations across Boston Harbor, the ICA offers year-round programming at its iconic building in Boston’s Seaport and seasonal programming (May-September) at the Watershed in an East Boston shipyard.
 
The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Support for this presentation is generously provided by Kate and Charles Brizius, James and Audrey Foster, Jodi and Hal Hess, Kristen and Kent Lucken, and Tristin and Martin Mannion.

The largest of the artist’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, LOVE IS CALLING will become a new anchor in the ICA’s collection

(Boston, MA—January 15, 2019)  Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA), announced today the acquisition of Yayoi Kusama’s LOVE IS CALLING (2013), one of the artist’s existing Infinity Mirror Rooms. LOVE IS CALLING is one of Kusama’s most immersive, psychedelic environments and features vividly colored, tentacle-like, inflatable sculptures covered with the artist’s signature polka dots and encased in a mirrored room to create an illusion of infinite space. It is the second work by Kusama to enter the collection, alongside a 1953 work on paper of organic forms, dots, and colors—elements that are characteristic of her work. LOVE IS CALLING has been acquired through the generosity of Barbara Lee, The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women, Fotene and Tom Coté, Hilary and Geoffrey Grove, Vivien and Alan Hassenfeld, Jodi and Hal Hess, Barbara H. Lloyd, and an anonymous donor. A new anchor in The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women, LOVE IS CALLING goes on view in Fall 2019. 

“LOVE IS CALLING showcases the breadth of the artist’s visual vocabulary—from her signature polka dots and soft sculptures, brilliant colors and the spoken word, to endless reflections and illusions of space and self,” said Medvedow. “We are very grateful to our generous donors who made this acquisition possible, and look forward to sharing this immersive experience with our visitors for years to come.”

“Over a six-decade-long career, Kusama has indelibly shaped some of the most important art movements of the twentieth century, including Minimalism, Pop art, and feminist and performance art,” said Eva Respini, the ICA’s Barbara Lee Chief Curator. “LOVE IS CALLING is the largest Infinity Mirror Room of its kind held by a North American museum collection and one of Kusama’s most significant artistic achievements. We are delighted that the ICA will be its new home.”

With LOVE IS CALLING, Kusama offers visitors the opportunity to experience her notion of the infinite. As visitors walk throughout the installation, a sound recording of Kusama reciting a love poem in Japanese plays continuously. Written by the artist, the poem’s title translates to Residing in a Castle of Shed Tears in English. Exploring enduring themes including life and death, the poem poignantly expresses Kusama’s hope to spread a universal message of love through her art.

Kusama came to the United States from Japan in 1957 and was a vital part of New York avant-garde art circles until the 1970s. Departing from her training in traditional nihonga Japanese painting, Kusama’s practice in the early 1950s embraced methods of Western modernism. Shifting from two-dimensional to environmental creations after 1962, Kusama’s sculptural practice emerged in the form of objects such as furniture and clothes covered in soft, phallic protuberances of different colors and patterns. Her first mirrored environment, entitled Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field (1965), signaled a turn to the social: her works became more immersive and her studio practice slowed in favor of protest events, performances, and happenings, which included performers painted in polka dots. Uniquely, Kusama’s art making broadens and evolves in tandem with the cultural, political, and visual revolutions of the psychedelic sixties. Kusama’s early Infinity Mirror Rooms, either mirrored or painted polka dots, were originally celebrated but challenging to collect given their size and were rarely exhibited. In 1966, the ICA exhibited an Infinity Mirror Room, now titled Endless Love Show, in the exhibition Multiplicity. The artist returned to Japan in 1973, and for the next 25 years focused on writing and publishing her poems and novels. In 2002, Kusama constructed Fireflies on the Water, her first darkened Infinity Mirror Room, and in 2013 she premiered LOVE IS CALLING at Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan. 

About the artist

Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929, Matsumoto, Japan) is one of today’s most recognized and celebrated artists. In addition to her widely popular Infinity Mirror Rooms, Kusama creates vibrant paintings, works on paper, and sculpture with abstract imagery. Work by the artist is held in museum collections worldwide, including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate Gallery, London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; amongst numerous others. In October 2017, the Yayoi Kusama Museum opened in Tokyo. The artist lives and works in Tokyo.

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and augmenting art’s role as educator, incubator, and convener for social engagement. Its innovative exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. Spanning two locations across Boston Harbor, the ICA offers year-round programming at its iconic building in Boston’s Seaport and seasonal programming (May-September) at the Watershed in an East Boston shipyard.

The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

(Boston, MA—January 7, 2019) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) announces its exhibition schedule for 2019. Upcoming exhibitions include Huma Bhabha’s largest survey to date, the U.S. premiere of John Akomfrah’s Purple at the ICA Watershed, and a major exhibition that considers how contemporary artists are responding to the migration, immigration, and displacement of peoples today. For more information, please contact Margaux Leonard at mleonard@icaboston.org, 617-478-3176.

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Nina Chanel Abney
January 17, 2019–March 15, 2020
Nina Chanel Abney (b. 1982, Chicago, IL) is known for weaving colorful geometric shapes, cartoons, language, and symbols into chaotic and energetic compositions. At the ICA, she will create a mural that speaks to social tensions in the digital age, including the constant stream of true and false information, the dilemma of liberal racism, and abuses of power that lead to structural inequality. This exhibition is organized by Ellen Tani, Assistant Curator.

A still from The Visitors with a woman playinge cello.

Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors
February 13, 2019–July 28, 2019
A sentimental portrayal of friendship, love, and loss and one of the best-loved works in the ICA’s permanent collection, Ragnar Kjartansson’s (b. 1976, Reykjavik, Iceland) masterwork The Visitors (2012) is a monumental nine-channel sound and moving-image installation of a performance staged at Rokeby Farm, a historic forty-three-room estate in upstate New York. This presentation is organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator.

A bust by Huma Bhaba, that is gray and organic in texture, with the top covered in light blue paint.

Huma Bhabha: They Live
March 23, 2019–May 27, 2019
Since the early 1990s, Huma Bhabha (b. 1962, Karachi, Pakistan) has developed a distinct visual vocabulary that draws upon a wide variety of influences, including horror movies, science fiction, ancient artifacts, religious reliquary, and modernist sculpture. The largest survey of the artist’s work to date, Huma Bhabha: They Live encompasses sculpture, drawing, and photography, with a special focus on Bhabha’s engagement with the human figure. Best known for her sculptures, Bhabha uses a diverse array of natural, industrial, and found materials to make compelling works that engage the arts and histories of diverse cultures. Her work transcends a singular time and place, instead creating an exploration of what she describes as the “eternal concerns” found across all cultures: war, colonialism, displacement, and memories of home. Huma Bhabha: They Live will also include drawings, photographs, and prints spanning the past two decades, as well as new works made on the occasion of this exhibition. It will be accompanied by a lushly illustrated scholarly publication. This exhibition is organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator

A person in a light windbreaker sits on a bucket in silvery water among abandoned tires.

John Akomfrah: Purple
May 26, 2019–September 2, 2019
At the ICA Watershed
Co-commissioned by the ICA and making its U.S. premiere at the ICA Watershed, Purple is an immersive six-channel video installation by the acclaimed artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah (b. 1957, Accra, Ghana). Akomfrah draws from hundreds of hours of archival footage, combining it with newly shot film and a hypnotic sound score to address themes related to the implications of climate change across the planet and its effects on human communities, biodiversity, and the wilderness. Sited in the Watershed’s industrial building, Purple resonates deeply with the Watershed’s harbor location and its proximity to the current and historical maritime industries of the East Boston Shipyard and Marina. Symphonic in scale and divided into five interwoven movements, the film features various disappearing ecological landscapes, from the hinterlands of Alaska and the desolate environments of Greenland to the Tahitian Peninsula and the volcanic Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific. Purple conveys the complex and fragile interrelation of human and non-human life with a sense of poetic gravity that registers the vulnerability of living in precarious environments. John Akomfrah: Purple is organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, with Cara Kuball, Curatorial Project Manager.

An organic sculpture round in shape.

Less is a bore: Maximalist Art & Design
June 26, 2019–September 22, 2019
Less is a bore: Maximalist Art & Design is a multigenerational survey of strategies of pattern and decoration in art and design. Borrowing its ethos from Robert Venturi’s infamous retort to Mies van der Rohe’s modernist edict “less is more,” this exhibition includes art works that privilege decoration, patterning, and maximalism over modernism’s reductive “ornament as crime” philosophy. Less is a bore: Maximalist Art & Design investigates the impulse toward ornamentation, pattern painting, and decorative modes as a persistent strategy, one that can be deployed to critique, subvert, and transform accepted histories and trajectories related to craft and design, feminism, queerness and gender, beauty and taste, camouflage and masquerade, multiculturalism and globalism, among others. The exhibition surveys a field of interdisciplinary creative production, from art to design, that proves such strategies are multivalent and exceedingly adaptable methods to make art works that play fast and loose with “high” and “low,” and that reference ideas, forms and symbols at once personal and political, contemporary and historical, local and global. This exhibition is organized by Jenelle Porter, guest curator, with Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator.

Hanging unstretched paintings with light coming through them.

Vivian Suter
August 21, 2019–January 5, 2020
Vivian Suter (b. 1949, Buenos Aires, Argentina) works in close partnership with the natural environment surrounding her home and studio in Panajachel, Guatemala. The artist’s first Boston exhibition will feature a single installation filling the galleries with a canopy of color and shapes evocative of the lush setting. Her method often involves moving her canvases between the indoors and outdoors and exposing them to the climate in order to allow nature to comingle with her broad swaths of painted, vivid color. The mud and rain, light through the trees, and animals in the forest work in concert with Suter’s gestural compositions, which are inspired by the surrounding vegetation and landscape. Her installation of layered and suspended canvases invites visitors to discover her unique dialogue with the imagined and natural worlds. This exhibition is organized by Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator.

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2019 James and Audrey Foster Prize
August 21, 2019–January 5, 2020
The 2019 installment of the ICA’s biannual James and Audrey Foster Prize exhibition highlighting the work of Boston-area artists will feature four individuals: Rashin Fahandej (b. 1978, Shiraz, Iran), Josephine Halvorson (b. 1981, Brewster, MA), Lavaughan Jenkins (b. 1976, Boston, MA), and Helga Roht Poznanski (b. 1926, Tartu, Estonia). This intergenerational group of artists works across media, including painting, sculpture, film, and video, to explore questions of place, portraiture, and belonging. Their unique and exceptional work demonstrates the breadth and ecology of contemporary art practices in Boston. First established in 1999, the James and Audrey Foster Prize (formerly the ICA Artist Prize) is central to the ICA’s efforts to nurture and recognize local artists, showcase exceptional artwork, and support a thriving local arts scene. This exhibition is organized by Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator.

