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(Boston, MA—August 10, 2020) Since the close of schools in March, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) has continued to serve its teen audiences through ongoing virtual programming. A wide variety of virtual art classes and events are available to all teens for the remainder of the summer; see full program details below. All programs and events take place on Zoom and are free for Boston Public School high school students. Most are free for all teens 13+. Visit teens.icaboston.org to learn more and register for programs.

“When schools closed for in-person learning, we began conversations with our partners to get a sense of how the ICA could help to address ‘summer learning loss’ and how it might be exacerbated due to the quarantine. We also heard from our ICA teens that they still needed the museum to connect with them and to connect them with one another. Though we’re unable to meet and work in our usual museum spaces right now, we are happy to be serving our teen audiences in this new way,” said Monica Garza, the ICA’s Charlotte Wagner Director of Education.

“Teens, like all people, want to stay creative and connected during this time of such uncertainty. They want to express themselves, create work that amplifies what matters to them, and have that work be seen by others. We have adapted, embracing flexibility and creativity, as we aspire to be an empowering platform for young people,” says Betsy Gibbons, the ICA’s Director of Teen Programs.

In addition to these programs, the museum is partnering with UMass Boston’s Urban Scholars program, Vertex’s High School Internship Program, Castle Square Tenants Organization’s Media Makers Internship Program, and Bloomberg Arts Interns to deepen the experiences of the young people they work with through art looking and making.

Virtual teen art programs and events

Summer Photography: Drop-In Sessions
Through Aug 18
Interested in photography but not sure where to start? Trying to take your skills to the next level? Looking for opportunities to connect with other creatives? Come thru for these virtual sessions! Explore topics like lighting, color, and finding inspiration in quarantine. Free for teens 13+! Join us for any or all sessions. When you apply, we’ll send details on how to join us on Zoom.

Visual Art & Writing Drop-In Series
Through Sep 30
Help us reimagine multimedia art experiences. Make art with us virtually with recycled & accessible materials. Share ideas rooted in self-expression. Free for teens 13+! Join us for any or all sessions. When you apply, we’ll send details on how to join us on Zoom.

Film School
Tue–Fri, Aug 11–14, 2020
Have you always wanted to make a film? Well, here’s your chance. In this one-week, online intensive, connect with other creative teens as you gain filmmaking skills. As part of a small team, you will work together virtually to build ideas, share feedback, and create an original short film.

You will: Join a group of teen filmmakers; gain skills in cinematography, audio recording, and video editing; and get familiar with contemporary art. Cost: Free for Boston Public School high school students; Fee: $360 nonmembers; $285 members.

August Virtual Teen Night
Thu, Aug 13, 6–8:30 PM
FREE for teens
Join the ICA Teen Arts Council—15 students from Boston-area high schools—for an unforgettable Virtual Teen Night! Organized by teens for teens, this online event features art-making activities, youth performances, and a dance party. The event will also feature an exciting collaboration with Converse, where teens will learn from Converse footwear designers how to create their own designs on the iconic canvas of the Chuck Taylor All Star. Those that participate can submit their creations to a design challenge. Winners of the challenge will have one pair of their original Chuck Taylor All Star design produced by Converse, and shipped to them.

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, 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 (TAC) is the ICA’s paid creative leadership program, offering teens the opportunity to work with the museum as ambassadors, event planners, and programmers, learning 21st-century skills for their future while contributing important skills and perspectives to ICA programming. The TAC has nimbly refocused its efforts to digital platforms, creating new content and opportunities to connect other teens with the arts and one another while the museum is closed. Meeting twice weekly via Zoom to move these ongoing projects forward, the group continues to receive pay for their remote work.

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

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 expanding the museum’s role as educator, incubator, and convener. Its exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to the breadth and diversity of 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 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.

The ICA is committed to maintaining a respectful and safe environment for all at the museum.
 

Lead support for Teen Programs provided by Wagner Foundation. 

Wagner Foundation logo

Teen Programs are made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Award Number 10-19-0390-19.  

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Additional support is provided by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation; the Rowland Foundation, Inc.; The Corkin Family; the Mabel Louise Riley Foundation; Vertex; the William E. Schrafft and Bertha E. Schrafft Charitable Trust; The Willow Tree Fund; the Nathaniel Saltonstall Arts Fund; the Mass Cultural Council; the Robert Lehman Foundation; the Deborah Munroe Noonan Memorial Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee; MFS Investment Management; the Jean Gaulin Foundation; BPS Arts Expansion Fund at EdVestors; and Santander. 

