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(Boston, MA—November 16, 2021) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) presents its advance schedule of exhibitions through 2023. Upcoming exhibitions include solo exhibitions of Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Jordan Nassar, Rose B. Simpson, and Guadalupe Maravilla, the exhilarating video installation Swinguerra by Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca, and a major thematic exhibition exploring the influence of childhood on the work of visual artists.

All exhibition dates are subject to change. For more information and to confirm schedule, please contact Margaux Leonard at mleonard@icaboston.org or 617-478-3176.

Napoleon Jones-Henderson
Feb 17, 2022–Jul 24, 2022
For more than fifty years, Napoleon Jones-Henderson (b. 1943 in Chicago) has created works that strive to highlight, celebrate, and empower the communities where he lives. Jones-Henderson is a longstanding founding member of the influential artist collective African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists (AfriCOBRA). His work translates AfriCOBRA’s aesthetic principles—to create images inspired by the lived experience and cultures of people of the African diaspora in an accessible graphic style with shining Kool-Aid colors—into woven tapestries, mosaic tile works, shrine-like sculptures, and varied works on paper. Often focused on themes of Pan-Africanism and racial justice, Jones-Henderson’s work aims to be self-affirming and reflective, with an eye toward both a fraught past and a liberated future. The artist integrates forms from African ritual sculpture and Southern vernacular architecture and incorporates reverential references to jazzman Duke Ellington’s “Sacred Concerts,” musician Stevie Wonder, and writer June Jordan, among others. Made in close collaboration with the artist, this concise survey draws together a suite of Jones-Henderson’s works in various media across his entire career, centered around his magisterial woven textiles. Jones-Henderson has been based since 1974 in Roxbury, Massachusetts, where he has been an influential community member, educator, and mentor. This is his most comprehensive solo museum exhibition in Boston. This exhibition is organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager.  

A Place for Me: Figurative Painting Now
Mar 31, 2022–Sep 5, 2022
A Place for Me celebrates a new generation of artists at the vanguard of contemporary painting. David Antonio Cruz (b. 1974 in Philadelphia), Louis Fratino (b. 1993 in Annapolis, MD), Doron Langberg (b. 1985 in Yokneam Moshava, Israel), Aubrey Levinthal (b. 1986 in Philadelphia), Gisela McDaniel (b. 1995 in Bellevue, NE), Arcmanoro Niles (b. 1989 in Washington, D.C.), Celeste Rapone (b. 1985 in Wayne, NJ), and Ambera Wellmann (b. 1982 in Lunenburg, Canada) are propelling figurative painting’s recent revival by depicting what they love—their friends, lovers, and family; studio spaces and homes; and the scenes that make up their everyday. Evoking intimacy, community, and the personal in the power to represent oneself in painting, these artists consider the politics of seeing and being seen and how the process of painting might register care, tenderness, fragility, empathy, and resilience. They have each developed unique approaches to representing others, approaching their sitters with the insights of their own subject positions and a wide range of painterly techniques. Colorful, surprising, and full of life, A Place for Me is a testament to the vitality of contemporary figurative art, reflecting a multitude of styles and approaches to painting through a cross-section of contemporary painting today. Organized by Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator, with Anni Pullagura, Curatorial Assistant.

Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Burca: Swinguerra
Mar 31, 2022–Sep 5, 2022
Collaborating since 2013, Bárbara Wagner (b. 1980 in Brasília, Brazil) and Benjamin de Burca (b. 1975 in Munich) create works in video, photography, and installation that explore contemporary histories of underground dance and musical genres. Frequently made in collaboration with cinematographer Pedro Sotero, their moving-image works (which the artists refer to as “documentary musicals”) often center on urban subcultures in the South Atlantic diaspora. A recent acquisition on view for the first time in Boston, Swinguerra (2019) focuses on queer communities of color in Recife, Brazil, with an emphasis on transgender and nonbinary performers. Their mixed dance styles recall Brazil’s colonial and slave trade history, where music and dance functioned as discreet methods of organizing politically under oppressive regimes. Fast-paced, athletic, sexy, dreamlike, and dynamic, Swinguerra is an exhilarating and unforgettable viewing experience, illustrating how dance and music offer rich sources of agency, resistance, and community. Organized by Anni Pullagura, Curatorial Assistant.