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When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art
October 23, 2019–January 26, 2020
When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art considers how contemporary artists are responding to the migration, immigration, and displacement of peoples today. We are currently witnessing the highest levels of movement on record—the United Nations estimates that one out of every seven people in the world is an international or internal migrant who moves by choice or by force, with great success or great struggle. When Home Won’t Let You Stay borrows its title from a poem by Warsan Shire, a Somali-British poet who gives voice to the experiences of refugees. Through artworks made since 2000 by twenty artists from more than a dozen countries—such as Colombia, Cuba, France, India, Iraq, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Palestine, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States—this exhibition highlights diverse artistic responses to migration ranging from personal accounts to poetic meditations, and features a range of mediums, including sculpture, installation, painting, and video. Artists in the exhibition include Kader Attia, Tania Bruguera, Isaac Julien, Hayv Kahraman, Reena Saini Kallat, Richard Mosse, Carlos Motta, Yinka Shonibare, Xaviera Simmons, and Do-Ho Suh, among others. A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition, with an essay by Eva Respini and Ruth Erickson and texts by prominent scholars Aruna D’Souza, Okwui Enwezor, Thomas Keenan, Peggy Levitt, and Uday Singh Mehta, among others. This exhibition is organized by Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator, and Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, with Ellen Tani, Assistant Curator.

About the ICA
Since its founding in 1936, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with audiences in Boston and beyond. Its innovative exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. Spanning two locations across Boston Harbor, the ICA offers year-round programming at its iconic building in Boston’s Seaport and seasonal programming (May-September) at the Watershed, part of a functioning East Boston shipyard.

The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Nina Chanel Abney is supported, in part, by Jean-François and Nathalie Ducrest.

Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors is a Gift of Graham and Ann Gund to Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and Gund Gallery at Kenyon College.

Support for this presentation is generously provided by Kate and Charles Brizius, James and Audrey Foster, Jodi and Hal Hess, Kristen and Kent Lucken, and Tristin and Martin Mannion. 

Major support for Huma Bhabha: They Live is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.


Huma Bhabha: They Live is generously sponsored by Max Mara.

Additional support is generously provided by Karen and Brian Conway, Steve Corkin and Dan Maddalena, Fotene Demoulas and Tom Coté, Cynthia and John Reed, and Charlotte and Herbert S. Wagner III. 

Support for the Huma Bhabha: They Live publication provided by Salon 94.

John Akomfrah: Purple has been commissioned by the Barbican, London and co-commissioned by Bildmuseet Umeå, Sweden, TBA21-Academy, The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow.

Free Admission to the ICA Watershed is made possible by the generosity of Alan and Vivien Hassenfeld and the Hassenfeld Family Foundation.

The ICA Watershed is supported by Fund for the Arts, a public art program of the New England Foundation for the Arts.

The 2019 James and Audrey Foster Prize exhibition and prize are generously endowed by James and Audrey Foster.

Nina Chanel Abney, I Left Three Days Ago, 2016. Acrylic and spray paint, Library Street Collective, Detroit, Michigan. Courtesy of Nina Chanel Abney studio. © Nina Chanel Abney. | Ragnar Kjartansson, The Visitors, 2012. Nine-channel HD video projection, 64 minutes, Edition 4 of 6, Gift of Graham Gund to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston and the Gund Gallery, Kenyon College. Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik. © Ragnar Kjartansson | Huma Bhahba, Four Nights of a Dreamer (detail), 2018. Cork, Styrofoam, acrylic, oil stick, and lacquered wood pedestal, 74 ½ × 36 × 36 inches (189.2 × 91.4 × 91.4 cm). Courtesy the artist and Salon 94, New York. © Huma Bhabha | John Akomfrah, Purple (still), 2017. Six-channel HD color video installation with 15.1 surround sound; 62 minutes. Courtesy Lisson Gallery. © Smoking Dogs Films | Haegue Yang, The Intermediate — Inceptive Sphere, 2016. Artificial straw, steel stand, powder coating, artificial plants, artificial fruits, plastic twine, Indian bells, and caster. 53 ⅛ x 45 ¼ inches (134.9 x 114.9 x 114.9 cm). General Acquisition Fund. Photo by Charles Mayer. © Haegue Yang | Vivian Suter, Nisyros (Vivian’s bed), 2016–17. Installation view, Kassel, Germany, for Documenta 14. © Vivian Suter | Helga Roht Poznanski, Untitled, c. 2018. Watercolor on paper, 17 x 24 inches. Courtesy the artist. © Helga Roht Poznanski | Woven Chronicle, 2011–2016. Installation view, Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter, October 1, 2016 – January 22, 2017, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo by Jonathan Muzikar.© The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY

(Boston, MA—December 18, 2018)  On Jan. 17, Chicago-born artist Nina Chanel Abney debuts a monumental, site-specific mural at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA). Abney, born in 1982, is at the forefront of a generation of young artists that is reenergizing narrative figurative painting. A skillful storyteller, Abney masterfully weaves colorful geometric shapes, language, and symbols into energetic and chaotic scenes that address the complex social dynamics of today. Created for the museum’s Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall, the new work—Abney’s first presentation in Boston—features vibrant vinyl cut-outs of various colors, forms, and sizes collaged into a visually compelling storyboard. Referencing what it means to “level the playing field” politically and socioeconomically, a bold black-and-white checkerboard pattern grounds the various characters, or “players,” in Abney’s narrative. On view through March 15, 2020, Abney’s installation is organized by Ellen Tani, Assistant Curator.

