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This September, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) launches the tour of interdisciplinary artist Jason Moran’s first museum exhibition. Moran’s work is grounded in musical composition, yet bridges the visual and performing arts through stagecraft. Moran, who has taught at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston since 2010, is known for using personal experience to create dynamic musical compositions that challenge the conventional form of the medium. His experimental approach to artmaking embraces the intersection of objects and sound, pushing beyond the traditional staged concert or sculpture and drawing to amplify ways that both are inherently theatrical. This exhibition features the range of work Moran has explored, from his own sculptural pieces and collaborations with visual artists to performances. On view from Sept. 19, 2018 through Jan. 21, 2019, Jason Moran is organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and curated by Adrienne Edwards with Danielle Jackson. The Boston presentation is coordinated by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator.
 
In all aspects of his work, Moran’s creative process is informed by one of the essential tenets of jazz music: the “set” in which musicians come together to engage in a collaborative process of improvisation, riffing off of one another to create the musical experience. The exhibition will highlight Moran’s mixed-media “set” installations STAGED: Savoy Ballroom 1 and STAGED: Three Deuces (both 2015), sculptural vignettes based on storied music venues from past eras that were his acclaimed contributions to the 2015 Venice Biennale. The presentation includes the premiere of a new sculptural commission from this series that takes inspiration from the celebrated New York jazz venue Slugs’ Saloon, which was open from 1964 to the early 1970s. Also featured will be a selection of Moran’s most recent charcoal drawings and time-based media works from his long-standing collaborations, or sets, with visual artists including Joan Jonas, Lorna Simpson, Glenn Ligon, Julie Mehretu and Theaster Gates.
 
In-gallery musical performances, activating the sculptures, will be orchestrated during the run of the show to complement the gallery presentation.
 

Exhibition-Related Programming

Fri, Oct 12, 8 PM
Jason Moran and the Bandwagon
$50 ICA members + students / $60 nonmembers

Hailed as one of contemporary jazz’s most inventive and innovative performers, pianist and composer Jason Moran’s musical influences range from historical jazz giants like Fats Waller and Thelonious Monk to contemporary visual artists like Kara Walker and Glenn Ligon. At the ICA, Moran’s abundant talents will be on full display. The evening opens with a solo piano set, followed by a performance with his trio The Bandwagon, celebrating their 20th anniversary this year.
 

Thu, Nov 15, 7 PM
The Artist’s Voice: Jason Moran with Glenn Ligon

Ten years ago, Jason Moran created the soundtrack for Glenn Ligon’s The Death of Tom, an abstractionist recreation of the final scene of the 1903 silent film Uncle Tom’s Cabin, based on the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Join the artists in revisiting this important collaboration with a screening and live performance, and hear more about Moran’s expansive creative practice and his first touring exhibition in a conversation led by Ligon. Free with museum admission.
 

About the Artist

Jazz pianist, composer, and visual artist Jason Moran (b. 1975, Houston) earned a degree from the Manhattan School of Music. He was named Ford Foundation The Art of Change Fellow in 2017 with his wife and collaborator Alicia Hall Moran, a MacArthur Fellow in 2010, and is the Artistic Director for Jazz at The Kennedy Center. Moran currently teaches at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, MA. Moran has produced 11 albums and six film soundtracks, including scores for Ava DuVernay’s films Selma and 13th. He has collaborated with visual artists, including Joan Jonas, Adam Pendleton, Glenn Ligon, Kara Walker, Lorna Simpson, Stan Douglas, Theaster Gates, among others. His work was featured in the 2015 Venice Biennale.
 

Tour Schedule

After the ICA, the exhibition will travel to stops in the Midwest and East Coat, including the Wexner Center for the Arts at the Ohio State University (June 1 – August 11, 2019).
 

Acknowledgments

Jason Moran is made possible with generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund. Additional support provided by Mike and Elizabeth Sweeney. Piano by Steinway & Sons.
 

About the ICA

An influential forum for multi-disciplinary arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston has been at the leading edge of art in Boston for 80 years. Like its iconic building on Boston’s waterfront, the ICA offers new ways of engaging with the world around us. Its exhibitions and programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. The ICA, located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, is open Tuesday and Wednesday, 10 AM–5 PM; Thursday and Friday, 10 AM–9 PM (1st Friday of every month, 10 AM–5 PM); and Saturday and Sunday, 10 AM–5 PM. Admission is $15 adults, $13 seniors and $10 students, and free for members and children 17 and under. Free admission for families at ICA Play Dates (2 adults + children 12 and under) on last Saturday of the month. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at www.icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) presents compelling performances, artist talks, and films as part of the upcoming season. Highlights include a musical performance by interdisciplinary artist and jazz composer Jason Moran with his trio The Bandwagon, dance performances by acclaimed choreographer Twyla Tharp and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, the Boston debut of Abby Zbikowski’s hyperphysical dance, Alessandro Sciarroni’s evening-length work almost entirely composed of juggling, and a free talk by renowned choreographer and artist William Forsythe.

All events take place in the Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater at the ICA, 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston. Tickets can be purchased at www.icaboston.org or by calling 617-478-3103.
 

