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Dressed in a bright yellow shirt, a plaster of sticky sweat, and a ripe, feral excitement to revisit a museum, I entered the ICA at 12 PM on a Thursday in the middle of August. I wandered, waited. I was the only one in line. The only one in the bathroom. The only one on the stairs. And when I had mastered the fourth flight, I suddenly realized, wheezing, with a touch of embarrassment, that except for the Visitor Assistants, I was entirely alone.

In a lull, everything is amplified. As I walked through the galleries, the jangling of my keys sounded like sixty bells played by the tone-deaf; the clanging of a few loose nickels, like a penny piñata; and the merciless crinkling of my KIND bar wrapper, a personal purgatory. When I cracked my knuckles, it echoed. I felt like an elephant dancing in a jewelry shop.

A flurry of motion, trapped in sudden stillness.

In this way I would describe Sterling Ruby’s Alabaster SR08-2. Ruby is an artist of multitudes, frequently creating works that transcend medium, demonstrating a clear adroitness in work with wood, urethane, clay, dye, cast acrylic, felt, fabric, and so on, constructing mammoth sculptures, hanging mobiles, canvas works, and multitudes of other forms. And yet, one common thread ties his work together: tension. The contradiction that inevitably exists when an action, an idea, is caught between the fluid and solid, motion and stillness.

His Alabaster works resemble two liquids intermingling, SR08-2 reminiscent of milk dissolving into coffee, trapped in the moment just before diffusion. SCXV3ST/BD can be seen as a macabre drop of blood, dripping, arrested eternally in the moment prior to its splatter and spread. Even the work BC (5289) seems to encapsulate the crashing of a wave, captured just before its subsequent recoil into the water.

After the exhibit, I slinked back down the steps, staring frog-eyed at the closed doors, the empty halls. Somehow, the feeling of entrapment between mobility and stasis in Sterling’s work encapsulates the reopening of our museum, our city, perfectly. As if, slowly, and unpredictably, we are caught in time, trying our best to return to normalcy during COVID-19: motionless as our lives are put on pause, and simultaneously, tentatively kinetic as stores reopen, restaurants bustle, and even museums, the ones we know so well, so different today with their masks and sanitizers, and yet so constant, challenging and art-holding, make space for us, too.

It will all keep moving, SR08-2 reminds us, even if we are caught in this moment, just for now.

 

Naomi Mirny is a recent Brookline High School graduate and a former member of the ICA Teen Arts Council. She is currently studying English at McGill University and hopes to continue to mindfully engage with artwork and art institutions in Montreal.

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

(Boston, MA—August 25, 2020) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) announces its advance schedule of exhibitions through 2022. Upcoming exhibitions include a major collection show titled i’m yours: Encounters with Art in Our Times featuring works by Kader Attia, Firelei Báez, Louise Bourgeois, Ndijeka Akuniyli Crosby, Nan Goldin, Simone Leigh, Doris Salcedo, Henry Taylor, and more; the first museum exhibition devoted to the work of the multi-disciplinary artist and designer Virgil Abloh; a newly commissioned, monumental sculpture by Firelei Báez at the ICA Watershed; and the first museum survey dedicated to the work of Deana Lawson.

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.

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

Visitors looking at ICA Collection painting by Henry Taylor

i’m yours: Encounters with Art in Our Times
November 18, 2020–May 23, 2021
i’m yours: Encounters with Art in Our Times celebrates the power of experiencing art in person. This exhibition, which borrows its title from a Henry Taylor painting in the ICA collection, is conceived as an invitation to our visitors to create a personal connection with works of art. Collaboratively and virtually organized in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest, i’m yours is presented within a dramatic, raw architectural space as a series of small galleries, each offering a different artistic perspective to emphasize that the stories museums may tell through art are never fixed but always in process. Comprising unique encounters with new acquisitions and iconic works from the ICA’s collection, the exhibition’s groupings, or scenes, address a range of topics, including ideas of home and history, social and material transformation, and frames of identity in portraiture and sculpture. Including works by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Kader Attia, Firelei Báez, Louise Bourgeois, Nan Goldin, Simone Leigh, Doris Salcedo, and many others, i’m yours sparks wonder, encourages questions, challenges assumptions, and provides a space for reflection. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager; Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator; Anni Pullagura, Curatorial Assistant; and Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator.

An dark space with projected shadows of figures.

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

Along two adjacent white walls, a series of colorful hanging elements form geometrically shaped curtains.

