(Boston, MA—September 5, 2019) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) announces its exhibition schedule from fall 2019 through summer 2020. Upcoming exhibitions include Yayoi Kusama’s LOVE IS CALLING, a new anchor in the ICA’s collection; When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art, a major exhibition that considers how contemporary artists are responding to the migration, immigration, and displacement of peoples today; the first comprehensive museum survey for American artist Sterling Ruby; and the first museum exhibition devoted to the work of the genre-bending artist and designer Virgil Abloh. For more information, please contact Margaux Leonard at mleonard@icaboston.org or 617-478-3176.
Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING
Sep 24, 2019–Feb 7, 2021
An icon of contemporary art, Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929, Matsumoto, Japan) has interwoven ideas of pop art, minimalism, and psychedelia throughout her work in paintings, performances, room-size presentations, outdoor sculptural installations, literary works, films, design, and architectural interventions over her long and influential career. LOVE IS CALLING, which premiered in Japan in 2013, is the most immersive and kaleidoscopic of the artist’s Infinity Mirror Rooms. Representing the culmination of her artistic achievements, it exemplifies the breadth of her visual vocabulary—from her signature polka dots and soft sculptures to brilliant colors, the spoken word, and most importantly, endless reflections and the illusion of space. It is composed of a darkened, mirrored room illuminated by inflatable, tentacle-like forms—covered in the artist’s characteristic polka dots—that extend from the floor and ceiling, gradually changing colors. 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. LOVE IS CALLING is the largest of Kusama’s existing Infinity Mirror Rooms, and the first one held in the permanent collection of a New England museum. Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING is organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator.
Parallel to LOVE IS CALLING, the ICA will present a focused collection presentation titled Beyond Infinity: Contemporary Art after Kusama, to provide visitors with a deeper understanding of how Kusama has indelibly influenced art today. The 14th iteration of the ICA’s annual collection exhibition, Beyond Infinity will feature approximately 15 works from the 1950s to today, encompassing sculpture, painting, film, photography, and drawings.
When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art
Oct 23, 2019–Jan 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.
Tschabalala Self
Jan 20, 2020–Jul 5, 2020
Tschabalala Self (b. 1990 in Harlem, New York) creates large-scale figurative paintings that integrate hand-printed and found textiles, drawing, printmaking, sewing, and collage techniques to tell stories of urban life, the body, and humanity. The artist’s first Boston presentation—and her largest exhibition to date—will include a selection of paintings and sculptures that represent personal avatars, couplings, and everyday social exchanges inspired by urban life. Together, they articulate new expressions of embodiment and humanity through the exaggerated forms and exuberant textures of the human figure, pointing to its limitless capacity to represent imagined states, memories, aspirations, and emotions. Yet Self’s characters possess an ordinary grace grounded in reality: they are reflections of the artist or people she can imagine meeting in Harlem, her hometown. This exhibition is organized by Ellen Tani, Assistant Curator.
Carolina Caycedo
Jan 20, 2020–Jul 5, 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, and environmental justice. Since 2012, Caycedo’s ongoing project Be Dammed has examined the wide-reaching impacts of dams built along waterways, particularly those 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 her Cosmotarrayas, a series of hanging sculptures assembled with handmade fishing nets and other objects collected during field research in different riverine communities affected by the privatization of waterways. These objects demonstrate the meaningful connectivity and exchange at the heart of Caycedo’s practice, as many of the nets and other objects were entrusted to her by individuals no longer able to use them. 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. This exhibition is organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager.
Sterling Ruby
Feb 26, 2020–May 26, 2020
ICA/Boston presents the first comprehensive museum survey for American artist Sterling Ruby. The exhibition features more than 50 works that demonstrate the relationship between material transformation in Ruby’s practice and the rapid evolution of American culture, institutions, and labor. Spanning more than two decades of the artist’s career, the exhibition features an array of works created in various mediums, from his renowned ceramics and paintings to lesser-known drawings and installations. 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 American culture and the coding of power and violence, employing 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. Organized loosely by chronology and medium, Sterling Ruby considers the artist’s explorations of these themes across the many materials and forms he has utilized throughout his practice, including many innovations. Sterling Ruby is co-presented with Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, and will be accompanied by an illustrated scholarly catalogue edited by Alex Gartenfeld and Eva Respini, with a conversation between Ruby and Isabelle Graw. The catalogue will feature essays that consider Ruby’s work amidst the contemporary art production and visual culture of the last 30 years. Sterling Ruby is on view at ICA, Miami November 7, 2019–February 2, 2020. The exhibition is organized by Alex Gartenfeld, Artistic Director, ICA, Miami, and Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, ICA/Boston, with Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager, ICA/Boston.
Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech”
Jul 4, 2020–Oct 18, 2020
Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech” is the first museum exhibition devoted to the work of the genre-bending artist and designer Virgil Abloh (b. 1980, Rockford, IL). Abloh pioneers a practice that cuts across media and connects visual artists, musicians, graphic designers, fashion designers, and architects. Abloh cultivated an interest in design and music at an early age, finding inspiration in the urban culture of Chicago. While pursuing a master’s degree in architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology, he connected with Kanye West and joined West’s creative team to work on album covers, concert designs, and merchandising. In 2013, Abloh founded his stand-alone fashion brand Off-White™ in Milan, Italy, and, in 2018, assumed the position of artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear. Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and set in an immersive space designed by Rem Koolhaas’s renowned architecture firm OMA*AMO, the exhibition will offer an in-depth look at defining highlights of Abloh’s career, including signature clothing collections, video documentation of iconic fashion shows, distinctive furniture and graphic design work, and collaborative projects with contemporary artists. A program of cross-disciplinary offerings will mirror the artist’s range of interests across music, fashion, architecture, and design. Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech is organized by Michael Darling, James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator of the MCA Chicago, with curatorial assistance from Chanon Kenji Praepipatmongkol. The ICA’s presentation is coordinated by Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator.
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.
Acknowledgments
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.
Support for When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art is generously provided by Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser, Steve Corkin and Dan Maddalena, Alan and Vivien Hassenfeld, Kristen and Kent Lucken, the Poss Family Foundation, and Mark and Marie Schwartz.
Tschabalala Self: Around the Way is supported, in part, by the Jennifer Epstein Fund for Women Artists. Additional support for is generously provided by Fotene Demoulas and Tom Coté and Ted Pappendick and Erica Gervais Pappendick.
Additional support for Tschabalala Self: Around the Way is generously provided by Fotene Demoulas and Tom Coté and Ted Pappendick and Erica Gervais Pappendick.
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.
Images
Yayoi Kusama, LOVE IS CALLING, 2013. Wood, metal, glass mirrors, tile, acrylic panel, rubber, blowers, lighting element, speakers, and sound, 174 ½ x 340 ⅝ x 239 ⅜ inches (443.2 x 865.2 x 608 cm). © YAYOI KUSAMA | Reena Saini Kallat, 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 | Tschabalala Self, Lite, 2018. Acrylic, flashe, milk paint, fabric, and gum on canvas. 96 x 84 inches (243.8 x 213.36 cm). Courtesy of the artist; Pilar Corrias Gallery, London; and Thierry Goldberg Gallery, Miami. © Tschabalala Self | Carolina Caycedo, Ósun (detail), 2018. Hand-dyed artisanal fishing net, steel chain, steel pot lid, mirror, enamel, spray paint, hoop earrings, paracord, string, and brass handles. 120 x 24 x 24 inches (304.8 x 61 x 61 cm). Courtesy the artist and Instituto de Visión, Bogotá, Columbia © Carolina Caycedo | Sterling Ruby, ACTS/WS ROLLIN, 2011. Clear urethane block, dye, wood, spray paint, and formica. 60 ½ x 62 ½ x 34 inches (153.7 x 158.8 x 86.4 cm). Photo by Robert Wedemeyer. Courtesy Sterling Ruby Studio, Los Angeles © Sterling Ruby Studio |Off-White™ c/o Virgil Abloh, Spring/Summer 2018, Look 11; Courtesy of Off-White™ c/o Virgil Abloh. Photo: Fabien Montique.
Photo by Hugh Glendinning
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Fase: Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich. Photo by Anne Van Aerschot.
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Fase: Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich. Photo by Anne Van Aerschot.
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Fase: Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich. Photo by Anne Van Aerschot.
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Fase: Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich. Photo by Anne Van Aerschot.
“The Greatest Step of Them All”: Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker on Passing Fase on to the Next Generation
“Fase is about the art of choreography, the art of composing movements that I wanted to master so badly as an autodidact.”
Choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s breakthrough came in 1982, at the age of 21, with Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich. For 36 years, she continued to dance the now-iconic piece herself, all the while building a rigorous and celebrated body of work exploring geometry, musical and social structures, and the relationship between music and dance. In 2018, for the first time, De Keersmaeker passed Fase to a new generation of dancers from her company, Rosas, signaling the beginning of a new phase. Its presentation at the ICA marks the company’s first appearance in Boston in more than 30 years.
Here De Keersmaeker discusses the relationship between the past and present of the piece, and the road travelled between both versions, with dramaturg Floor Keersmaeker.
Together with Rosas danst Rosas, Fase is the performance that has been on stage the most of all pieces, and has remained on the program all this time. Now, the time to pass on the choreography to a new generation of dancers seems to have come. Would you mind explaining why Fase is so important to you and to Rosas?
Strictly speaking, Fase is not my first choreography – before that there was Ash (1980) – but it really was a seminal work, showing the first traces of a composition style I was later to make my own. Ash still was an exploration, an attempt to spy out the land. Fase is about the art of choreography, the art of composing movements that I wanted to master so badly as an autodidact. Violin Phase was the starting point for that exercise. When I left for New York to study at the Tisch School of the Arts in 1980, I kept a recording of Steve Reich in my travel sack. During the first months of my studies, I was bent on creating my own dance. I continued to consider this solo as ‘my’ own piece of dance, mainly since it contained all the elements that defined the (now 36-year) road that tracked the tight relationship between dance and music, and the concept of choreography as the art of organizing movements in time and space, where the music determines the time format and the space is divided based on an underlying geometry. Finally, it also speaks to a strongly ‘focal’ use of energy. The vocabulary of movements deployed is highly minimalistic, almost mundane. Turning, jumping, swinging arms… it somewhat resembles the way a child dances. Yet in opposition to the simplicity of movements stands the outspoken energy of its execution. It is that tension I explored further in Rosas danst Rosas. The investment of such a high amount of physical energy in a composition culminates in a discharge that shares a great deal of emotional tension. At the time, that was at odds with the main strands of American minimalistic dance, which were based on a detached, almost mathematical sense of calculation and precision that required little to no personal involvement on the behalf of the dancer. Conversely, and in spite of the very tight structure and formality, dancing Fase has a great physical and – thus also emotional – intensity to it.
With respect to Rosas danst Rosas, you’ve repeatedly claimed that the repetitive and highly structured character of the choreography in question requires a great deal of individual charisma and personality on behalf of the dancer. This seems due to the fact that, despite the choreography’s great uniformity, that’s what renders their performance different. Fase is even more formal and abstract; would it be correct to say that, in this instance, the casting is at least as important as the dancing in order for a successful transfer to take place?
In fact, the piece in question was developed in three stages. In the first, I created Violin Phase, my own solo, in which, naturally, the casting is of great importance. After all, I was working with my own body, writing a choreography by dancing myself, all whilst dancing in the act of creating my own choreography. This double starting point is part of the dance’s DNA, and strongly intertwined with my mode of movement. Come Out was the next part, which I created with Jennifer Everhard. In that case, it was important to have two women, just like in the two subsequent parts, Piano Phase and Clapping Music, which I later wrote with Michèle Anne De Mey. In a way, the movements have become ‘grafted’ onto my body, which at the time was the body of a young woman. In order to come up with a choreographic answer to the repetitive minimal music by Reich, I sought to stretch its visual conformity as much as possible to most adequately demonstrate what was different and what was the similar in the performance. Take Piano Phase, for instance: that dance would have ended up completely different if one were to put a man and a woman next to each other. Perhaps nowadays, at a time when the notion of gender liquidity has become more widespread, it may be old-fashioned to hold on to the fact of the female body with such tenacity, a basic assumption that can (rightfully) be questioned. Yet I do find this physical similarity of two women important. I even take into account the height of dancers and their hairstyles.
You combine the rehearsals to revisit Fase with the rehearsals for a wholly new production. A period of more than thirty years bridges the gap between the two creations. Do you try to keep both activities in strict separation, or is there an interaction between the two that you tend to tolerate, and perhaps even encourage?
The situation definitely creates perspective, and invites reflection. One looks back on those decisive decisions and how one came to make them. At times it is easy to forget how they came about; occasionally, they resurface when re-examining previous performances. That is the process by which ideas are refreshed, after all. I do question myself about the importance of the composition in and of itself, which is a separate question from the dancers who interpret it, whether it’s at the moment of creation itself or the reprisal. I have always said that performances become what they become due to the fact that dancers play such a capital role in the creative process. Still, a situation like this does create an urge for reflection on how a composition can remain intact and be passed on.