“Abney is a fantastic painter: creating vibrant, pulsing colossal compositions of figures, words, and shapes and using a brilliantly colored palette to express and dissect the notion of self in a dynamic and fraught world,” said Jill Medvedow, the ICA’s Ellen Matilda Poss Director. “The Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall, located in the museum’s glass-enclosed lobby, is an open, free and public space for visitors to encounter Abney’s art.”

“Nina is inspired by the power of public messaging—whether billboards, graffiti, current events, or digital information—as such, her approach is intuitive, improvisational, and responsive to social climate. The ICA installation draws on her current practice of creating site-specific public murals whose vibrant colors, recognizable imagery, and balance of chaos and order invite the viewer to both consume and consider their content,” said Tani.

Abney’s artistic practice is grounded in painting but spans a variety of forms, from fashion collaborations to playground surfaces to large-scale public murals. Often working improvisationally in spray paint, she makes brightly-colored compositions that channel the velocity of information cycles and viral content. Abney renders what comes across her radar through social media, popular culture, and the internet as a visual language of signs and icons that is both playful and challenging, and evokes feelings of stimulation and fatigue. Responding to the seemingly inescapable and weighty conditions of suffering that permeate much of the news today, Abney describes her artwork as “easy to swallow and hard to digest.”

The ICA’s Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall is dedicated to site-specific works by leading contemporary artists, commissioned annually.
 

About the artist

Nina Chanel Abney (b. 1982 in Chicago) earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Augustana College, IL in 2004, where she studied computer science and studio art. She earned a Master of Fine Arts at Parsons School of Design in 2007. Abney’s first solo exhibition, Nina Chanel Abney: Royal Flush, opened at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in 2018. Her work is held in private and public collections including the Brooklyn Museum, The Rubell Family Collection, Bronx Museum, and the Burger Collection, Hong Kong. She currently lives in New York.
 

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with audiences in Boston and beyond. Its innovative exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. Spanning two locations across Boston Harbor, the ICA offers year-round programming at its iconic building in Boston’s Seaport and seasonal programming (May-September) at the Watershed, part of a functioning East Boston shipyard.

The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Support provided, in part, by Jean-François and Nathalie Ducrest.

Largest survey of the artist’s work to date spans 20 years, encompassing sculpture, drawing, and photography

(Boston, MA—December 3, 2018) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) presents Huma Bhabha: They Live, the largest survey of the artist’s work to date. Spanning over two decades of Bhabha’s work, this major exhibition features sculpture, drawing, and photography, and considers the artist’s engagement with the human figure. Best known for her sculptures, Bhabha uses a wide variety of materials ranging from clay, Styrofoam, bronze, bricks, wood, construction materials, and other found material, to make compelling works that engage the arts and histories of diverse cultures. Tending towards the grotesque, Bhabha’s sculptures feature hybrid bodies or figures that appear human, animal, or alien, and evoke life in a post-apocalyptic or ruined landscape. Her work transcends a singular time and place, instead creating an exploration of what the artist describes as the “eternal concerns” found across all cultures and temporalities: war, colonialism, displacement, and memories of home. On view March 23 through May 27, 2019, Huma Bhabha: They Live is organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator.

“Huma Bhabha’s quiet authority, persevering vision, and commanding work distinguish her as an exceptional artist with a unique and haunting artistic voice. This overdue exhibition offers visitors the opportunity to experience and understand the sweep and power of Huma Bhabha,” said Jill Medvedow, the ICA’s Ellen Matilda Poss Director.  

While Bhabha works primarily in sculpture, she also makes drawings, photographs, and prints. Her drawings in pastel and ink incorporate a skillful blend of figuration and abstraction. In many of these works, she has composed an image, whether a face or body part, and persistently traced and retraced the lines within the composition, which result in haunting, blurred effects. Bhabha’s reworked photographs, many taken by the artist in her native Karachi, are layered with her own markmaking, referencing the documentary photography tradition with a personal and fantastical dimension.  

“The artist’s hand and a certain primacy of her interactions with materials are central to Bhabha’s practice. She deploys a distinctive mixture of additive and reductive methods to create her sculptures, with intuition driving her process, resulting in works that appear unfinished,” said Respini. “With their raw beauty, haunting presence, and narrative associations, Bhabha’s works adamantly broadcast the mutable, volatile, and expressive capacities of the figure.”

Huma Bhabha: They Live presents nearly 50 of the artist’s most significant artworks, including several of her newest works, such as the large scale bronze Benaam, recently featured on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The exhibition’s organization is not chronological, but rather influenced by the three foundational figural modes seen throughout the history of sculpture: standing, sitting, or reclining, in which Bhabha often positions her figures, or characters, as she calls them. The first room, for instance, exhibits a range of media and strategies Bhabha has employed over the years, from her early wall-mounted masks to sculptural figures composed of both found and traditional materials, introducing viewers to the breadth of her practice. Each of the subsequent galleries demonstrates how she engages the figure, nodding to art historical traditions—ancient Egyptian figures to Greek kouros—along with pop cultural sensibilities.
 

Exhibition Highlights

Bhabha’s work is a synthesis of her varied interests in art, history, film, television, and current events. Representing a refreshing and novel take on the figure, her characters embody hybridity: they are often intersex, multiethnic, and sometimes embody both animal and human characteristics. They are also hybrid in their making, composed of myriad combinations from organic to manufactured materials.