Rose B. Simpson
Aug 11, 2022–Jan 29, 2023
The art work of Rose B. Simpson (b. 1983 in Santa Clara Pueblo, NM) encompasses ceramic sculpture, metals, performance, installation, writing, and automobile design, offering poignant reflections on the human condition. Her figurative ceramic sculptures—for which she is best known—often incorporate metal, wood, leather, fabric, and found objects, and express complex psychological states, spirituality, women’s strength, and post-apocalyptic visions of the world. Part of a multigenerational, matrilineal lineage of artists working with clay, Simpson calls forth Indigenous knowledge and curative aspects of working with clay to heal generational trauma and foster an internalized notion of sustainability. An enrolled member of the Pueblo of Santa Clara, New Mexico, Simpson draws on processes of producing clay pottery in practice since the 6th century, connecting tradition and knowledge with her own place in the world today. From intimately scaled works, to monumental standing figures, this tightly conceived exhibition will feature a presentation of the artist’s signature ceramic sculptures alongside new works. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager.

Jordan Nassar
Aug 11, 2022–Jan 29, 2023
Jordan Nassar’s solo exhibition—his first in Boston—presents a selection of his intricate embroidered and mixed media works. Nassar (b. 1985 in New York) draws on traditional Palestinian craft techniques to investigate ideas of home, land, and memory. His work, which he creates in collaboration with Palestinian embroiders and craftspersons, combines geometric patterns with abstracted landscapes, imbued, in the artist’s words, “with yearning, while hopeful and beautiful.” Through complex patterning and a unique attendance to form and color, the painterly aesthetic of Nassar’s embroidery allows the artist to explore relationships between craft and history in new contemporary dialogues. Organized by Anni Pullagura, Curatorial Assistant.

To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood
Oct 6, 2022–Feb 26, 2023
To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood surveys how artists have reflected on and contributed to notions of childhood from the early twentieth-century to the present. Bringing together an international and intergenerational group of approximately thirty artists working from the early 20th-century to today, the exhibition takes as a starting point how artists have long been inspired by children—by their imagination, creativity, and unique ways of seeing and being in the world. Artists have made artwork that depicts and involves children as collaborators, that represents or mimics their ways of drawing or telling stories, that highlights their unique cultures, and that addresses ideas of innocence and spontaneity closely associated with children. The works in To Begin Again offer distinctive viewpoints and experiences, revealing how time and place, economics and race, and representation and aesthetics fundamentally shape how we experience and understand early human development. The exhibition underscores that while there is no single, uniform idea of childhood, it is nevertheless the ground upon which so much of society is built, negotiated, and imagined. Artists included are Njideka Akunyili Crosby (b. 1983 in Enugu, Nigeria), Jordan Casteel (b. 1989 in Denver), Henry Darger (b. 1892 in Chicago; d. 1973 in Chicago), Karon Davis (b. 1977 in Reno, NV), Mary Kelly (b. 1941 in Fort Dodge, IA), Paul Klee (b. 1879 in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland; d. 1940 in Muralto, Switzerland), Tau Lewis (b. 1993 in Toronto), Oscar Murillo (b. 1986 in Valle del Cauca, Colombia), Rivane Neuenschwander (b. 1967 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil), Faith Ringgold (b. 1930 in Harlem), Sable Elyse Smith (b. 1986 in Los Angeles), Mierle Laderman Ukeles (b. 1939 in Denver), and Cathy Wilkes (b. 1966 in Belfast, United Kingdom), among others. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated scholarly catalogue, featuring the voices and perspectives of a variety of artists, scholars, and writers. Organized by Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator, with Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager.

Barbara Kruger
Nov 5, 2022—Jan 21, 2024
For more than 40 years, Barbara Kruger (b. 1945 in Newark, NJ) has been a consistent, critical observer of contemporary culture. In the early 1980s, Kruger perfected a signature style of words and images extracted from mass media and recomposed into memorable, graphic artworks. Her iconic works, such as Untitled (I shop therefore I am), 1987, and Untitled (Your body is a battleground), 1989, combine cropped, black-and-white photographic images with provocative short texts printed on solid-colored bars. Often these works address viewers directly with personal pronouns—like “you” and “me”—while confounding clear notions of who is speaking. Kruger’s prodigious work has come to represent debates on women’s rights, identity, consumerism, and capitalism raging since the 80s. Rigorously composed, her works have occupied a range of media and spaces, including walls, billboards, video projections, and an array of consumer products. Since the 1990s, Kruger has also created large-scale installations of her text-based art, transforming lobbies, elevators, and buildings with her signature aesthetic and pointed content. Continuing in this vein, Kruger will create a brand-new work for the ICA that speaks, as her work has done for more than four decades, to contemporary social and political dynamics. Organized 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 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, Twitter, and Instagram.