Eva LeWitt
Mar 21, 2021–Oct 23, 2022
The vibrant sculptures of New York–based artist Eva LeWitt (b. 1985, Spoleto, Italy) transform industrially manufactured materials such as coated mesh, polyurethane foam, and latex into hand-fashioned environmental arrangements of hanging geometric forms and gradations of undulating color. For the ICA’s Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall, LeWitt will conceive of a monumental hanging wall sculpture made of colorful bands of coated mesh fabric whose shifting linear composition creates a number of interlocking circular forms. As the work’s crosshatched woven surfaces and fields of color overlap and respond to ambient conditions, an optical moiré effect is produced, creating a dynamic perceptual experience that vibrates throughout the museum’s interior. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager.

A rendering of sculpture that appears to be a sinking ruin and blue waves in the ICA's seasonal exhibition space, the Watershed

Firelei Báez
Jul 3–Sep 6, 2021
ICA Watershed
In summer 2021, the ICA Watershed will feature a newly commissioned, monumental sculpture by acclaimed artist Firelei Báez (b. 1981, Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic). In her largest sculptural installation to date, the artist reimagines the archeological ruins of the Sans-Souci Palace in Haiti as though they were revealed in East Boston after the sea receded from the Watershed floor. The Watershed’s location—in a working shipyard and as a trade site and point of entry and home for immigrants over decades—provides a pivotal point of reference. Báez embeds Sans-Souci within the geological layers of Boston, where histories of revolution and independence are integral to the city’s identity. This site-specific installation will invite visitors to traverse passageways and travel through time, engaging with streams of influence and interconnectedness. The work’s intricately painted architectural surfaces include symbols of healing and resistance, patterning drawn from West African indigo printing traditions (later used in the American South), and sea growths native to Caribbean waters. Báez’s sculpture points to the centuries-long exchanges of ideas and influence between Europe, the African continent, and the Americas. Organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator.

Installation view of Virgil Abloh's design pieces in MCA Chicago, showing large white blocks with holes, ridges, and graffiti treatment.

Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech”
Jul 3–Sep 26, 2021
Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech” is the first museum exhibition devoted to the work of the genre-bending artist and designer Virgil Abloh (b. 1980, Rockford, IL). Abloh pioneers a practice that cuts across media and connects visual artists, musicians, graphic designers, fashion designers, and architects. Abloh cultivated an interest in design and music at an early age, finding inspiration in the urban culture of Chicago. While pursuing a master’s degree in architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology, he worked on album covers, concert designs, and merchandising. In 2013, Abloh founded his stand-alone fashion brand Off-White™ in Milan, Italy, and, in 2018, assumed the position of artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear. Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and set in an immersive space designed by Rem Koolhaas’s renowned architecture firm OMA*AMO, the exhibition will offer an in-depth look at defining highlights of Abloh’s career, including signature clothing collections, video documentation of iconic fashion shows, distinctive furniture and graphic design work, and collaborative projects with contemporary artists. A program of cross-disciplinary offerings will mirror the artist’s range of interests across music and design. The ICA’s presentation is coordinated by Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator.

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Raúl de Nieves
Aug 25, 2021–Jul 24, 2022
New York–based artist Raúl de Nieves (b. 1983, Michoacán, Mexico) is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, and musician whose multifaceted practice ranges from stained-glass-style narrative paintings to energetic performances, to densely adorned figurative sculptures encrusted with bells, beads, bangles, sequins, and other everyday materials. These opulent sculptures reference ritual costumes in Mexican culture and evoke other global theatrical traditions, from Japanese kabuki to circus performance to religious processional attire. De Nieves’s distinctive visual language draws from Mexican craft traditions, religious iconography, and mythology to explore the transformational possibilities of adornment and the mutability of identity. This is his first museum presentation in Boston. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager.

In this photo two adolescent girls kneel back to back on an unmade bed, looking at the camera. They are wearing black pants and gold tops and each have one arm stretched up and touching the other's hand. The wall behind them is yellow with scuff marks. The sheets are white with yellow flowers.