  • The Orientalist (2007) is perhaps the most imposing and archetypal of Bhabha’s seated figures. Originally made from Styrofoam, wood, metal, wire, and clay, and then cast in bronze, the figure seems to have been wasting away at the moment it was cast, its masklike face both haunted and impassive. Bhabha has referred to the figure as a cyborg, and it takes on hybridity in its cultural references as well. The face reminded the artist of Oscar Wilde’s portrait of Dorian Gray, while the title references, in part, Edward Said’s groundbreaking 1978 text Orientalism. With this work, she questions the ethics of colonialism and evokes a deep suspicion of who, as Bhabha remarks, “speaks with authority about foreign cultures.”
  • Bhabha’s recent experiments with cork—now a signature material for the artist—and often combined with materials such as Styrofoam, have produced an astonishing and potent body of upright totemic figures, including Castle of the Daughter (2016) and Waiting for Another Game (2018). These figures appear to represent gods, goddesses, demons, or monsters, unearthed from a previous time or presaging a coming era.
  • One of Bhabha’s most iconic sculptures, Benaam (2018), evokes the rich history of reclining sculptural forms and also the largest scale the artist has worked in. She produced the first version of this reclining figure in 2002 as a memorial to the victims in Afghanistan and Iraq of the wars that began in 2001. Bhabha has since created this work in several iterations. The larger-than-life Benaam depicts a prostrate figured with a trailing tail made of clay and swathed in a black garbage bag. The sheet of plastic suggests a praying or corpse-like form, but could also be read as a burka or body bag.
  • A series of photogravures, Reconstructions (2007), highlight Bhabha’s fertile practice of drawing and overpainting on photographs. For this series, she photographed stalled construction sites in Karachi and the desert landscapes on the city’s outskirts. After making black-and-white enlargements of the photographs, Bhabha drew on them with India ink. The arrested construction sites are newly reborn as foundations or plinths for sculptures that may have existed once, and the landscapes as a whole serve as a pedestal for her imagined monuments. In these hybrid works on paper, the artist subverts photography’s documentary role, instead creating elegiac ideas of ruin.
     

Catalogue

Huma Bhabha: They Live is accompanied by a lushly illustrated scholarly publication, co-published with Yale University Press, featuring essays that investigate Bhabha’s prolific and multidisciplinary output as well as her historical and cultural reference points. The volume is edited by Eva Respini, with contributions by Carter E. Foster, Ed Halter, Jessica Hong, Shanay Jhaveri, Respini, and a conversation between Huma Bhabha and artist Sterling Ruby.
 

Exhibition Press Preview

Friday, Mar 22, 9:30–11:00 AM

Media are invited to attend a tour of the exhibition led by Respini. RSVP to Margaux Leonard, mleonard@icaboston.org
 

The Artist’s Voice: Huma Bhabha

Thursday, May 2, 7 PM

Huma Bhabha’s monumental sculptures at the ICA reflect the diversity of influences in her art, including horror films, science-fiction, and modernist sculpture. This rich and complex visual vocabulary enables her to create timely and stirring works. She states, “I make what I want to make while feeling a responsibility to bear witness to what is happening in the world.”  Hear more about what drives Bhabha’s artistic practice in this engaging conversation between the artist and Eva Respini, the ICA’s Barbara Lee Chief Curator.

About the artist

Huma Bhabha (b. 1962, Karachi, Pakistan) came to the United States in 1981 to attend University. She holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and earned an MFA from Columbia University in 1987. She lives and works in Poughkeepsie, New York. She has exhibited widely nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at The Contemporary Austin (2018); the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2018); the David Roberts Art Foundation, London, United Kingdom (2017); Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy (2012); MoMA PS1 (2012); and the Aspen Art Museum in Aspen (2011).  Her work has been included in various group exhibitions such as All the World’s Futures, Venice Biennale (2015) and exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland; WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Hepworth Wakefield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom; Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam; and the New Museum, New York. Her works are included in prominent museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; New York Public Library; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas; Saatchi Gallery, London; David Roberts Art Foundation, London; and the Centre Pompidou, Paris.

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with audiences in Boston and beyond. Its innovative exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. Spanning two locations across Boston Harbor, the ICA offers year-round programming at its iconic building in Boston’s Seaport and seasonal programming (May-September) at the Watershed, part of a functioning East Boston shipyard. 

The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
 

Major support for Huma Bhabha: They Live is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Huma Bhabha: They Live is generously sponsored by Max Mara.

This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

National Endowment for the Arts logo

Additional support is generously provided by Karen and Brian Conway, Steve Corkin and Dan Maddalena, Fotene Demoulas and Tom Coté, Cynthia and John Reed, and Charlotte and Herbert S. Wagner III. 

Support for the Huma Bhabha: They Live publication provided by Salon 94.


 

(Boston, MA—Nov. 27, 2018) Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA), announced today the appointment of Tsugumi Maki to serve as the museum’s Chief Operating Officer. Maki comes to the ICA from the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, where she served as Associate Director of Operations and Collections Management since March 2015. In her new role at the ICA, Maki will strengthen the institutional infrastructure of the museum—staff, facility, business development and data systems—to achieve goals, leverage opportunities, and prepare for the decade ahead. She starts at the ICA on Jan. 7, 2019.

A headshot of Tsugumi Maki.

“Tsugumi’s expertise in strategic museum management along with her background in project management and collaboration make her ideally suited for the range of responsibilities she will take on as our new Chief Operating Officer. We are thrilled to be welcoming her to the ICA,” said Medvedow.

