Chiharu Shiota, Accumulation – Searching for the Destination, 2014/2021. Vintage suitcases, motors, and ropes. Installation view, Shiota Chiharu: The Soul Trembles, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan, 2021. Courtesy the artist. Photo by Guan-Ming Lin. © 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Chiharu Shiota, The Extended Line, 2024. Rope, paper, and bronze. Installation view, Art Basel Unlimited, Basel, Switzerland, 2024. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Templon, Paris – Brussels – New York. Photo by Sebastiano Pellion di Persano. © Chiharu Shiota and ARS, New York
(Boston, MA—JANUARY 14, 2025) This summer, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) opens the 2025 Watershed season with Chiharu Shiota: Home Less Home, on view May 22 through Sept.1, 2025. The exhibition features two large-scale installations by the Berlin-based, Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota (born 1972 in Osaka, Japan), including the debut of a new commission made for the ICA Watershed. Shiota foregrounds universal stories of migration, home, connection, memory, and survival. Her signature approach combines intricate, immense, and web-like installations built of thread and rope with quotidian objects—such as shoes, suitcases, beds, chairs, dresses, and keys—that serve as symbols for human presence and memory. Chiharu Shiota: Home Less Home amplifies the ICA Watershed as a unique space for public art in Boston and will be included as part of the inaugural Boston Public Art Triennial. The exhibition is the artist’s first solo presentation in New England and is organized by Ruth Erickson, the ICA’s Barbara Lee Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, with Brianne Chapelle, Curatorial Department Coordinator.
“Shiota’s awe-inspiring installations address themes of migration and home that resonate meaningfully with the Watershed’s location in East Boston and beyond,” said Erickson. “She uses common materials to imbue her work with profound and personal connections. We are honored to be able to invite Boston audiences to participate by sharing an image or story of their personal experiences of leaving one home and finding another, adding another meaningful dimension to this important exhibition.”
Visitors to the exhibition will first encounter the installation Accumulation – Searching for the Destination (2014/2025), which the artist has adapted to fill the monumental scale of the Watershed space. In this powerful work, dozens of vintage suitcases are suspended from red rope, some vibrating and shaking with the turbulence of anticipation. For Shiota, who brought only one suitcase when she moved from Japan to Berlin in 1996, the suitcase symbolizes the starting point of a new journey.
The exhibition then leads to the artist’s newly commissioned work, Home Less Home. Within a field of red and black ropes forming the shape of a house in space, Shiota suspends thousands of documents, including those contributed by local Boston participants. These passports, letters, photographs, immigration papers, and messages hover above vignettes of domestic furniture selected and arranged by Shiota.
For her new work, Shiota invites individuals to share stories and images of what home means, what it feels like to leave home, and what it takes to rebuild it. The collection of personal images and stories will take place in the spring of 2025 through partnerships with local community organizations and an open call to East Boston residents from the artist and ICA. Together, these works consider the journey towards one home and away from another.
Chiharu Shiota: Home Less Home will be included as part of the inaugural Boston Public Art Triennial, the city’s first and only public art event set to run every three years from May to October.
About the Artist
Chiharu Shiota (born 1972, Osaka, Japan) is a Berlin-based Japanese artist who has been working at the intersection of performance, sculpture, and large-scale installation since the 1990s. Shiota is internationally renowned for her large-scale installations, which she has exhibited globally, with recent solo presentations at the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan (2024); Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, Spain (2024); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2023); Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (2022); ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe (2021); Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington (2020); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2019); and Gropius Bau, Berlin (2019). Her work has also been included in numerous group shows and international exhibitions, including the 56th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale (2015) where Shiota represented Japan with her installation The Key in the Hand.