A Place for Me: Contemporary Figurative Painting
Support is generously provided by Katie and Paul Buttenwieser and Ellen Poss, and an Anonymous donor. 

Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Burca: Swinguerra
Swinguerra was acquired through the generosity of the General Acquisition Fund, Fotene and Tom Coté Art Acquisition Fund, and Anonymous Art Acquisition Fund.

Site Includes Additional Project Details and Behind-the-Scenes Images of the Artist Preparing for the U.S. Pavilion Presentation at the Biennale Arte 2022

(Boston MA—November 4, 2021) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) in cooperation with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, is pleased to announce the launch of a new website dedicated to internationally renowned artist Simone Leigh and her exhibition at the forthcoming Venice Biennale. Leigh will represent the U.S. at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, on view from April 23 to November 27, 2022. The 2022 U.S. Pavilion is co-commissioned by Jill Medvedow, the Ellen Matilda Poss Director, and Eva Respini, the Barbara Lee Chief Curator at the ICA, and curated by Respini.

For the U.S. Pavilion, Leigh has created a new series of figurative sculptures in bronze and ceramic that furthers her commitment to highlighting the labor and resilience of Black women across global histories. Drawing upon artistic traditions from within Africa and the African diaspora, Leigh uses a strategy that she terms “the creolization of form,” merging disparate cultural languages linked through histories of colonization. With these works, Leigh weaves together references to 19th century West African art, the material culture of early Black Americans, and the colonial history of international expositions.

The new website features a short video of the artist at work by acclaimed visual creator Shaniqwa Jarvis. The video offers a brief glimpse behind-the-scenes as Leigh creates new artworks for the Biennale.

The website also offers an overview of the robust educational initiatives that accompany the 2022 U.S. Pavilion. The ICA has partnered with Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, on a two-semester long seminar to engage students with Leigh’s practice and the history of the U.S. Pavilion in Venice. In Italy, the ICA is working with the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice to organize a professional development program for middle and high school educators in the Veneto region. This workshop, modeled after the ICA’s nationally recognized teen arts education program, provides educators the tools to explore the work of Simone Leigh and create curriculum designed to inspire, empower, and educate their students.

Please visit the U.S. Pavilion’s newly launched website for more information about the artist, the ICA, and the Biennale Arte: www.simoneleighvenice2022.org

To stay updated on the 2022 U.S. Pavilion on social media, follow @icaboston on Instagram, @ICA.Boston on Facebook, and @ICAinBoston on Twitter and look for the hashtags: #SimoneLeighVenice #SimoneLeigh #BiennaleArte2022.

About Simone Leigh

Over the past two decades, Simone Leigh (b. 1967, Chicago, IL) has created an expansive body of work in sculpture, video, and performance that centers Black femme interiority. Inflected by Black feminist theory, Leigh’s practice intervenes imaginatively to fill gaps in the historical record by proposing new hybridities. Leigh’s sculptural works join forms derived from vernacular architecture and the female body, rendering them via materials and processes associated with the artistic traditions of Africa and the African diaspora. The collaborative ethos that characterizes Leigh’s videos and public programs pays homage to a long history of Black female collectivity, communality, and care.

In 2019, Leigh was the first artist commissioned for the High Line Plinth, New York. Recent exhibitions include The Hugo Boss Prize 2018: Simone Leigh, Loophole of Retreat at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2019); the 2019 Whitney Biennial; Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon (2017) at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Psychic Friends Network (2016) at Tate Exchange, Tate Modern, London; Hammer Projects: Simone Leigh (2016–17) at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; inHarlem: Simone Leigh (2016–17), a public installation presented by The Studio Museum in Harlem at Marcus Garvey Park, New York; The Waiting Room (2016) at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; and Free People’s Medical Clinic (2014), a project commissioned by Creative Time. Leigh’s work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; Cleveland Museum of Art; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and the ICA/Boston, among others.

The works that comprise Leigh’s exhibition for the U.S. Pavilion will be featured in her first museum survey exhibition at the ICA in 2023, which will subsequently tour to museums throughout the United States. The exhibition will be accompanied by the first comprehensive monograph dedicated to Leigh’s work.