At the Davis Museum, Maki supported all collections and operational activities of the museum, including driving long-term planning, managing large-scale projects, and overseeing daily operations. As Associate Director of Operations and Collections Management, she played an important role in unveiling a major reinstallation of the Davis Museum’s permanent collections galleries in 2016. Prior to her time at the Davis, Maki served in many positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) during her nearly 18-year tenure. As Head of Gallery Planning and Installations, Maki was instrumental in the organization of the Art of the Americas Wing and the new contemporary galleries. Maki earned her master’s degree at Tufts University and a bachelor’s degree at Ithaca College.

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with audiences in Boston and beyond. Its innovative exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. Spanning two locations across Boston Harbor, the ICA offers year-round programming at its iconic building in Boston’s Seaport and seasonal programming (May-September) at the Watershed, part of a functioning East Boston shipyard.

The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

 

U.S. premiere of major video installation by celebrated artist and filmmaker sheds light on climate change

(Boston, MA—November 9, 2018) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) will open the next season of the Watershed, its new project space in East Boston, with the U.S. premiere of Purple, an immersive six-channel video installation by acclaimed artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah, announced Jill Medvedow, the ICA’s Ellen Matilda Poss Director.

“What astounds me about the art of John Akomfrah is that the beauty, power, and grace of his work conveys a sense of the sublime and the possible, despite its depiction of the powerful impacts of climate change, rising sea levels, and the increase of severe weather. Purple embodies the belief that inward reflection must be paired with active engagement.” said Medvedow. “The ICA is honored to present this important and timely work at the Watershed.”

The artist’s most ambitious project to date, Purple combines archival footage with newly shot film to address themes related to the implications of climate change across the planet and its effects on human communities, biodiversity, and the wilderness. Sited in the Watershed’s industrial building, the themes of Purple resonate deeply with the Watershed’s harbor location and its proximity to the current and historical maritime industries of the Boston Harbor Shipyard and Marina. On view May 26 through September 2, 2019*, John Akomfrah: Purple is organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, with Cara Kuball, Curatorial Project Manager.

“Purple is a catalyst for conversation and action. Through the poetic interweaving of archival images and new footage accompanied by a hypnotic soundscape, the film confronts the issue of climate change from a philosophical perspective, questioning what is morally and ethically at stake if human beings continue to exploit the planet,” said Respini. “The Watershed’s coastal and industrial location provides a powerful backdrop for visitors to explore these subjects.”

Akomfrah draws from hundreds of hours of archival footage, combining it with newly shot film and a spellbinding sound score to produce the video installation. Symphonic in scale and divided into five interwoven movements, the film features various disappearing ecological landscapes: from the hinterlands of Alaska and the desolate environments of Greenland, to the Tahitian Peninsula and the volcanic Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific. Purple conveys the complex and fragile interrelation of human and non-human life with a sense of poetic gravity that registers the vulnerability of living in precarious environments.

Purple has been commissioned by the Barbican, London and co-commissioned by Bildmuseet Umeå, Sweden, TBA21-Academy, The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow.

About the Artist

Born in 1957, Accra, Ghana, John Akomfrah lives and works in London. A founding member of the influential Black Audio Film Collective (1982–1998) and its offshoot, the film and television production company Smoking Dogs Films (1998–present), his work has been shown in museums and exhibitions around the world including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The New Museum, New York; Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Serpentine Gallery, London; Tate Britain, London; Southbank Centre, London; Bildmuseet Umeå, Sweden; and the 56th Venice Biennale.

About the Watershed

On July 4, 2018 the ICA opened to the public its new ICA Watershed expanding artistic and educational programming on both sides of Boston Harbor—the Seaport and East Boston. The Watershed builds upon the extraordinary momentum achieved by the museum since opening its visionary waterfront building, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, in 2006. The ICA has been a catalyst in expanding audiences for contemporary art through groundbreaking exhibitions and performances, and innovative programs—increasing its attendance tenfold and welcoming over 2.5 million visitors to the museum since 2006. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and augmenting art’s role as educator, incubator, and convener for social engagement. Admission to the Watershed—central to the museum’s vision for art and civic life—is free for all.

About the ICA

An influential forum for multi-disciplinary arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston has been at the leading edge of art in Boston for 80 years. Like its iconic building on Boston’s waterfront, the ICA offers new ways of engaging with the world around us. Its exhibitions and programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. The ICA, located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, is open Tuesday and Wednesday, 10 AM–5 PM; Thursday and Friday, 10 AM–9 PM (1st Friday of every month, 10 AM–5 PM); and Saturday and Sunday, 10 AM–5 PM.  Admission is $15 adults, $13 seniors and $10 students, and free for members and children 17 and under. Free admission for families at ICA Play Dates (2 adults + children 12 and under) on last Saturday of the month. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at www.icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

*Exhibition dates subject to change.

John Akomfrah: Purple has been commissioned by the Barbican, London and co-commissioned by Bildmuseet Umeå, Sweden, TBA21-Academy, The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow.

Free admission to the ICA Watershed is made possible by the generosity of Alan and Vivien Hassenfeld and the Hassenfeld Family Foundation.

The Boston Foundation welcomes you to the ICA Watershed.

The Boston Foundation logo

The ICA Watershed is supported by Fund for the Arts, a public art program of the New England Foundation for the Arts.

NEFA logo

 

(Boston, MA—October 19, 2018) Rashin Fahandej, Josephine Halvorson, Lavaughan Jenkins, and Helga Roht Poznanski have been named the recipients of the 2019 James and Audrey Foster Prize Exhibition, the museum announced today. This intergenerational group of artists works across media, including painting, sculpture, film, and video, to explore questions of place, portraiture, and belonging. This exhibition is organized by Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator, and will be on view at the ICA from August 21 to December 31, 2019.