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. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
Media Contact
Theresa Romualdez, press@icaboston.org
Sara Cwynar, Rococo Ferrari, 2024. Unique digital pigment print. Framed: 72 1/4 x 51 x 2 in. | 183.5 x 129.5 x 5 cm. Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, London. © Sara Cwynar
(Boston, MA—DECEMBER 20, 2024) On February 13, 2025, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) unveils an ambitious two-part exhibition from New York-based artist Sara Cwynar (b. 1985, Vancouver). Cwynar is creating a floor-to-ceiling, photo collage billboard for the Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall in the ICA’s lobby, as well as an installation in the Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser Gallery on the fourth floor, marking the first time an artist has worked simultaneously in these two spaces at the ICA. The photo-based exhibition builds on the artist’s longstanding investigation of the relationship between images and the construction of selfhood in the digital era. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Mannion Family Curator, with Max Gruber, Curatorial Assistant, Sara Cwynar and Sara Cwynar: Alphabet are on view from Feb. 13 to Aug. 3, 2025.
Cwynar’s densely layered photographs, films, and installations employ the visual languages of design and advertising to explore themes of seduction, desire, and commodification. Her practice of constant archiving and re-presentation of collected visual materials recalls advertisements, retail catalogues, and old history books. These visual assemblages invite viewers to consider how life online increasingly structures our perceptions of the world, and how these perceptions can change through time and contextual manipulation. Her work interrogates how the dizzying velocity with which images circulate today online conceals systems of control embedded in our everyday lives.
“Cwynar is one of the most exciting contemporary artists working with photography to emerge in the last several years,” said De Blois. “Her meticulously assembled artworks take on pressing questions around the ways in which human biases are implicit in technologies, how photography works in lockstep with capitalism, and, against the backdrop of the proliferation of images online, how we understand who we are and want to be today.”
Upon entering the ICA, visitors will first see Cwynar’s floor-to-ceiling, site-specific billboard created for the Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall. The billboard is a visual index of an alphabetical list of terms pulled from the media in the last few years. Some words are more personal, such as terms suggested by search engine algorithms responding to the artist’s online activities, and others are more universally common search terms. The terms are represented in the artwork by commonplace image types from advertising: the reclining woman, the domestic object, perfect looking food, familiar logos, luxury cars, and more. Although the form of the artwork is guided by principles of billboard design, nothing is clearly for sale: what is being “advertised” is an overview of our contemporary moment as seen through seductive images suggesting a generalized desire.
Upstairs, the alphabetical list of terms is expanded into an immersive photo-based installation. Each term is accompanied by an array of associated images, objects, or videos presented around the gallery on panels inspired by German art historian Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas (1925–29). Warburg organized an encyclopedic collection of nearly 1,000 images on black panels to understand and contextualize recurring visual themes and patterns across time and cultures, from antiquity to the present. Cwynar similarly combines each term with a corresponding visual, connecting each term to contemporary life. For Cwynar, all archives, including the internet, are inflected with human biases and failed aspirations toward objectivity. Even still, as the human impulse to search for answers moves online, Cwynar considers how “personal responses to the world are filtered through a history of images that trails behind us.”
Artist Bio
Sara Cwynar (b. 1985, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) is interested in the way that images accumulate, endure, and change in value over time. Her conceptual photographs and films involve constant archiving and re-presentation of collected visual materials, layering diverse imagery with references to art theory. The works intricately recall advertisements, retail catalogues, and old art history textbooks. Her visual assemblages meditate on how vernacular images shape collective world views, and how those ideals can change through time and contextual manipulation. Cwynar was one of the recipients of the 2020 Sobey Art Award, the 2020 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, and the 2021 Shpilman Photography Prize. She earned her Bachelor of Design from York University in 2010 and her MFA from Yale University in 2016. In 2014, she was awarded the Printed Matter Emerging Artists Publication Series and published her first monograph, entitled Kitsch Encyclopedia, with Blonde Art Books. A monograph of Cwynar’s work, entitled Glass Life, was published in 2021 by Aperture with the Remai Modern.
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 on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
Media Contact
Theresa Romualdez, press@icaboston.org
Credits
Sara Cwynar is organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Mannion Family Curator, with Max Gruber, Curatorial Assistant.
Support for Sara Cwynar is provided by The Kristen and Kent Lucken Fund for Photography.