About the ICA/Boston

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, Twitter, and Instagram.

About La Biennale di Venezia 

Established in 1895, La Biennale di Venezia is acknowledged today as one of the most prestigiuos cultural institutions. La Biennale stands at the forefront of research and promotion of new contemporary art trends and organizes events in its specific sectors of Arts (1895), Architecture (1980), Cinema (1932), Dance (1999), Music (1930), and Theatre (1934), alongside research and training activities. The International Art Exhibition is considered the most prestigious contemporary art exhibition in the world, introducing hundreds of thousands of visitors to exciting new art every two years. The 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (April 23–November 27, 2022) is directed by Cecilia Alemani.

About the U.S. Pavilion

The United States Pavilion, a building in the neoclassical style in the Giardini della Biennale, Venice, opened on May 4, 1930. Since 1986, the U.S. Pavilion has been owned by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and managed by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, which works closely with the U.S. Department of State and exhibition curators to install and maintain all official U.S. exhibitions presented in the Pavilion. Every two years, museum curators from across the country detail their visions for the U.S. Pavilion in proposals that are reviewed by the National Endowment for the Arts’s Federal Advisory Committee on International Exhibitions (FACIE), a group comprising curators, museum directors, and artists, who then submit their recommendations to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Past exhibitions can be viewed on the Peggy Guggenheim Collection’s website at https://www.guggenheim-venice.it/

About the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) builds relations between the people of the United States and the people of other countries through academic, cultural, sports, professional, and private exchanges, as well as public-private partnerships and mentoring programs. These exchange programs improve foreign relations and strengthen the national security of the United States, support U.S. international leadership, and provide a broad range of domestic benefits by helping break down barriers that often divide us, like religion, politics, language and ethnicity, and geography. ECA programs build connections that engage and empower people and motivate them to become leaders and thinkers, to develop new skills, and to find connections that will create positive change in their communities. For more information, please visit https://exchanges.state.gov/us

Media Contacts

In Massachusetts

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston
Colette Randall, crandall@icaboston.org, 617-478-3181
Margaux Leonard, mleonard@icaboston.org, 617-478-3176

Nationally and Internationally

Polskin Arts & Communications Counselors
Alison Buchbinder, alison.buchbinder@finnpartners.com, 646-688-7826

Meagan Jones, meagan.jones@finnpartners.com, 212-593-6485
 

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Simone Leigh is presented by the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston in partnership with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State.

With warmest thanks, the ICA/Boston gratefully acknowledges the following philanthropic partners for their magnificent support.
 

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Major support is provided by the Ford Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
 

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Lead corporate support is provided by eu2be. 
 

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Generous support is provided by Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser, The Girlfriend Fund, and Wagner Foundation. 
 

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Leadership gifts are provided by Amy and David Abrams; Stephanie Formica Connaughton and John Connaughton; Bridgitt and Bruce Evans; James and Audrey Foster; Agnes Gund; Jodi and Hal Hess; Hostetler/Wrigley Foundation; Barbara and Amos Hostetter; Kristen and Kent Lucken; Tristin and Martin Mannion; Ted Pappendick and Erica Gervais Pappendick; Gina and Stuart Peterson; and VIA Art Fund.  
 

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Essential support is also provided by Suzanne Deal Booth; Kate and Chuck Brizius; Karen and Brian Conway; Steven Corkin and Dan Maddalena; Jennifer Epstein and Bill Keravuori; Esta Gordon Epstein and Robert Epstein; Negin and Oliver Ewald; Alison and John Ferring; Helen Frankenthaler Foundation; Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman; Vivien and Alan Hassenfeld and the Hassenfeld Family Foundation; Peggy J. Koenig and Family; The Holly Peterson Foundation; Cindy and Howard Rachofsky; Mark and Marie Schwartz; Kim Sinatra; Tobias and Kristin Welo; Lise and Jeffrey Wilks; Kelly Williams and Andrew Forsyth; Nicole Zatlyn and Jason Weiner; Marilyn Lyng and Dan O’Connell; Leslie Riedel and Scott Friend; Eunhak Bae and Robert Kwak; Barbara H. Lloyd; and anonymous donors.