“We are ever grateful to Jim and Audrey Foster for their inspired support of the ICA.The James and Audrey Foster Prize Exhibition highlights the strength, dynamism, and depth of Boston’s arts community. We are eager to share with the public a broad range of talent in this important biennial showcase,” said Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director. 

“We are thrilled to congratulate the 2019 Foster Prize artists,” said James Foster, ICA Trustee, and Audrey Foster, ICA Advisory Board Member. “Their work exemplifies the dynamic breadth of work being created in Boston’s artistic community.”

The James and Audrey Foster Prize is key to the ICA’s efforts to nurture and recognize exceptional Boston-area artists. First established in 1999, the James and Audrey Foster Prize (formerly the ICA Artist Prize) expanded its format when the museum opened its new facility in 2006. James and Audrey Foster, passionate collectors and supporters of contemporary art, endowed the prize and exhibition, ensuring the ICA’s ability to sustain the program for years to come.

Each iteration of the James and Audrey Foster Prize Exhibition highlights a new area of focus within Boston’s rich ecology of contemporary art practices. To select the 2019 Foster Prize artists, Erickson conducted studio visits with 50 artists living and working in the Boston-area over the past year. Relying upon ongoing recommendations from curators, artists, and other colleagues, she previewed more than 150 artists’ work online, and set up studio visits with 50 of these artists. Intent to view a broad cross-section of artists, Erickson assured she met with practitioners working in all media and with varied backgrounds and training.

“This exhibition presents a sliver of the countless talented artists who have trained at and teach in Boston’s numerous art schools,” said Erickson. “I am humbled by the generosity of every artist I visited, and I thank each of them for sharing their time and work with me.”

 

Artist Biographies

 

Photo of artist Rashin Fahandej in front of her artwork consisting of photographs of men.

Rashin Fahandej (b. 1978, Shiraz, Iran) is an Iranian-American artist and independent filmmaker. Her work centers on marginalized voices, and the role of media, technology, and public collaboration in generating social change. A proponent of “Art as Ecosystem,” she defines her project as a “Poetic Cyber Movement for Social Justice,” where art mobilizes a plethora of voices by creating connections between public places and virtual space. She is the founder of A Father’s Lullaby, a multi-platform, co-creative project that highlights the role of men in raising children and their absence due to racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Marginalia, a series of poetic documentaries about Baha’i immigrants of Iranian descent, narrates a historical persecution in their homeland. Fahandej holds a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (2006) and an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute (2010). She has served as an artistic director of the Rebuilding the Gwozdziec Synagogue at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and 2017 Boston Artist-In-Residence with Mayor’s office of art and culture. Fahandej currently is a research fellow at MIT Open Documentary Lab, a Public Art Resident at Boston Center for the Arts, and a visiting faculty at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Fahandej maintains a studio at Boston Center for the Arts and lives in Framingham, MA.

 

A headshot of artist Josephine Halvorson.

Josephine Halvorson (b. 1981, Brewster, MA) makes art from observation in relation to a particular object and place. Transcribing her perceptions in real time, Halvorson connects with the world around her through the medium of paint. Her work describes the appearance of the thing at-hand, while also expressing that which is invisible yet nonetheless felt: locale, time, history, and emotion. Halvorson’s artistic practice foregrounds attention and experience, taking the form of painting and also sculpture, printmaking and drawing. Halvorson holds a BFA from The Cooper Union (2003) and an MFA from Columbia University (2007). She is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Austria (2003-4), a Harriet Hale Woolley Fellowship at the Fondation des États-Unis in Paris (2007-8), a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant (2009), and was the first American pensionnaire at the French Academy in Rome (2014-15). Her work has been exhibited internationally and is represented by Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, and Peter Freeman, Inc., Paris. Solo exhibitions include the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, NC and Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, NY. Halvorson is Professor of Art and Chair of Graduate Studies in Painting at Boston University, and she lives in Boston and western Massachusetts.

 

A headshot of artist Lavaughan Jenkins in front of a white background.

Lavaughan Jenkins (b. 1976, Boston) is a painter, printmaker, and sculptor who uses the materiality of paint to build up two- and three-dimensional works that merge figuration with abstraction. He continuously reworks his surfaces, adding and scraping paint until his figures—from rotund men to courtly female characters—emerge and at times spill over the edges. Jenkins has recently exhibited his work at Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, Boston, and the Fitchburg Art Museum. In 2016-17 he became the Emerging Artist at Kingston Gallery in Boston. He holds a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (2005) and has exhibited his work at such venues as Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, Gallery Kayafas, Lens Gallery, and the Arts Research Collaborative Gallery, all in Boston, MA, as well as at the Oasis Gallery in Beijing. Jenkins is a recipient of the 2015 Blanche E. Colman Award and the Rob Moore Grant in Painting. Jenkins was raised in Pensacola, Florida, and currently lives and works in Roxbury, MA.

 

A photo of artist Helga Roht Poznanski sitting in an armchair.

Helga Roht Poznanski (b. 1927, Tartu, Estonia) is a watercolorist, painter, and fashion designer, whose diverse artistic output expresses a strong sense of color, composition, and spatial architectonics. Born in Estonia, Poznanski fled her homeland in 1944 for fear of Soviet repression, moving with her mother from Vienna to Innsbruck, Austria, and ultimately emigrating to Montreal, Canada in 1948. She graduated from the Montreal Fashion Arts Academy, working for 18 years as a designer at fashion houses in Montreal and New York, studied painting at the New York Art Students’ League from 1964-66, and then continued her study of visual arts at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts from 1974-78. During the interceding decades, she has painted hyperrealistic architectural scenes and botanical specimens, but her longest running series has been abstract and colorful collage-like compositions in watercolor, characterized by a well-structured pictorial space and rhythmic geometrical surfaces that Poznanski has equated to views from windows. Part of a generation of exiled Estonian artists, Poznanski has exhibited her artwork at galleries in Canada and New England and received her most significant exhibitions at museums in Estonia. She lives and works in Jamaica Plain, MA.