Deana Lawson
Oct 27, 2021–Mar 6, 2022
This exhibition is the first museum survey dedicated to the work of Deana Lawson (b. 1979 in Rochester, NY). Lawson is a singular voice in photography today. For more than 15 years, she has been investigating and challenging the conventional representations of Black identities. Drawing on a wide spectrum of photographic languages, including the family album, studio portraiture, staged tableaux, documentary pictures, and appropriated images, Lawson’s posed photographs channel broader ideas about personal and social histories, sexuality, and spiritual beliefs. Lawson’s large-format color photographs are highly staged and depict individuals, couples, and families in both domestic and public settings, picturing narratives of family, love, and desire. Engaging members of her own community as well as strangers she meets on the street, she meticulously poses her subjects in a variety of interiors to create what the artist describes as “a mirror of everyday life, but also a projection of what I want to happen. It’s about setting a different standard of values and saying that everyday Black lives, everyday experiences, are beautiful, and powerful, and intelligent.” Lawson’s works are made in collaboration with her subjects, who are often nude, embracing, and directly confronting the camera, destabilizing the notion of photography as a passively voyeuristic medium. This survey exhibition will include a selection of photographs from 2004 to the present, and will be accompanied by a fully illustrated scholarly catalog, featuring the voices and perspectives of a variety of scholars, historians, and writers. This exhibition is co-organized by ICA/Boston and MoMA PS1. Organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, ICA/Boston, and Peter Eleey, Chief Curator, MoMA PS1, with Anni Pullagura, Curatorial Assistant, ICA/Boston.

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and expanding the museum’s role as educator, incubator, and convener. Its exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to the breadth and diversity of contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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

Credits

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

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

Eva LeWitt
Eva LeWitt is presented by Max Mara.  

Additional support is provided by Jean-François and Nathalie Ducrest and Barbara H. Lloyd.  

Firelei Báez
Firelei Báez is organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, with Cara Kuball, Curatorial Project Manager.

Free admission to the ICA Watershed is made possible by the generosity of Alan and Vivien Hassenfeld and the Hassenfeld Family Foundation.

The Boston Foundation welcomes you to the ICA Watershed. 

The ICA Watershed is supported by Fund for the Arts, a public art program of the New England Foundation for the Arts and Vertex. 

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

The exhibition tour for Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech” is made possible by Kenneth C. Griffin.

Major support for the Boston presentation of Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech” is provided by Encore Boston Harbor.

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Seaport

Support is provided by Northern Trust. 

Northern Trust

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

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Additional support is generously provided by Kathleen McDonough and Edward Berman, Kate and Chuck Brizius, Stephanie and John Connaughton, Karen Swett Conway and Brian Conway, Jean-François and Nathalie Ducrest, Audrey and James Foster, Jodi and Hal Hess, Marina Kalb and David Feinberg, Kristen and Kent Lucken, and Mark and Marie Schwartz.

William Kentridge: KABOOM!
William Kentridge: KABOOM! is organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager.

KABOOM! was acquired with major support from Amy and David Abrams, with additional generous support from James and Audrey Foster, Charlotte Wagner and Herbert S. Wagner III, Jeanne L. Wasserman Art Acquisition Fund, and Fotene and Tom Coté Art Acquisition Fund.

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

Additional support is generously provided by Bridgitt and Bruce Evans, Aedie McEvoy, Kambiz and Nazgol Shahbazi, Kim Sinatra, Charlotte and Herbert Wagner III, and the Kristen and Kent Lucken Fund for Photography.

Images
Ragnar Kjartansson, The Visitors, 2012. Nine-channel video projection (color, sound; 64:00 minutes). Gift of Graham and Ann Gund to Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and Gund Gallery at Kenyon College. Photo by Elísabet Davids. Courtesty the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and i8 Gallery, Reykjavík. © Ragnar Kjartansson | Henry Taylor, i’m yours, 2015. Acrylic on canvas, 73 ⅛ × 74 ¼ inches (185.7 × 188.6 cm). Acquried through the generosity of the Acquisitions Circle. © Henry Taylor | William Kentridge, KABOOM!, 2018. Three-channel HD film installation, model stage, paper props, found objects, and three mini-projectors with stands, 75 ¼ x 196 ¼ x 40 ⅜ inches (191 x 498.5 x 102.5 cm). Acquired with major support from Amy and David Abrams, with additional generous support from James and Audrey Foster, Charlotte Wagner and Herbert S. Wagner III, Jeanne L. Wasserman Art Acquisition Fund, and Fotene and Tom Coté Art Acquisition Fund. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman. © William Kentridge | Installation view, Eva LeWitt, VI, VII, Oslo, 2018. Courtesy the artist and VI, VII, Oslo. Photo by Christian Tunge. © Eva LeWitt | Firelei Báez, ICA Watershed installation rendering, 2019. Courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York. Rendering by Nate Garner. | Installation view, Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2019. Courtesy of the artist. © Virgil Abloh | Raúl de Nieves, Fina Vision, 2019. Vintage military suit, sequins, metal bells, threads, glue, cardboard, plastic beads, tape, trims, and mannequin. Dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and Company, New York © Raúl de Nieves | Deana Lawson, 2010. Inkjet print, 35 × 43 inches (88.9 × 109.2 cm). © Deana Lawson. Courtesy the artist; Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York; and Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago.