Mass Cultural Council logo

Vertex logo

Converse is committed to supporting movements for positive social change and amplifying youth voices as they build the future they believe in.

Converse logo

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 https://www.imls.gov/ and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed huge challenges—economic, medical, emotional, and professional—to working artists, in addition to galleries, museums, recent art school grads, and many art workers. A group of Boston curators and artists put their heads together to create a progressive and potentially valuable means of support and visibility for local and regional artists, especially those without gallery representation. It is the AREA CODE art fair.

An online presentation and sale of artworks, plus platforms for performance, time-based media, public art, and talks, AREA CODE runs August 1–31.

Three aspects of this experimental model stand out to me:

  1. Profit-sharing and the redistribution of wealth! Sales of artwork are distributed as follows: 50% to the artist, 35% to either their gallery/non-profit sponsor or (if unrepresented) back to the cost of administering the fair, and the remaining 15% will be redistributed equally among all section artists at the end of the fair.
  2. The collateral events! Yes, there is a fair. And there are also live-streamed performances, artwork displayed in vacant storefronts, and drive-in video art screenings.
  3. The incredible artist list, all from New England! There are too many amazing artists to list individually, but these people make strong work in every media, teach and are recent grads, curate and write, have exhibited at the ICA (and beyond), and work at area museums.

I had no part in building this event or selecting the participating artists. But over these past months, I have asked myself many times, “How do I support local artists and the Boston arts ecosystem during this time?” The AREA CODE art fair is a welcome path forward. I cannot wait to see these artists’ work virtually and dip into the many offerings throughout the month of August. See it all here

Ruth Erickson is Mannion Family Curator at the ICA. 

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This activity is adaptable for beginners to experts, ideally ages 8 and up. Please note that this project involves using scissors to cut cardboard and/or paper. Great for individuals, groups, and families to work on together at home.

Inspired by Shepard Fairey’s artwork like Afrocetric (Power and Equality) (2007), create your own stencils with everyday materials found at home. Fairey sometimes uses stencils in his work, particularly in his street art. Once a stencil of an image is made, you can easily reproduce that image many times. By cutting, overlapping, and positioning stencils in new ways, we can create exciting artwork. Experiment with different shapes and patterns. Be creative and share what you make with the world!

You will need:

Scissors, markers, tape, a metal ruler, and the cut-out front and back of a cardboard cereal box.

  • Drawing tools
  • Scissors
  • Cardboard (ex: old cereal boxes, folders, boxes, thick paper, etc.)
  • Coloring tools
  • Paper to draw on

Optional:

  • Tape
  • Ruler
  • Objects to trace

 

Steps:

1. Draw or trace your shapes and designs on your cardboard. The bigger they are the easier they will be to cut. Think about shapes and designs and how they can be used to communicate ideas.

Art-Lab_(Stencil-Making)_Step-(2).png

2. Carefully cut out your stencils. You can use both pieces as stencils. Try cutting your stencils in one cut. Move your cardboard as you cut along your shape until you are back where you made the first cut. You can place some tape along your initial cut to keep it intact as you trace.

Hearts and flower shape cut-outs.

3. Trace your stencils on paper. You can tape down your stencils to keep them from moving while you trace. Try overlapping different shapes and designs.

A hand tracing hearts and flower shapes overlapping other shapes on a piece of paper.

4. Add color. Out-line and fill in the shapes and designs you traced.

A stencil illustration of a dark-skinned girl with colorful hearts in her hair.

Pro Tip!

You can save and reuse your stencils for future projects!
 

This activity was developed by Flolynda Jean, Studio Programs Education Assistant.

I am captured when a contemporary artist takes the particular, their own experience, and creates something that has a universal resonance. A good example is Louise Bourgeois, an iconic figure and an inspiration cited by many women artists. She has often said her work is personal, a vehicle for expressing and grappling with the psychological struggles of her life. Her mother contracted the Spanish flu in 1919, never fully recovered, and died when Bourgeois was 20. This experience when Bourgeois was eight years old changed the artist’s life and was amplified by secondary and other, later losses. 

I have seen many of Bourgeois’s monumental artworks – her “spiders” and elaborate installations come to mind. In contrast, Untitled stands quietly in the gallery. There is something self-contained and almost luminescent about its presence. At least one visitor described it as “cold.” My first impression is of something tall, slender, almost fragile, as it stands on its tapered end. There is a rigid tension to the piece, which contrasts with the curves – there are no straight lines here. The rigid, elongated form is interrupted by round spherical shapes and a dimple, a kind of belly button, below the mid-point. The smooth, white surface of the sculpture evokes in me a tactile sensation, a wish to touch it, to feel how the piece was carved. 