Nationally touring exhibition will open at the ICA in November 2021 and travel to MoMA PS1 and the High Museum of Art in 2022

(Boston, MA—October 8, 2021) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) and MoMA PS1 have co-organized the first museum survey dedicated to the work of Deana Lawson (b. 1979, Rochester, NY), a singular voice in photography today. Drawing on a wide spectrum of photographic languages, including the family album, studio portraiture, staged tableaux, and appropriated images, Lawson’s posed photographs channel broader ideas about personal and social histories, sexuality, and spiritual beliefs. Featuring a selection of over fifty photographs from 2004 to the present, this exhibition features the full range of Lawson’s career to date and establishes for the first time a narrative arc of her expansive vision. This nationally touring exhibition will be on view November 4, 2021–February 27, 2022 at the ICA; April 14–September 5, 2022 at MoMA PS1; and October 7, 2022–February 19, 2023 at the High Museum of Art. Deana Lawson is co-organized by ICA/Boston and MoMA PS1. Organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, ICA/Boston, and Peter Eleey, Curator-at-Large, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing and Shanghai, with Anni Pullagura, Curatorial Assistant, ICA/Boston.

“With a painterly appreciation of composition, color, and scale, Deana Lawson creates works of intimacy, atmosphere and mystery. Her domestic scenes evoke the familiarity of family photographs, yet each work is a highly-staged arrangement exploring facets of Black life. Lawson tackles complex issues about race and photography that are timely, thorny, and essential. We look forward to sharing her work, and the important publication that accompanies the exhibition, with audiences,” said Jill Medvedow, the ICA’s Ellen Matilda Poss Director.

“Singular in their vision, profoundly complex in their ideas, Deana Lawson’s pictures possess an intimacy and immediacy that can be both uplifting and startling. Enriched by a range of backstories—photographic histories, feminist histories, Black histories—Lawson’s work is also informed by her life experiences, pop culture, her interest in both spirituality and photographic technology. In occupying a space of multiplicity and ambiguity, this relentlessly adventurous artist has produced some of the most resonant images of our time,” said Eva Respini, the ICA’s Barbara Lee Chief Curator.

Lawson’s pictures are portals to imaginative realms, highly staged, large-format color photographs that depict individuals, couples, and groups in both domestic and public settings, constructing narratives of family, love, intimacy, and desire. Her body of work models a mythical community from across the African and African American diasporas, building an extended family of strangers in living rooms, kitchens and back yards from Brooklyn to New Orleans, Haiti to Ethiopia, and Brazil to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rather than creating documentary or biographical pictures, Lawson makes images that tell stories to reclaim an expansive Black experience.

“Much of Lawson’s work comes to life in the space between the truth presumed in a photograph and the art of making one, which in her hands becomes a vast and magical universe,” said exhibition co-curator Peter Eleey. “Though revelatory, Lawson’s pictures also draw attention to what the camera cannot capture—and in turn, to the many aspects of Black life that exceed forms of representation that establish and control the ways in which Black subjects are permitted to appear.”

The camera has a long history as a tool of objectification and subjugation, and Lawson uses photography to unsettle assumptions about the facts the medium purports to deliver. She carefully composes each scene, but does not always disclose details about how she has created them, or even where the photographs were taken; in some cases, she works with found images that depict people she does not know. Her tableaux tend to be composed of people she encounters on her travels rather than family, friends, or acquaintances; despite what certain pictures may suggest, some of the artist’s subjects may not have met before the shoot. Lawson finds photography’s contradictions and fraught history to be perfectly suited to the challenges of representing what she describes as “the majesty of Black life, a nuanced Black life, one that is by far more complex, deep, beautiful, celebratory, tragic, weird, strange.”

Artist biography

Deana Lawson (b. 1979, Rochester, NY) lives and works between New York and Los Angeles. Lawson received her B.F.A. from Pennsylvania State University (2001) and M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design (2004). Lawson is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2013), Aaron Siskind Fellowship Grant (2008–09), and a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant (2006), among others. In 2020, she was selected for the Hugo Boss Prize, the first photographer to receive the award in recognition of achievement in contemporary art. She is currently the inaugural Dorothy Krauklis ’78 Professor of Visual Arts with the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University.

Catalogue

This survey exhibition will be accompanied by the first scholarly publication on the artist, surveying fifteen years of her photography. Featuring the voices and perspectives of a variety of scholars, historians, and writers, the catalogue includes essays by exhibition curators Eva Respini and Peter Eleey, Kimberly Juanita Brown, Tina M. Campt, Alexander Nemerov, Greg Tate, and a conversation between the artist and Deborah Willis.

