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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The ICA presents the first mid-career survey of the work of Boston-born artist Liz Deschenes, whose singular and influential achievements in photography and sculpture consider light, color, and the relationship between the mechanics of seeing, image-making processes, and modes of display. 

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

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

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

MCQUEEN_Ashes.jpg

 

Boston, Mass. (June 8, 2106) — Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA), announced today the acquisition of Ashes, a momentous video installation by award-winning British artist Steve McQueen. A standout at the 2015 Venice Biennale, Ashes will make its U.S. debut at the ICA, where it will be on view from Feb. 15 through July 9, 2017.

“Ashes is a remarkable work of art; its visual and visceral power made an indelible impression on those of us fortunate enough to experience it in Venice.  Now, through an extraordinary act of generosity from ICA Trustee Tristin Mannion and her husband Martin Mannion, the ICA will be able to share the experience of Ashes with our audiences for generations to come,” said Medvedow. 

“Steve McQueen is one of Britain’s most influential artists, known for his film and video installations as well as feature films such as ‘Hunger’ and ‘Twelve Years a Slave.’ Ashes expands on McQueen’s subjects of the political body, and the ways in which bodies can be confined and defined by history, labor, and the legacies of colonialism and globalism,” said Dan Byers, Mannion Family Senior Curator.

McQueen met Ashes, a charismatic young fisherman in Grenada while filming another work in 2002.  Shot on soft, grainy Super 8 film by renowned cinematographer Robby Müller, one screen of the installation portrays Ashes balancing on the prow of a bobbing boat, sailing through blue Caribbean water and sky.  He is surrounded by the open air and sea, completely at home in his world.  Ashes’ vitality and presence in this projection stand in contrast to the content of the second video projected on the screen’s other side, made eight years later, after Ashes’ death. The crisp, high definition video, shows the meticulous creation of Ashes’ gravestone and the digging of his grave. This footage provides the soundtrack to both projections, a precise, visceral soundscape of fabrication and digging overlaid by Ashes’ friend narrating his fate.
 
“Life and death have always lived side by side, in every aspect of life,” said McQueen. “We live with ghosts in our everyday.”

About Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen was born in London in 1969. His work has been collected by museums throughout the world, including Tate Gallery, London; MoMA, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago and the Musee National d’Art Moderne George Pompidou, Paris. His film Five Easy Pieces showed at the ICA/Boston in 1995, one of his earliest screenings in the US. McQueen represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2009. A recent and highly acclaimed survey of his work was co-organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Schaulager, Basel. McQueen won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008 for his feature Hunger, the only British director to be granted the prize, and the FIPRESCI prize for Shame at the 2011 Venice Film Festival.  12 Years a Slave was awarded three Oscars at the latest Academy Awards, including Best Film. Having been appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE, 2002), McQueen was created Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2011 New Year Honors for services to the Visual Arts. He lives and works in Amsterdam and London.

About the ICA Collection
In 2006, the ICA made the pivotal decision to start a collection. Offering a diverse overview of national and international artworks in a range of media, the collection provides an important resource for contemporary culture in Boston. This summer, the ICA marks 10 years of collecting with the largest and most ambitious presentation of its collection to date, First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA. Occupying the entirety of the museum’s east galleries, this exhibition features over 100 works by artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Nick Cave, Paul Chan, Marlene Dumas, Eva Hesse, Cindy Sherman, Kara Walker, and Andy Warhol. It brings together audience favorites as well as new acquisitions, many of which are on view at the ICA for the first time. This exhibition is organized by the ICA’s curatorial department under the leadership of Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator. First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA is on view at the ICA from Aug. 17, 2016, through Jan. 16, 2017.

About the ICA
An influential forum for multi-disciplinary arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art has been at the leading edge of art in Boston for over 75 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; 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 Web site at www.icaboston.org.

Image Credit
Steve McQueen Ashes, 2002-2015; Two channel synchronized HD video transferred from 8mm and 16mm film, with audio, projected onto a two-sided screen, posters; 20 min. 31 sec. Installation at Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris, 2016. Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Paris. Photo credit: Rebecca Fanuele.