Louise Bourgeois created this sculpture, one of her many Personnages, in her mid-30s while living in a New York City apartment with her husband and sons. She describes feeling bereft, missing the friends and family she had left behind in France. Her way of dealing with this absence was to begin carving these sculptures out of wood, often keeping them near to her in her apartment. The artist’s son has said that she would carve pieces of balsa the way another woman might knit, often going to the roof of their apartment to work.

Who is the person this sculpture portrays? Typical of the artist, there are both elongated masculine and spherical feminine forms here. Was Bourgeois feeling the unmoored, often physical sensations that come with loss, seeking to restore what she had lost through the visceral sensations of close repetitive work? We may never decode her visual language, but we can recognize these patterns in her work. The artist has spoken about these sculptures as referring to people, and as autobiographical, capturing aspects of her own experience – feelings of tension, of fragility, of working hard to maintain balance. Loss evokes these responses in all of us.

 

Carol Jensen has given tours at the ICA. Engaging with visitors and art has been a rewarding addition to her other creative endeavors in art-making and as a psychotherapist and teacher/mentor.

Friday Art Notes are personal reflections on works of art shown or in the permanent collection of the ICA, written by ICA staff, volunteers, and supporters. Read more

 

There is something mesmerizing about reflections that emerge between mirrors. As a kid I found they conjured realities where alternate versions of myself existed a la Alice Through the Looking Glass. This wasn’t just the realm of fantasy but also of theoretical physics. In college I was introduced to the concept of multiple infinities. There wasn’t just one infinity but layers that could be mathematically acted upon.

When I include McElheny’s Czech Modernism Mirrored and Reflected Infinitely in tours, visitors describe the display as sumptuous, enticing, lux. The work dazzles with layers of reflections receding into a silvery abyss. While the piece has an allure, I think the artist is going after something sinister; a feeling of objects and desires run amok.

McElheny recreates Czech decanters from the early 20th century and coats them with a reflective surface. They’re hermetically sealed in their own universe with a one-way mirror with no reflection out, creating abstractions as the objects echo off each other. This modernist period is a time where hand-crafted labor is being replaced by mass production. Objects of uniqueness are replaced with sameness. The reflected decanters become an apt metaphor for this shift in labor and consumption of objects, which continues today as goods are treated as easy throw-aways that keep amassing but never disappear.

McElheny draws viewers in with glass and mirrors that often parallel social conflict. In this work I’ve understood he is examining modernist thought about an alternate reality in which we reflect back on objects, thus creating such a world and asking us to enter. A visitor commented that our reality is like that already: not an actual mirrored reflection but one where beliefs are amplified back at us. I think of the Internet and social media, where content has run rampant, misinformed, and sometimes violent. This viewpoint has made me consider McElheney’s lush decanters, and the infinite, with a sense of things gone awry.

Bob Hall has been leading ICA tours since 2013. He works as a program manager for an informatics research program at the VA Healthcare system. While his focus is on big data during the day he likes to explore the right side of his brain with contemporary art, music, film, and theater.

Friday Art Notes are personal reflections on works of art shown or in the permanent collection of the ICA, written by ICA staff, volunteers, and supporters. Read more

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This activity invites kids and their grownups to unite over the meditative and ancient art of weaving. Reflect and create together while weaving your family narrative of life during quarantine.

This activity is appropriate for children ages 5 and up with the help of an adult.

You will need:

  • 1 piece of thick cardboard, at least 8.5” x 11”
  • Ruler
  • Paper and writing utensil
  • Scissors
  • Tape
  • Long consecutive piece of yarn, string, twine, or thin rope
  • Found objects to weave with: yarn; cut strips of cardboard, fabric, or paper bags; sticks, flowers, feathers, bendy straws, etc.
  • Optional: Thin stick, pencil, or dowel to hang weaving from
     

1. Writing Reflection Exercise:

  • Using paper and a writing utensil, reflect on you and your family’s personal experiences during quarantine. This text can later be cut or ripped and used directly in your weaving.
  • What are you sharing during quarantine that you didn’t have to share before?
  • What are you and your family doing during quarantine to feel happy or relaxed?
     

2. Make a loom:

Mark 5 equidistant lines from the center of the top and bottom edges of your cardboard. Cut into each line to create equal-sized notches. Now you have a loom to create many weavings with!

A piece of brown cardboard, with the top and bottom edges marked, and being cut on the middle-bottom edge.