Advisory Group

In the process of organizing the exhibition, the ICA convened an advisory group of community leaders, artists, scholars, and peers who contributed to the presentation of this exhibition in Boston and helped to shape exhibition programming, didactics, and outreach. The committee was made up of the following individuals: Eden Bekele, Digital Associate at PICTURESTART; Kimberly Juanita Brown, Associate Professor, Department of English, Dartmouth College; Patricia Davis, Associate Professor, College of Arts, Media, and Design, Northeastern University; Nia Evans, Director, Boston Ujima Project; L’Merchie Frazier, Director of Education, Museum of African American History, Boston; Kai Grant, Principal, Afrikai, LLC, and Chief Curator, Black Market Nubian; Nikki Greene, Assistant Professor of Art, Wellesley College; Dell Hamilton, artist; James Pierre, artist and educator; Lisa Simmons, Director, Roxbury International Film Festival; President/Founder, the Color of Film Collaborative, Inc.; and Community Initiative Program Manager, Mass Cultural Council; and Akili Tommasino, Associate Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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.

Deana Lawson is co-organized by ICA/Boston and MoMA PS1. This exhibition is organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, ICA/Boston, and Peter Eleey, Curator-at-Large, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing and Shanghai, with Anni Pullagura, Curatorial Assistant, ICA/Boston. 

Major support for Deana Lawson is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

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Additional support for the ICA/Boston presentation is generously provided by Bridgitt and Bruce Evans, Aedie McEvoy, Kambiz and Nazgol Shahbazi, Kim Sinatra, Charlotte and Herbert S. Wagner III, the Fotene Demoulas Fund for Curatorial Research and Publications, the Jennifer Epstein Fund for Women Artists, and The Kristen and Kent Lucken Fund for Photography.

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What do you treasure most? Who do you care about? What places are most special to you?  Create miniature artworks inspired by your treasures. Seek inspiration from the fantastical sculptures in the ICA exhibition Raúl de Nieves: The Treasure House of Memory where the artist weaves Mexican sewing traditions with drag, ballroom, and queer club culture. 

Materials: 

Drawing of notebook, pencil, crayon, paintbrush

Drawing materials

Drawing of tape dispenser and pipe cleaners

Any art materials you have, such as: clay, stickers, pipe cleaners, recyclable materials, etc.

Drawing of bag and box

Tiny treasure chest, box, bag or other container to hold your artwork

Instructions: 

  1. Think about what you treasure the most. Think beyond objects and include people, places, feelings, and ideas that you treasure or love. Make a list if it helps you brainstorm. 
  2. Create drawings or miniature sculptures that represent each of your treasures. Use any art materials you like to create your treasures. (See the materials list for ideas.) Plan ahead so that your treasures can fit inside your container. 
  3. Place your treasures in a chest or container of your choice. Look at and reflect on them every once in a while.  
  4. Care for your treasures. Share your treasures with others or keep them secret. Over time, you can change or add new treasures to your collection. 

 

Share your artwork on social media with #ICAartlab 

Find more activities at icaboston.org/artlab 

Tickets on sale to ICA members today and general public September 28

(Boston, MA—September 21, 2021) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) will reopen Yayoi Kusama’s LOVE IS CALLING to the public on October 16, 2021. One of the most beloved and popular works in the ICA’s collection, LOVE IS CALLING is among the most immersive of the artist’s existing Infinity Mirror Rooms. It will be featured as a cornerstone of the exhibition The Worlds We Make: Selections from the ICA Collection, on view through December 31, 2022. Advance timed tickets are required and can be reserved at icaboston.org/tickets. Tickets are limited and are on sale now for ICA members. Tickets will go on sale to the general public on September 28.

“We are so happy to be able to offer audiences the ability to experience this beloved artwork from our collection and once again share Kusama’s universal message of love and human connection,” said Jill Medvedow, the ICA’s Ellen Matilda Poss Director.

A mirrored landscape, sculptural environment, and unique experience, LOVE IS CALLING immerses visitors within Kusama’s groundbreaking visualization of infinity, a concept the artist understands as the potential for dissolving one’s place in the universe to become connected to others—remaking the world we know through the invitation to dream another.

LOVE IS CALLING illustrates a central idea within the exhibition The Worlds We Make: Selections from the ICA Collection. Including works by artists such as Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Jeffrey Gibson, Lorraine O’Grady, Matthew Ritchie, and Yinka Shonibare CBE (RA), the exhibition celebrates the world-making potential of artistic imagination. The Worlds We Make is organized by Anni Pullagura, Curatorial Assistant.