(BOSTON, MA — May 24, 2016) – The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) marks 10 years of collecting with the largest and most ambitious presentation of its collection to date, First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA. Occupying the entirety of the museum’s east galleries, this exhibition features more than 100 works by artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Nick Cave, Paul Chan, Marlene Dumas, Eva Hesse, Cindy Sherman, Kara Walker, and Andy Warhol. It brings together audience favorites as well as new acquisitions, many of which are on view at the ICA for the first time. A new, multimedia web platform, including texts by current and former ICA curators, accompanies the exhibition. This exhibition is organized by the ICA’s curatorial department under the leadership of Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator. First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA is on view at the ICA from Aug. 17, 2016, through Jan. 16, 2017.

“First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA marks and celebrates a monumental 10 years at the ICA. This series of simultaneous exhibitions reveals the driving visions of curators and collectors, the social, political, material and aesthetic concerns of contemporary artists, and the history of ICA exhibitions over the past many years,” said Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director of the ICA.

Conceived as a series of interrelated and stand-alone exhibitions, First Light is organized into thematic, artist-specific, and historical chapters that each tell a different story. Highlights include major singular works from the collection, such as a newly acquired monumental cut-paper silhouette tableau by Kara Walker; groupings of work by artists held in-depth in the collection such as Louise Bourgeois, Rineke Dijkstra, and Nan Goldin; and a gallery dedicated to objects from The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women. In order to accommodate the breadth of stories within the collection, several chapters will switch out halfway through the exhibition’s run. The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women and Soft Power galleries (described below) will be on view for the show’s entirety, serving as anchors to the overall exhibition.
 
“In 10 years, the ICA has built a great variety within the collection, ranging from historically significant work of figures such as Eva Hesse and Louise Bourgeois to the contemporary explorations of leading artists such as Kara Walker and Paul Chan,” said Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator. “The work in First Light represents a broad range of art making today by artists who explore the issues of our time.”

The title of the exhibition is taken from Paul Chan’s 2005 projected digital animation 1st Light, one of the first works to enter the ICA’s collection. This significant moving-image work highlights the ICA’s aim to collect works of art in diverse media and by important contemporary artists with a critical voice.
 
First Light explores narratives from biography and material to feminism and appropriation in the following sections or chapters:

The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women
On view Aug. 17, 2016–Jan. 16, 2017
The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women is the cornerstone of the ICA’s growing collection. The collection includes artists working in diverse media who have made significant contributions to art over the past 40 years. This exhibition is arranged by various media and subject matters, highlighting the collection’s strength in works of sculpture and assemblage, as well as drawing and painting. Included are signature works by Marlene Dumas, Ellen Gallagher, Ana Mendieta, Cornelia Parker, Doris Salcedo, Kara Walker, among others, in addition to salient historical precedents set by figures such as Eva Hesse and Louise Bourgeois. Together, these works examine issues of the political, personal, and social body, and larger concepts of identity, all in distinct and thought-provoking ways. This presentation of The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women demonstrates the strength of the ICA’s expanding collection and how the collection engages in critical discourses in the arts as well as broader social and cultural contexts. The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women is organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator.

Soft Power
On view Aug. 17, 2016–Jan. 16, 2017
Formed by pliable materials including rope, thread, string, and fabric, the works in Soft Power derive their presence and power from, on the one hand, the seductive textures, structures, and surfaces of textiles, and on the other, the evocative social and cultural connotations these materials provoke. The smears and patterns of Kai Althoff’s gloss paint on fabric conflate painting and body in a surreal clothing-like fragment, while Alexandre Da Cunha’s BUST XXXV lurks like a floating figure, shrouded in its uncanny cover of mop and string. Sculptures by Josh Faught, Françoise Grossen, Charles LeDray, and Robert Rohm—crocheted, knotted, and sewn—variously lean against the wall, sprawl, pile on the floor, and hang on the wall to evoke the body by its covering, adornment, and poses only possible through their shared soft construction. Soft Power is organized by Dan Byers, Mannion Family Senior Curator.

Question Your Teaspoons
On view Aug. 17–Oct. 2, 2016
This exhibition explores the sphere of the domestic in the making and meaning of art. A counterpoint to such celebrated contexts as the artist’s studio and the public sphere, the home has often served artists, especially female artists, as a crucial site for the creation of their work. Artists in this exhibition derive inspiration from the objects, relationships, and aesthetics that surround them. Sherrie Levine, Doris Salcedo, and Diane Simpson reimagine mundane objects in their sculptural works; Latoya Ruby Frazier, Cindy Sherman, and Andy Warhol probe familial relations through their photographs; and Chantal Joffe and Mickalene Thomas offer striking paintings of intimate interior scenes. The title of this exhibition is a quote from Georges Perec, the great cataloguer of everyday life who challenged readers to scrutinize the ordinary. To “question your teaspoons” is to pay attention to—and bring new attention to—a quotidian thing, to study life in order to live it differently. Question Your Teaspoons is organized by Ruth Erickson, Associate Curator.