3. String your loom:

Tape the end of a long piece of string to one side of the cardboard. Stretch and pull the string into the top, left notch. Stretch down the backside of the cardboard and pull into the bottom left notch. Repeat until the string is pulled snugly into each notch. Tape down end, leaving a 4” tail of string, then cut. Congrats, you’ve strung, or ‘warped’ your loom!

ART LAB_Woven-Wonders_Step-3.png

4. Weave!

Weave materials horizontally over and under the vertical strings. Alternate the over/under pattern on the next line. Try to maintain consistent tension while weaving, without pulling too hard. To incorporate your personal story into your weaving, written reflections could be cut or ripped into strips and woven in.

Learn the basics of weaving in these videos:

   

5. Remove Weaving from Loom:

On the back of the loom, cut the vertical strings across the center. Tie the end of the first string to the second, then second to third, and continue across the top. Repeat by tying your strings across the bottom. Trim ends. Tuck the ends of your weaving into the back. If you’d like, incorporate a stick or dowel and hanging string at the top.

Woven-Wonders_Step-5.png

Pro Tip!

You can use your loom to make many more weavings! Add more notches to create a wider weaving. To create different size weavings, change the size of your loom.

Time during shelter-at-home seems to be on perpetual repeat, as days slip into weeks, and – can it really be? – into months.  Some say photography freezes time, but Leslie Hewitt calls her photographic series Riffs on Real Time, begun in 2002, a durational work, because she combines seemingly unrelated materials from different eras to continually make new meaning. She creates, then photographs, temporary arrangements of books, magazines, snapshots, and other printed materials against a backdrop of colorful shag carpets or well-worn wood floors. Time works in different registers in Hewitt’s series – we peer back in time through printed ephemera (from Ebony, Jet, and other Civil Rights–era publications), but we know that the arrangement itself is fleeting. We bring our own present-day associations to each work, so each reading is, in essence, time-stamped. In these works, world events and personal events are collapsed and Hewitt’s juxtapositions speak to dislocation and repetition, a feeling all too familiar now. 

Hewitt’s neatly arranged still life in the ICA/Boston’s collection features a seemingly ordinary snapshot of a man in shorts barbequing in a park (remember BBQs?) atop a magazine page featuring Walter Cronkite reporting the news (he seems rather quaint in comparison to the amped-up talking heads of today’s 24-hour news cycle). I study the jpeg on my screen, its slight pixilation a far cry from the actual work’s crisp description. I scan my visual memory for what it was like to experience this work in person. I remember the objects in the photograph appear slightly larger than in life, more like sculpture than photography. I look at the map behind Cronkite – what was going on in Lima, Peru? I attempt to read the text in the article, but am drawn to the doodles on the magazine page. Were they drawn by Hewitt? I wish more than ever that I could see this artwork in the flesh, as I am convinced it would unlock these mysteries. I think back to when I first showed this series over a decade ago (that seems like a lifetime ago) and if during our many conversations over the years, Leslie told me about the man in the snapshot. Is it her father, an uncle, a friend, or a stranger? Those shorts are pretty short, so it must be the 1970s or 80s.  But I digress. As I “read” the photograph rather than just look at it, I wonder what kinds of magazines, snapshots, news items, and ephemera will become the mementos of our distinctive time.  I wonder what riffs on tomorrow will look like.

 

Eva Respini is Barbara Lee Chief Curator at the ICA. This piece appeared on aperture.org.

Friday Art Notes are personal reflections on works of art shown or in the permanent collection of the ICA, written by ICA staff, volunteers, and supporters. Read more

 

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This activity was developed for children 3+ to create together with their caregivers and is easily adaptable for a variety of ages and interests.

Artist Carolina Caycedo uses found objects to make artwork about rivers and the relationships that humans have with water. Caycedo thinks about the story of every objects and considers questions like, where does water come from? How do people use water now and throughout history? How are water and the environment cared for and how are they taken advantage of? Experiment with using water and found objects from around your own neighborhood to make your own frozen sculpture. As you create your frozen sculptures, look up where your tap water is sourced, find out what bodies of water you live near, and think about how you use water in and around your home everyday.

You will need:

  • Assorted containers of different sizes
  • Found objects from nature
  • Tap water
  • Space in a freezer

Additional Optional Materials:

  • Food coloring
  • Baking sheet or large shallow bin
  • Washable paint and brushes
  • Sketching supplies
     

An assortment of containers, baking pan for muffins, found objects such as leaves, flowers, rocks, and other things from nature.