Every morning when I walk from South Station to the ICA, the city reveals the brutality, inequality, and injustices that it tries to cover with a night sky. Besides the regular commuters every morning, I salute the usual occupants of the streets. Depending on the season, sometimes they have the prime location facing the ocean, and sometimes their home on the Harborwalk is under water. And every morning, when I see the shopping carts parked at the oceanfront, Nari Ward’s Savior comes to my mind.

Resembling the carts used by homeless or nomadic people, Savior rises up in its grandeur, while also becoming heavy with all the materials and memories attached to it. In contrast to the invisibility assigned to this population by the ignorant eyes of passersby, Savior asserts its visibility and asks for engagement and contemplation from the viewer. Like Ward claiming city streets in his 1996 video Pushing Savior, Savior claims its own space in the museum — and may be taking a step further as it demands its place in the untold histories within the walls of the museum.

Savior not only contemplates identity, representation, and politics in the streets – it also successfully mimics the transactions of the consumer world. There is always something left over, something collectible, in this world, and the values of these objects might be the same in essence; in an unjust world, values are imbalanced too. The clocks collected in a blue plastic bag hanging from the corner of Ward’s work are not any different from the objects that lay in the storage of a collector – maybe they are even luckier to be out there in the world.

After an encounter with Savior, as with many powerful artworks, your relationship with your surroundings changes and your eyes start to see, discover, and understand.
 

Mehtap Yagci has been with the ICA since 2018 as Executive Assistant. She moved to Boston from Istanbul, and holds degrees in Cultural Studies and Contemporary Art Theory. In her spare time she enjoys cooking Turkish food and connecting with her friends and family scattered all over the world.

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

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

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

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

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

Virtual teen art programs and events

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

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

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

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

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

About the ICA Teen Arts Programs

The ICA has a strong institutional commitment to teens, stemming from the recognition that teens are our future artists, leaders, and audiences. The museum serves more than 6,000 teens each year, and has emerged as a national leader in the field of museum arts education for teens. The ICA introduces adolescents to contemporary art through drop-in events such as Teen Nights and school tours of ICA exhibitions. Enrollment-based programs such as Teen New Media courses offer instruction in digital photography, film, music production and more, while yearlong programs such as Fast Forward provide an immersive experience where teens can create films and gain real job skills using cutting-edge technologies. In partnership with Boston-area schools, the ICA hosts WallTalk, a multi-visit art and writing program designed to improve the critical thinking and verbal literacy skills of middle and high-school students.

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

In 2012, First Lady Michelle Obama presented the ICA with the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, the highest honor awarded to youth programs in the U.S. More information about the ICA’s Teen Programs can be found at www.icateens.org.

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and expanding the museum’s role as educator, incubator, and convener. Its exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to the breadth and diversity of contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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

Lead support for Teen Programs provided by Wagner Foundation. 

Wagner Foundation logo

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

Institute of Museum and Library Services Logo

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

Mass Cultural Council logo

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

Converse logo

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums. We advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. Our vision is a nation where museums and libraries work together to transform the lives of individuals and communities. To learn more, visit https://www.imls.gov/ and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Opening schedule

The Watershed

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

Exhibition schedule

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and expanding the museum’s role as educator, incubator, and convener. Its exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to the breadth and diversity of contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Support is provided by Northern Trust. 


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

I first met Nick Cave in 2019 when he came to Boston to work on Augment, a public art project that centered joy. I was thinking a lot about joy and wonder when I first looked at this Soundsuit in person as part of Beyond Infinity: Contemporary Art after Kusama at the ICA, a few weeks after the unveiling of Augment. Many months have passed since I was prompted to think about joy through art. The increased media attention to anti-Black violence these past few weeks, coupled with the four-year anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando this month and the recent murders of two Black trans women, Riah Milton and Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells, makes joy sound like a radical proposition. As a queer, brown, second-generation immigrant from Mexico, grief and rage motivate a large part of my commitment to movements against systemic violence that targets Black and Indigenous people, people of color more generally, and queer and trans people. But these feelings are exhausting. I carry the weight of this collective moment and of my individual exhaustion as I think again about joy and wonder through Cave’s work.