Do you feel that with the passing of time the retaking of a repertoire gets easier, or do you experience it like wholly new process every time?
We now have a core group of dancers who have performed five different pieces in the repertoire: Rain, A Love Supreme, Rosas danst Rosas, Zeitigung, and Achterland. Fase is the sixth project. I myself do notice that these dancers have an accumulated history with the work, that they have quite literally incorporated my ‘language’, and that this language gains depth every time it’s taken up again. One begins to share a common ground with those dancers and that is immensely important. But Fase does confront a dancer with specific challenges inherent to the piece itself. The choreography verges on the extreme with its combination of great physical intensity and strict formality, together with the requirement for it literally to be given a divine ‘breath of life’. This is an element that is prone to disintegration, or to a temptation of mechanicality. The right amount of energy should be invested in this piece.
Your choice of music is very diverse, but it also betrays a specific strand of preferences. The work by Steve Reich makes up a large part of it, and of course there is Bach as well. Are there similarities in the way their compositions appeal to you or do you see, from your experience as a choreographer, commonalities in their music?
Although I believe the differences are plenty, their work does exert some strong commonalities. First and foremost, both composers made highly structured music, although Bach is slightly less systematic than Reich. Then there is the presence of a ‘pulse’, meaning there is always an ‘invitation’ to dance. But what seems crucial to me is that the repetitive part in Reich’s music closely resembles something called canon writing. Bach is known as master of the canon and especially as master of the fugue, a music form based on the canon. In fact, the key to fugue is the maximal exploitation of a minimum of material. I believe that is an important principle that the music of Bach and Reich share and from which I, as a choreographer, draw a lot of inspiration.
As an autodidact, my choice to start with Steve Reich may have had something to do with my own sense of insecurity. I literally wanted to take on this piece on step by step, digging through its substance layer by layer. Reich’s minimalistic music was very well suited to that, mainly because of its flexible yet simplistic structure. When I was making Violin Phase I tended to play Bach’s Brandenburg concertos in the studio. That piece of course invites dancing, but at that time I simply wasn’t yet ready to face that complexity. For that, I first needed to acquire more experience.
In Fase you took on the roles of both dancer and choreographer. Is that something you would recommend to other dancers? In other words, do you believe that choreographic practice makes one a better dancer?
No, I do not believe it does. They are two different things, really. While training as a dancer, I tended to start with choreography since I wanted to develop my own style, but that desire had nothing to do with the fact that I also liked to dance. I wanted to come up with my own vocabulary of movements, with its own grammar, rather than embed myself in an existing dance language.
Also, the line dividing choreography and dance has become rather blurry over the last 30-40 years. Today, dancers are typically much more involved in the creative process than they were before, and the two tend to blend into each quite a bit. Nevertheless, the development of a choreographic style does require a variegated approach. It involves shaping movement in time and space and that requires a certain vision. Call it craftsmanship: ‘how do we go about doing this’? And, in the end, social skills are also paramount, precisely because one is working with dancers as ‘people’.
Looking back on your track record, only one other solo (Once) appears alongside Violin Phase, conceived in 2002. Does that imply the development of a different outlook on the relationship between yourself as a choreographer and as a dancer?
No, not really. In fact, after Once I did dance other solos, in Keeping Still and in 3Abschied. It is far from easy to find the time for it in addition to the other work and all other responsibilities. When I was 21 and still studying, my working circumstances were different from how they are now. Beyond that, it has been a very special and valuable experience to continue dancing the same dance over a period of more than 35 years.
Did the wear and tear of time and experience have any influence on your way of dancing Fase? Would you say the piece has undergone a ‘change’, that its substance is no longer the same as that of the première in 1982?
As a choreographer, one tends distinguish the composition from the ‘embodiment’ of that composition itself. I have to say that the current transition – or, the fact that I suddenly find myself standing ‘outside’ the existing choreography and looking at it from a fresh perspective – is a bigger step than any other in the past 36 years. My relationship with Fase has never ceased to evolve; never did there occur a gap or a pause. In quite a literal sense, the piece remained a piece of body. It may well be that the movement has changed en cours de route. In that case, I’m not talking so much about the composition, which remains fixed and set in place. It is the embodiment of that composition that has evolved with me. But now I do feel the time has come for a new chapter.
See Fase: Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich September 19–21.