1. Go for a walk around your neighborhood and collect objects that you find from nature. Talk about why you chose them. Notice their textures and colors. Where did they come from? Why are they important?

2. Distribute your found objects among your containers. What stories do these arrangements tell about where you live?

Found objects from nature such as pine cones, flowers, leaves, sticks placed in various containers.

3. Fill your containers with water leaving space at the top for the water to expand as it freezes. Keep in mind that some objects will float to the top while others will sink to the bottom. If you have food coloring, add a drop to each container. Think about where you got your water. Would you consider it part of your community? Why or why not?

Two side-by-side images of a pine cone submerged in a glass bowl filled with water.

4. Place your containers in the freezer until the water freezes and becomes solid ice. What conditions are required to turn water into ice? How long did this take? Where can you find ice in nature?

5. Remove your frozen sculptures from their containers. Wiggle them free by running the container under warm water or wrapping it in a warm towel. Then flip it over and tap on the bottom. To contain the ice as it melts, consider placing your sculptures on a rimmed baking sheet, a large shallow bin, or directly on the ground outside.

Various objects from nature, frozen in bowl-shaped ice, next to each other and stacked on top of one another.

6. Build, play, create! Once emerged, notice how your found objects have changed.

  • Stack your frozen sculptures on top of each other or organize in unique patterns.
  • Top your ice with paint. Apply with paint brushes, kitchen spoons, or your hand s. Watch the colors move and mix as the ice melts.
  • Check on your sculptures throughout the day. Document how it changes over time with sketches or photographs. What happens when you add hot water to parts of your frozen sculpture? 

This activity was created by Alice Matthews, Visitor Assistant.

Reopening begins with member appreciation days July 14–15; free admission for all July 16–19

(Boston, MA—July 8, 2020) Jill Medvedow, the Ellen Matilda Poss Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA), announced today that the museum will reopen to the public on Thursday,July 16 with new health and safety protocols in place for the safety of both visitors and staff. The ICA will host member appreciation days on July 14 and& 15, and members will be able to bring an additional guest for free through September 7, 2020 (Labor Day). The museum will also offer free admission to the public from July 16 through July 19. Advance timed tickets required at icaboston.org/tickets.

“I am very eager to welcome people back to the ICA, to share the extraordinary craft and insights of amazing artists, and to put exhibitions, educational materials, outdoor space, and more in service to communities. I’m equally eager to simply see our audiences—to be alone together at the museum—as we navigate our way together, invest in the common good, and recognize the power of the arts to help us understand the promise and the pain of our moment,” said Medvedow.

The museum will open with exhibitions of work by Sterling Ruby, Tschabalala Self, Carolina Caycedo, Nina Chanel Abney, and our collection show Beyond Infinity: Contemporary Art After Kusama. These exhibitions were on view when the museum closed in March, and have now been extended. In the fall, the ICA will open several new exhibitions, including a major collection show titled i’m yours: Encounters with Art in Our Times featuring works by Kader Attia, Firelei Báez, Louise Bourgeois, Ndijeka Akuniyli Crosby, Nan Goldin, Simone Leigh, Doris Salcedo, Henry Taylor, and more; the U.S. museum premiere of William Kentridge’s KABOOM! (2018), a recent major acquisition and room-filling multimedia installation; and Ragnar Kjartansson’s The Visitors (2012). Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING will remain closed for further safety assessments. Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech,” slated to open this July, will now open in July 2021. An updated exhibition schedule can be viewed at icaboston.org/exhibitions.

Advance timed tickets are required to allow for contactless entry, and we ask that visitors arrive to the museum no more than five minutes ahead of their designated time slot. Timed tickets can be reserved online starting July 8 for ICA members and July 15 for general admission at icaboston.org/tickets.

When the ICA reopens, the museum will implement new procedures and policies for the safety of visitors and staff, following the health and safety requirements and recommendations of the City of Boston, State of Massachusetts, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These procedures and policies include:

  • Online ticketing and contactless entry.
  • Limited visitor capacity.
  • Face covering required for all staff and visitors.
  • Increased safety measures and equipment available to visitors, including hand sanitizer stations placed throughout the museum. 
  • New signage outlining safety protocols and delineating physical distance.
  • New cleaning protocols.
  • Contactless, digital resources available for visitors via URL/QR code.
  • Reconfiguration of and capacity limits in spaces throughout the museum to ensure physical distancing.
  • Implementation of new procedures and safety guidelines for ICA staff, including the requirement to wear face coverings and maintain physical distancing at all times on site, and a daily health self-assessment. 