Photo by Nikki Rae
(Boston, MA—Nov. 20, 2024) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) announced today that Nora Burnett Abrams has been appointed the museum’s next Ellen Matilda Poss Director, succeeding Jill Medvedow after a 26-year tenure that has transformed the ICA into one of the leading centers for contemporary art in the country. Abrams joins the ICA from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver (MCA Denver), where she has served as the Mark G. Falcone Director since 2019. Medvedow will step down on March 31, 2025, and Abrams will begin her new role on May 1, 2025.
“On behalf of the Board of Trustees, we welcome Nora to the ICA with great enthusiasm,” said Board Co-Chair Bridgitt Evans, who led the yearlong search for the new director. “In Denver, Nora elevated expectations for how a museum can embed its work in its community and engage audiences. She has an ambitious vision for programmatic excellence combined with cultural and civic relevance, and we look forward to bringing that vision to Boston.”
“As a longtime admirer of the ICA, I am deeply honored to lead this inspiring and courageous organization,” said Abrams. “Through its lauded exhibitions and programming, the ICA embodies the rigor, relevance, and creativity which so many in our field look to as a model. Jill’s visionary leadership has set the bar for what a contemporary art museum can be and redefined what museums can achieve through the values of openness and care. My 15-year tenure at MCA Denver was an extraordinary and formative experience which I will always treasure thanks to our inspiring artists, colleagues, and Board of Trustees. I look forward to building on the ICA’s incredible legacy and collaborating with the ICA’s outstanding team to begin an exciting new chapter for the museum.”
“Nora has articulated a bold vision for the ICA’s future, and we are confident that the ICA will continue to flourish under Nora’s leadership, energy, and values,” said Charlotte Wagner, President of the ICA’s Board of Trustees.
An accomplished museum leader and highly regarded curator, Abrams developed and realized a new strategic vision for MCA Denver, deepening the museum’s role as a catalyst for creative energy, community engagement, and artistic experimentation. As director, she increased the museum’s endowment by 30%, led successful fundraising campaigns, and spearheaded the opening of the museum’s second space at the historic Holiday Theater in Denver’s Northside neighborhood. Through a landmark agreement with the Denver Cultural Property Trust, Abrams ensured the city’s creative community would have a long-term hub for the arts and expanded MCA Denver’s impact by developing a new destination for innovative community and artist-driven programming. She also led the creation of the organization’s Racial Equity Plan to further MCA Denver’s dedication to inclusivity, inspiring and building strong teams, engaging internal and external stakeholders, and broadening institutional development.
Over her 15 years at MCA Denver, Abrams took on roles of increasing scope and responsibility, serving as adjunct curator (2009), associate curator (2010–2015), curator (2015–2018), and Ellen Bruss Curator & Director of Planning (2018–2019), helping increase the museum’s attendance by more than 200% before being named director in 2019. Within the curatorial department, she organized more than 40 exhibitions and authored or contributed to more than 15 publications. Abrams was the curator of some of MCA Denver’s most successful exhibitions, including Basquiat Before Basquiat (2017); the first-ever survey of Senga Nengudi’s R.S.V.P. sculptures (2014); and Fieldwork (2018), a retrospective of Tara Donovan; and she co-curated Cowboy (2023), a thematic group show exploring the mythology of the American West. As director, she oversaw the expansion of the museum’s youth programming, including the launch of a workforce development program for young creatives, and grew a range of multi-disciplinary adult programs.
Abrams serves on the Board of Trustees of the American Association of Museum Directors and is an alumna of the Center for Curatorial Leadership (2018 class). She also served as a co-chair of Mayor Mike Johnston’s transition committee for Denver’s Arts & Venues (2023). Prior to MCA Denver, Abrams worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She holds a Ph.D. in the history of art from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, an M.A. in Modern Art and Critical Studies from Columbia University, and a B.A. in Art History from Stanford University.
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. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
Media Contact
Theresa Romualdez, press@icaboston.org