Rineke Dijkstra and Nan Goldin
On view Aug.17–Oct. 2, 2016
The ICA has rich holdings of works by Rineke Dijkstra and Nan Goldin, two leading figures in contemporary photography with a keen interest in portraiture. Both artists have a history with the ICA: the museum hosted Goldin’s first solo museum exhibition in 1985 and one of Dijkstra’s first surveys in the United States in 2001. Referencing both the historical genre of portraiture and documentary-style photography, these artists expound upon these traditions in divergent and unique ways. Goldin’s bold images depict her loved ones and closest acquaintances caught in intimate moments. From the artist’s mother laughing to a drag queen lounging at home, her compositions are vibrant and rich, powerfully emotive, and full of psychological intent. Dijkstra’s stark portraits, on the other hand, present the subjects in heightened focus and repose, stripped bare of context. Both artists subtly and overtly examine the shifting nature of identity and self. Goldin’s subjects are in action, capturing an instant within a broader narrative, exploring various gender identities, while Dijkstra’s subjects, including new mothers and children growing into adolescence or adulthood, are at the cusp of unpredictable chapters in their lives. These works, ultimately capturing everyday moments, encourage the viewers to intimately engage with the pictured subjects, and to seek out clues of their personal lives and character, reflecting our own searches for the extra in the ordinary and the thrill in the mundane. Rineke Dijkstra and Nan Goldin is organized by Jessica Hong, Curatorial Assistant.

The Freedom of Information
On view Oct. 8, 2016–Jan. 16, 2017
The Freedom of Information is a concise survey of artworks that employ strategies of appropriation, from repurposing and rephotographing mass-media images to referencing and copying objects from art history or American consumer culture. While key moments in the history of artistic appropriation (such as the readymade, collage, and montage) date back to the early 20th century, it was in the 1970s and 80s that the critical terms of these practices were established in the context of a new generation of influential artists. The Freedom of Information traces a particular lineage of appropriation that accounts for the variety of its different models. Here, an intergenerational group of artists “take” materials from sources such as books, postcards, television, or art-specific contexts, manipulating them using cameras, printers, or scanners. The works in The Freedom of Information reveal that while such forms of repetition are historically rooted, appropriation remains a critically urgent means with which to address a culture saturated with images. Artists in The Freedom of Information include: Dara Birnbaum, Carol Bove, Anne Collier, Shepard Fairey, Gilbert & George, Leslie Hewitt, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, Klara Liden, Cady Noland, Thomas Ruff, Sara VanDerBeek, Charline von Heyl, Kelley Walker, Andy Warhol, and Vija Celmins. The Freedom of Information is organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Curatorial Assistant.

Louise Bourgeois
On view Oct. 8, 2016–Jan.16, 2017
One of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, Louise Bourgeois worked for more than 70 years in a variety of materials—including wood, bronze, marble, steel, rubber, and fabric—to create a distinctive and expansive body of work. Blending abstraction and figuration, Bourgeois delved into the struggles of everyday life to create personally cathartic objects that reference the body, sexuality, family, trauma, and anxiety. Since the ICA’s exhibition Bourgeois in Boston (2007), the museum has acquired a number of her works; this selection brings together sculptures and works on paper to consider her use of framing devices. From the enclosures and doors in her large-scale cell sculptures to vitrines, borders, and platforms, the partition of space recurs in Bourgeois’s work. These “frames” serve various ends, but each articulates a kind of boundary — an inside and an outside, an object and its space, the very divisions Bourgeois so famously disrupted in her life’s work. Louise Bourgeois is organized by Ruth Erickson, Associate Curator.

Acknowledgements
First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA is sponsored by Christie’s.

Additional support is generously provided by Fiduciary Trust Company, Chuck and Kate Brizius, Tristin and Martin Mannion, and Cynthia and John Reed.

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

#hldondisplay

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

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

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

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

The ICA spoke with Latsky about ON DISPLAY.

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

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

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

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

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

How did ON DISPLAY come about?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s not difficult to be so on display?

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

So the performers really respond to their surroundings.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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