In addition to the changes outlined above, the ICA has postponed all theater productions and performances until 2021. Public programming and events are also currently postponed. On-site group tours have been suspended and the ICA will provide additional options for self-guided visits. The ICA plans to continue many different kinds of virtual programs during the first phase of reopening, including family programs, teen programs, virtual tours, and social programs like First Fridays.

Leading up to the November 2020 election, the ICA will offer voter registration and census surveys on site from 5–9 PM on Thursday evenings and 11–3 PM on Saturdays and Sundays. Voter registration forms will be available through October 13 and census surveys will be available through October 31.

Opening schedule

The Watershed

The ICA will continue to work collaboratively and use the Watershed as a food distribution site through September 3, 2020. In partnership with East Boston community organizations and the museum’s caterer, The Catered Affair, over 2,000 boxes of much-needed fresh produce and dairy will be delivered to East Boston families by the end of the summer. The Watershed’s previously scheduled programming, including a new site-specific installation by artist Firelei Báez, is postponed until 2021. 

Exhibition schedule

Sterling Ruby
Through October 12, 2020
The ICA presents the first comprehensive museum survey of artist Sterling Ruby. The exhibition features more than 70 works and features an array of works in various mediums, from his renowned ceramics and paintings to lesser-known drawings and sculptures. Since his earliest works, Ruby has investigated the role of the artist as an outsider. Critiquing the structures of modernism and traditional institutions, Ruby addresses the repressed underpinnings of U.S. culture and the coding of power and violence, with a range of imagery from the American flag to prison architecture and graffiti. Craft is central to his inquiry, informed by his upbringing in Pennsylvania Dutch country and working in Los Angeles, as he explores hand-based processes from Amish quilt-making to California’s radical ceramics tradition. Sterling Ruby is co-presented with Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, and is accompanied by an illustrated scholarly catalogue edited by Alex Gartenfeld and Eva Respini, featuring a conversation between Ruby and Isabelle Graw, and essays that consider Ruby’s work in the context of contemporary art production and visual culture of the last 30 years. Organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, ICA/Boston, and Alex Gartenfeld, Artistic Director, ICA, Miami, with Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager, ICA/Boston.

Tschabalala Self: Out of Body
Through September 7, 2020
Based in New Haven, Connecticut, Tschabalala Self (b. 1990, Harlem, NY) was raised in Harlem as the youngest of five. She grew up observing the textures and pace of metropolitan life, with a keen attention to the surfaces that surround and clothe our bodies—whether carpet or curtains, fashion, or salvaged textiles that contain the spirit of use. The creative repurposing of material, along with the self-expression and self-possession of Black women—including her mother’s innovative transformation of fabrics into dresses—inspire her work. The large-scale figurative paintings and sculptures on view, dating from 2015 to the present, convey a multidimensional humanity, from strength and vulnerability to sexuality and boredom, shaped by methods of abstraction. Organized by Ellen Tani and Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator.

Carolina Caycedo: Cosmotarrayas
Through September 7, 2020
The interdisciplinary practice of Los Angeles–based artist Carolina Caycedo (b. 1978, London) is grounded in vital questions related to asymmetrical power relations, dispossession, extraction of resources, and environmental justice. Since 2012, Caycedo has conducted an ongoing project, Be Dammed, examining the wide-reaching impacts of dams built along waterways by transnational corporations, including the displacement and dispossession of peoples, particularly in Latin American countries such as Brazil or Colombia (where she was raised and frequently returns). At the ICA, Caycedo will present the culmination of one component of the project, a series of hanging sculptures called Cosmotarrayas that are assembled with handmade fishing nets and other objects collected during field research in river communities affected by the privatization of waterways. These objects, many of which were entrusted to her by individuals no longer able to use them, demonstrate the meaningful connectivity and exchange at the heart of Caycedo’s practice. At the same time, they also represent the dispossession of these individuals and their continued resistance to corporations and governments seeking to control the flow of water and thus their way of life. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager.