Cave created his first Soundsuit out of twigs in 1991 after the beating of Rodney King, out of an impulse to protect the Black body—his body—from the violence of white supremacy. Cave’s Soundsuits have since evolved beyond their original function as physical armor by becoming more elaborate. When I first looked at this sculpture, I was drawn to the abundance of textures and colors that comprise its surface. I was also struck by its unconventional silhouette—while preserving a recognizable human form, the work is distorted by a chandelier crown. Its silhouette reminded me of spacesuits and personal protective equipment, which are technologies of survival. Even if Cave’s Soundsuits have become more exuberant than their prototype, the impulse to protect—from physical and perceptual violence—remains. Yet this sculpture also invites us to imagine a world free of anti-Black violence.

The wild silhouette and sensorial richness of this Soundsuit ground me in the possibility of wonder and joy. This sculpture is composed of a body of flowers with a nest of roosting birds as a head, an exaggerated entanglement of the human figure with non-human life. In a sense, this Soundsuit makes a wondrous spectacle of the fact that all things are connected. This sculpture pushes us to see beyond the structures and systems of anti-Blackness and capitalism that facilitate the devaluation of life, especially Black trans life, to revel in the possibility of worlds and futures where life is valued without qualifications. Cave reminds us through this Soundsuit that hope and joy, like grief and rage, are integral to the hard, messy work of bringing about a world where it will not be a radical gesture to state that Black lives matter.

 

Juan Omar Rodriguez joined the ICA last December as a Fellow in the curatorial department. He received an M.A. in Art History and Museum Studies from Tufts last spring.

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

 

Previously scheduled programs at the ICA Watershed, including new commission by Firelei Báez, postponed to summer 2021

(Boston, MA – May 29, 2020) Jill Medvedow, the Ellen Matilda Poss Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA), announced today that the museum will continue to use the Watershed, its seasonal space in East Boston, as a food distribution site through September 3, 2020. In partnership with community organizations in East Boston and the museum’s caterer, The Catered Affair, over 2,000 boxes of much-needed fresh produce and dairy will be delivered to East Boston families by the end of the summer. The Watershed’s previously scheduled programming, including a new site-specific installation by artist Firelei Báez, will be postponed until 2021. 

“With the cooperation of Firelei Báez, our East Boston partners, ICA staff and generous donors, we are redirecting resources of the ICA and the Watershed in particular to address a direct need within the community,” said Medvedow. “Art projects are included in each box of food to provide families with new and creative activities to do at home during this challenging time. While disappointing that we will not open the Watershed this summer as planned, this is the safest way for the museum to stay connected and serve our audiences at this time.”

The food donation initiative is a collaboration between the ICA and several East Boston organizations: East Boston Neighborhood Health Center (EBNHC); East Boston Social Centers; Maverick Landing Community Services; Eastie Farm; Orient Heights Housing Development; and Crossroads Family Center. East Boston has experienced one of the highest rates of COVID-19 in the city of Boston. The ICA was alerted to the need for fresh produce and healthy food through conversations with its community partners in East Boston. The museum reached out to its caterer, The Catered Affair, who offered to donate their labor in creating fresh food boxes for distribution. 

The Watershed was scheduled to open the 2020 season with a new commission by acclaimed artist Firelei Báez; the exhibition will now be on view in 2021. In her largest installation to date, Báez will reimagine the Watershed’s gallery space as the site of an ancient ruin, as though the sea had receded from the floor to reveal the archeology of human history in the Caribbean. An interactive art project by artist Stephen Hamilton, previously scheduled for the Watershed’s Harbor Room, will also take place in 2021.

About the Watershed

On July 4, 2018, the ICA opened to the public its new ICA Watershed, expanding artistic and educational programming on both sides of Boston Harbor—the Seaport and East Boston. Located in the Boston Harbor Shipyard and Marina, the ICA Watershed transformed a 15,000-square-foot, formerly condemned space into a vast and welcoming space to see and experience large-scale art. Admission to the Watershed—central to the museum’s vision for art and civic life—is free for all. The Watershed opened its inaugural year with an immersive installation by Diana Thater and its second year, 2019, with the U.S. premiere of John Akomfrah’s Purple.

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and augmenting art’s role as educator, incubator, and convener for social engagement. Its innovative exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. 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.