About LOVE IS CALLING

Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929, Matsumoto, Japan) is one of the most recognized and celebrated artists today. In addition to her widely popular Infinity Mirror Rooms, Kusama creates vibrant paintings, works on paper, and sculpture with abstract imagery. LOVE IS CALLING features vividly colored, tentacle-like, inflatable sculptures covered with the artist’s signature polka dots and encased in a dark mirrored room to create an illusion of infinite space. As visitors walk throughout the installation, a sound recording of Kusama reciting a love poem in Japanese plays continuously. Written by the artist, the poem’s title translates to Residing in a Castle of Shed Tears in English. Exploring enduring themes including life and death, the poem poignantly expresses Kusama’s hope to spread a universal message of love through her art. The largest of Kusama’s existing Infinity Mirror Rooms, LOVE IS CALLING is the first one held in the permanent collection of a New England museum.

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, Twitter, and Instagram.

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If you had your own little library, what stories would you include? Books help us explore our identities, the world, and our own imaginations. In this illustration activity, you can design your own artful library and draw three different book covers using the instructions below! 

Si tuvieras tu propia pequeña biblioteca de habilidades y arte, ¿qué historias incluirías en ella? Los libros nos ayudan a indagar sobre nuestra identidad, el mundo y nuestra propia imaginación. En esta actividad de ilustración, puedes diseñar tu propia biblioteca de habilidades y arte, y dibujar tres cubiertas de libros a través de las instrucciones que se indican a continuación. 

Materials/Materiales:

Icon of pencil

Pencil or pen

Lápiz o bolígrafo

Icon of pen

Coloring tools (markers, crayons, paint)

Útiles para colorear (marcadores, crayones, pintura)

  

 

Instructions / Instrucciones:

  1. Draw a cover for a story that’s all about you. What is your favorite part about yourself? What are your favorite things to do? If you want, you can include them on your cover!
  2. Draw a cover for a story that’s all about someone you look up to. It can be a family member, a friend, a famous person, anyone you like!
  3. Draw a cover for a story from your imagination. You get to create the world, the characters, everything.
  4. If you want, write these stories! 
  1. . Dibuja una cubierta para una historia que trate exclusivamente acerca de ti. ¿Cuál es la parte de ti que más te gusta? ¿Cuáles son tus actividades favoritas? Si lo deseas, puedes incluirlas en la cubierta.
  2. Dibuja una cubierta para una historia que trate exclusivamente acerca de una persona a la que admiras. Puede ser un familiar, un amigo, un personaje célebre, ¡cualquier persona que quieras!
  3. Dibuja una cubierta desde tu imaginación. Puedes crear el mundo, los personajes, todo.
  4. Si lo deseas, también puedes escribir estas historias. 

 

Genielysse Reyes is a children’s book author and comic creator currently living in Boston. She loves drawing and writing about imaginary friends, spoken word poets, and FilipinoAmerican magic. You can connect with her on Twitter (@genielyssereyes) and Instagram (@genielysse)

Genielysse Reyes es autora de libros infantiles y creadora de historietas, y en la actualidad reside en Boston. Le encanta dibujar y escribir acerca de amigos imaginarios, de los poetas que hacen spoken word (palabra hablada) y de la magia filipino-estadounidense. Puedes ponerte en contacto con ella a través de Twitter (@genielyssereyes) e Instagram (@genielysse).

 

Share your artwork on social media with #ICAartlab

Comparte tu experiencia en redes sociales con #ICAartlab

 

*The term freedom dreaming was coined by professor Robin Kelley in 2002, and expanded upon by activists Alicia Garza and Tourmaline. It is now referenced across social movements as a way to envision and enact change. The City University of New York defines freedom dreaming as “a tool that invites us to create the world we dream of by, first, visualizing the future we want to live in, and second, determining the actions that will lead us there.”

*El término sueño de libertad fue creado por el profesor Robin Kelley en 2002, y divulgado por las activistas Alicia Garza y Tourmaline. En la actualidad, se hace referencia a este término en todos los movimientos sociales como una manera de imaginar y promulgar el cambio. La Universidad de la Ciudad de Nueva York define el sueño de libertad como “una herramienta que nos invita a crear el mundo con el que soñamos, primero, visualizando el futuro que queremos vivir y, segundo, determinando cuáles son las acciones que nos conducirán hasta allí”.