Beyond Infinity: Contemporary Art After Kusama
Through July 18, 2021
Drawn primarily from the ICA’s permanent collection, this exhibition presents artworks that engage with the pioneering ideas of Yayoi Kusama. Beyond Infinity: Contemporary Art after Kusama celebrates Kusama’s prescient artistic vision, which since the 1950s has merged techniques of repetition, obsessional patterns, and the activation of the body in search of a path to liberation from psychological and societal constraints. Through her paintings, sculptures, and environments, as well as body art, film, and performance, Kusama channeled the attitudes and realities of the moment but avoided such labels as pop, minimalism, postminimalism, and performance art. Kusama’s peers shared her interest in timeless concepts that pushed the limits of possibility and of imagination: the idea of the infinite; the experience of rapture; the representational power of illusion; and the threshold between life and death. Here, Kusama’s work is presented alongside that of her contemporaries, such as Louise Bourgeois and Ana Mendieta, and other artists whose work builds on her lasting impact on contemporary art through dizzying arrays of forms and colors, infinite reflection, and the evocative vocabulary of the body. Organized by Ellen Tani.

Nina Chanel Abney
Through January 3, 2021
Deeply invested in creating imagery that is legible and accessible, Nina Chanel Abney (b. 1982, Chicago) is known for weaving colorful geometric shapes, cartoons, language, and symbols into patterned and energetic compositions. At the ICA, she created a mural that speaks to social conflict in the digital age, including the constant stream of true and false information, the history of liberal racism and capitalism, and abuses of power that lead to violence and structural inequality. Organized by Ellen Tani.

Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors
September 30, 2020–August 15, 2021
The first newly installed exhibition at the museum following months of closure during the global COVID-19 pandemic, The Visitors is a beloved artwork in the ICA’s permanent collection, one that continually inspires and moves our visitors. A portrayal of friendship, love, and loss, The Visitors is a monumental, nine-channel sound and video installation of a performance staged at Rokeby Farm, a historic forty-three-room estate in upstate New York. Each of the individual audio and video channels features musicians playing instruments either alone or in small groups, isolated yet in unison, occupying different rooms of the romantically dilapidated estate. 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.” Through its unique arrangement of music in space, The Visitors creates a layered portrait of the house and its musical inhabitants. For some, the prolonged experience of sheltering-in-place—characterized at times as being “alone together”—has dramatically changed our conception of home and our relationships to one another. As the museum reopens, we turn to this familiar work for its range of resonant themes, its capacity to comfort and heal, and with the knowledge that our experience of it at this time will be different. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager.

i’m yours: Encounters with Art in Our Times
November 18, 2020–May 23, 2021
Events of this year have brought the world to a halt, affecting global commerce and security, putting our own mortality in sharp focus, and heightening existing inequities, injustices, and political tensions. In this time, we ask: What is the role of art and museums? i’m yours: Encounters with Art in Our Times celebrates that art belongs to everyone. This exhibition, which takes its title from a Henry Taylor painting in the ICA collection, underscores that without visitors, museums—and the works they house—are incomplete. Collaboratively and virtually organized in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest against racial injustices, i’m yours offers a non-hierarchical presentation of art works in an unfinished architectural environment to emphasize that the stories museums may tell through art are never fixed but always in process. Comprising unique encounters with new and iconic works from the ICA’s collection, the exhibition’s groupings, or vignettes, address a range of topics, including ideas of home and history, social and material transformation, and frames of identity in portraiture and sculpture. As an invitation to be present with works by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Kader Attia, Firelei Báez, Louise Bourgeois, Nan Goldin, Simone Leigh, Doris Salcedo, and others, i’m yours sparks wonder, encourages questions, challenges assumptions, and provides a space for reflection. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager; Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator; Anni Pullagura, Curatorial Assistant; and Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator.

William Kentridge: KABOOM!
November 18, 2020–May 23, 2021
The wide-ranging, interdisciplinary work of William Kentridge (b. 1955, Johannesburg, South Africa) examines the prolonged effects of settler colonialism and the apartheid system in South Africa. Through drawing, performance, film, and opera, Kentridge recomposes historical narratives and proposes new understandings of the past, emphasizing, as he says, “what we’ve chosen not to remember.” The ICA presents the U.S. museum premiere of KABOOM! (2018), a recent major acquisition and room-filling multimedia installation. KABOOM! tells the little-known story of the two million Black African porters conscripted into service for German, British, and French colonial powers during World War I in Africa. Set to a rousing, orchestral score co-composed by Philip Miller and Thuthuka Sibisi, KABOOM! employs collage, drawing, and animation on repurposed archival documents to embody at gallery scale the theatrical intensity of the artist’s full-scale production of The Head & the Load (2018), a work whose title references the Ghanaian proverb, “The head and the load are the troubles of the neck.” A way of speaking back to the incomplete story of colonialism and exploitative labor systems, KABOOM! envelops the gallery in a visual landscape that traverses memory and narrative, revealing history to be a fragmented and authorless relationship to the past. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager, with Anni Pullagura, Curatorial Assistant.