 

About the ICA

An influential forum for multi-disciplinary arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston has been at the leading edge of art in Boston for 80 years. Like its iconic building on Boston’s waterfront, the ICA offers new ways of engaging with the world around us. Its exhibitions and programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. The ICA, located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, is open Tuesday and Wednesday, 10 AM–5 PM; Thursday and Friday, 10 AM–9 PM (1st Friday of every month, 10 AM–5 PM); and Saturday and Sunday, 10 AM–5 PM.  Admission is $15 adults, $13 seniors and $10 students, and free for members and children 17 and under. Free admission for families at ICA Play Dates (2 adults + children 12 and under) on last Saturday of the month. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at www.icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

 

The exhibition and prize are generously endowed by James and Audrey Foster.

 

Museum educators and teens from across the country join forces for landmark conference to advance teen arts education

(Boston, MA—October 15, 2018) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) announces its first-ever national teen conference, Building Brave Spaces: Mobilizing Teen Arts Education, an unprecedented gathering of educators and youth from around the country. Ten years ago, the ICA galvanized a movement for teen arts education with the first national Teen Convening, an annual conference bringing together teen arts leaders and museum educators from around the country. Building Brave Spaces gives an opportunity to reflect and build upon the knowledge and field-wide progress made in teen arts education over the past decade. The conference will take place at the ICA from November 2–4, 2018.

Keynote speakers and presenters include:

Arts organizations participating in the conference include the Andy Warhol Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Artpace San Antonio, Brooklyn Museum, Creative Action, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Culture Thrive, Eliot School of Fine and Applied Arts, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson, Museum of Modern Art, Park Avenue Armory, Seattle Art Museum, SITE Santa Fe Center, and Smithsonian Latino Center.

Functioning as a catalyst, Building Brave Spaces will serve as a forum for collaboration and understanding across institutions, generations, and geographies. Through keynote sessions, workshops, and panels this conference will address three key areas: what we know about the impact of arts education on teens; innovative programs that museums are doing and the leadership required; and how to mobilize a broader field.

Conference sessions throughout the weekend will explore the field of teen arts education through workshops, panels, and group discussions on topics including innovative teen programming, creative youth development practices, teens in the museum and beyond. The conference will also include a performance by Berklee City Music Boston led by Boston-area teen Danny Rivera; and gallery tours led by members of the ICA Teen Arts Council, a year-long creative youth development program comprised of 15 teen ambassadors.

For more information about registration, schedule, and breakout session topics, visit icaboston.org.

About the ICA Teen Arts Programs

The ICA has a strong institutional commitment to teens, stemming from the recognition that teens are our future artists, leaders, and audiences. The museum serves more than 6,000 teens each year, and has emerged as a national leader in the field of museum arts education for teens. The ICA introduces adolescents to contemporary art through drop-in events such as Teen Nights and school tours of ICA exhibitions. Enrollment-based programs such as Teen New Media courses offer instruction in digital photography, DJing, film, music production and more, while yearlong programs such as Fast Forward provide an immersive experience where teens can create films and gain real job skills using cutting-edge technologies. In partnership with Boston-area schools, the ICA hosts WallTalk, a multi-visit art and writing program designed to improve the critical thinking and verbal literacy skills of middle and high-school students. The ICA’s Teen Arts Council is a group of motivated high school students who meet weekly to take part in and develop and implement creative programming, including artist interviews and Teen Nights.

In 2012, First Lady Michelle Obama presented the ICA with the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, the highest honor awarded to youth programs in the U.S.  More information about the ICA’s Teen Programs can be found at www.icateens.org.

About the ICA

An influential forum for multi-disciplinary arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston has been at the leading edge of art in Boston for 80 years. Like its iconic building on Boston’s waterfront, the ICA offers new ways of engaging with the world around us. Its exhibitions and programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. The ICA, located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, is open Tuesday and Wednesday, 10 AM–5 PM; Thursday and Friday, 10 AM–9 PM (1st Friday of every month, 10 AM–5 PM); and Saturday and Sunday, 10 AM–5 PM.  Admission is $15 adults, $13 seniors and $10 students, and free for members and children 17 and under. Free admission for families at ICA Play Dates (2 adults + children 12 and under) on last Saturday of the month. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at www.icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

 

 

Wagner Foundation logo

Lead support for Teen Programs provided by Wagner Foundation.

Institute of Museum and Library Services Logo

Teen Programs are made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Award Number MA-10-17-0447-17.

Additional support is provided by the Surdna Foundation; the Rowland Foundation, Inc.; The Corkin Family; the Mabel Louise Riley Foundation; the William E. Schrafft and Bertha E. Schrafft Charitable Trust; the Deborah Munroe Noonan Memorial Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee; the Jean Gaulin Foundation; the Thomas Anthony Pappas Charitable Foundation, Inc.; and The Willow Tree Fund.

The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed at this conference and in related materials do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums. We advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. Our vision is a nation where museums and libraries work together to transform the lives of individuals and communities. To learn more, visit www.imls.gov and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.