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 expanding the museum’s role as educator, incubator, and convener. Its exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to the breadth and diversity of 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 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.

The ICA is committed to maintaining a respectful and safe environment for all at the museum.

 

Sterling Ruby
Major support for Sterling Ruby is provided by Sprüth Magers, Gagosian, and Xavier Hufkens.    

Additional support for the Boston presentation is generously provided by Stephanie Formica Connaughton and John Connaughton, Jean-François and Nathalie Ducrest, Bridgitt and Bruce Evans, James and Audrey Foster, Ted Pappendick and Erica Gervais Pappendick, David and Leslie Puth, and Charlotte and Herbert S. Wagner III.

 

Tschabalala Self: Out of Body
Tschabalala Self: Out of Body is presented by Max Mara.
 

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

 

Additional support is generously provided by Fotene Demoulas and Tom Coté, Ted Pappendick and Erica Gervais Pappendick, The Coby Foundation, Ltd, and the Jennifer Epstein Fund for Women Artists.
 

 

Carolina Caycedo: Cosmotarraya
Carolina Caycedo: Cosmotarrayas is presented by Max Mara. 
 

 

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

i’m yours: Encounters with Contemporary Art
Support for i’m yours: Encounters with Contemporary Art is provided by First Republic Bank.

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William Kentridge: KABOOM! 
KABOOM! was acquired through the generosity of Amy and David Abrams, James and Audrey Foster, Charlotte Wagner and Herbert S. Wagner III, Jeanne L. Wasserman Art Acquisition Fund, and Fotene and Tom Coté Art Acquisition Fund.
 

Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING
LOVE IS CALLING was acquired through the generosity of Barbara Lee/The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women, Fotene Demoulas and Tom Coté, Hilary and Geoffrey Grove, Vivien and Alan Hassenfeld, Jodi and Hal Hess, Barbara H. Lloyd, and an anonymous donor.
 

Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech”
Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech” is organized by Michael Darling, James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator of the MCA Chicago. The exhibition is designed by Samir Bantal, Director of AMO, the research and design studio of OMA. The ICA’s presentation is coordinated by Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator.

The exhibition tour is made possible by Kenneth C. Griffin.

Support is provided by Northern Trust. 


Neiman Marcus is the Lead Education Partner of Teen Programs associated with Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech.”  

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This project is designed for kids and adults, ages 6 +

Explore your identity and create a collage that is as unique as you! Cut and collect images from magazines that represent your identity and use an image transfer technique to create a collage with see-through images.

This activity was facilitated as a virtual workshop during the June 2020 virtual Play Date: Creating for Care.

You will need:

Art materials including clear packing tape, scissors, glossy magazine, white sheet of paper, and a black plastic bowl.

  • Old magazines: Glossy magazine images work best (paper printouts or newspapers will not work with this technique).  
  • Clear packing tape
  • Scissors
  • A bowl of water or spray bottle filled with water
  • (Optional) A piece of paper or other surface to be your background for your collage
  • (Optional) glue stick or tape 
  • (Optional) Extra 2D collage materials 
  • (Optional) Coloring/drawing tools
  • An art making space that can get a little wet (have a towel handy!)

Steps:

1. Cut and collect images from magazines that represent you. Think about your culture, heritage, family, friends, community, personality, hobbies – All the things that make up who you are. Find and cut out images from magazines that represent these things.

A pair of scissors with magazine cut-outs of photographs of oranges, an autumn park, a gourmet dish, an outdoor deck, and illustrations of a sparrow and leaves.

2. Cover your image side with packing tape. Make sure your tape is sticking to the side with the image.

A photograph of an autumn park from a magazine cut-out is covered with clear tape on both sides.

3. Once your image is covered, soak it in the bowl of water or spray the paper side with water. Repeat with all your images.

Newspaper and magazine cut-outs soaked in a bowl of water.

4. Peel/rub the paper off of your images. Play around with the soak times. The longer you leave your images in the water, the easier it will be to peel the paper off. Soaking for a shorter period of time will leave more of the paper on your image.
 

A series of four images showing step-by-step a hand peeling off the magazine-cut out paper from the tape to reveal the transferred image.

5. Once you have all your image transfers and they’ve dried, use them to create a collage.  The transparency of the images let you play around with layering. You can collage just with your image transfers, on top of another piece of paper, or even on your window. You can also pair them with photographs, other magazine images, or drawings.
 

Various images and illustrations on clear tape, still slightly wet, after having been soaked in a bowl of water.