Music

Fri, Oct 12, 8 PM
Jason Moran and the Bandwagon
$50 ICA members + students / $60 nonmembers

Hailed as one of contemporary jazz’s most inventive and innovative performers, pianist and composer Jason Moran’s musical influences range from historical jazz giants like Fats Waller and Thelonious Monk contemporary visual artists like Kara Walker and Glenn Ligon. At the ICA, Moran’s abundant talents will be on full display. The evening opens with a solo piano set, followed by a performance with his trio The Bandwagon, celebrating their 20th anniversary this year. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Jason Moran, which will be on view in the galleries prior to the performance.
 

Thu, Feb 28, 8 PM
The Music of Klaus Lang featuring Yarn/Wire and Sound Icon
$10 ICA members + students / $20 nonmembers

Austrian composer Klaus Lang’s compositions reflect a keen understanding of the musical canon, from early-17th-century composers like Frescobaldi to 20th-century experimentalists like John Cage and Morton Feldman. Catalyzed by history, his compositions conjure a strange and mesmerizing sound world that exists somewhere between the past and the present. At the ICA, two highly acclaimed ensembles will interpret Lang’s music. The percussion and piano quartet Yarn/Wire will perform molten trees (2017), and members of the Boston-based sinfonietta Sound Icon will perform weisse aepfel (2009). Co-presented with the Boston University Center for New Music.
 

Dance

Fri, Sep 21, 8 PM
Sat, Sep 22, 7 PM
Trajal Harrell
Caen Amour
$15 ICA members + students / $25 nonmembers

Choreographer Trajal Harrell, creator of the series Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at Judson Church, merges history, ritual, and fantasy to reinterpret our ideas of the past. In his newest work, Caen Amour, Harrell and his dancers resurrect the hoochie-coochie show, an exotic and erotic spectacle that debuted at World’s Fairs in Europe and America in the 19th century. These seductive dance spectacles emerged at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, as precursors to vaudeville and striptease. For Harrell, the hoochie-coochie was a pioneering moment when female artists presented performances on the boundary between entertainment, erotic dancing, and early experiments in modern dance. Part fashion show, part strip tease, Caen Amour weaves a spellbinding tableau of history, spectacle, and imagination. Please note: this performance contains nudity.
 

Fri, Nov 9 + Sat, Nov 10, 8 PM
Abby Z and the New Utility
abandoned playground
$15 ICA members + students / $25 nonmembers

In Abby Zbikowski’s abandoned playground, nine dancers rip through the theater performing complex sequences of hyperphysical dance that push them to the brink of their capabilities and endurance. In this evening length work, Zbikowski highlights each dancer’s unique strengths and forges an intense ensemble connection through vocalizations and the channeling of communal energy. Performing such extreme and virtuosic movement at a relentless pace, the dancers invigorate and push each other to overcome their physical and mental exhaustion. Recognized with the 2017 Juried Bessie Award for her “unique and utterly authentic movement vocabulary in complex and demanding structures,” Abby Zbikowski generates her bold, high-intensity, precisely rhythmic choreography from her background of hip-hop, tap, West African, and postmodern dance styles, deeply-rooted punk aesthetic, and close collaboration with her dancers, who bring their specific bodies, psychologies, and training histories to the work.
 

Thu, Dec 13 + Fri, Dec 14, 8 PM
Sat, Dec 15, 2 PM + 8 PM
Sun, Dec 16, 2 PM
Twyla Tharp
Minimalism and Me
Thu + matinees: $45 ICA members and students/$55 nonmembers
Fri + Sat evening: $55 ICA members and students/$65 nonmembers

In Minimalism and Me legendary artist Twyla Tharp, one of the most acclaimed choreographers of her generation, recollects her early works and experiences, as dancers from Twyla Tharp Dance recreate excerpts from the works she discusses. Accompanied by never-before-seen photographs and original cast films of several of her site-specific and gender-fluid performances, the program illuminates the progression of the Minimalism movement in the 1960s and 1970s and the influence it had on her choreography. The program draws from twenty important works Tharp made between 1965 and 1970 created for different spaces, including museums and the outdoors, and performed in silence. There will be a pre-performance talk by former Tharp dancer Richard Colton 30 minutes before each performance. Minimalism and Me is a Summer Stages Dance @ the ICA/Boston project.

Feature dance excerpts:

  • Tank Dive (1965)
  • Re-Moves (1966)
  • Disperse (1967)
  • Generation (1968)
  • After ‘Suite’ (1969)
  • Medley (1969)
  • Dancing in the Streets of London and Paris, continued in Stockholm, and sometimes Madrid (1969)
  • The Fugue (1970)
  • The One Hundreds

 

Thu, Feb 14–Sun, Feb 17 
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company
Analogy Trilogy
Thu, Feb 14, 8 PM: Analogy/Dora: Tramontane
Fri, Feb 15, 8 PM: Analogy/Lance: Pretty aka The Escape Artist
Sat, Feb 16, 8 PM: Analogy/Ambrose: The Emigrant
Sun, Feb 17, 2 PM: Analogy/Ambrose: The Emigrant
$30 ICA members + students / $40 nonmembers

Developed by Bill T. Jones with Associate Artistic Director Janet Wong, Analogy Trilogy is based on oral histories and inspired by W. G. Sebald’s award-winning novel The Emigrants. Part one, Analogy/Dora: Tramontane, recounts the story of Dora Amelan, a French Jewish nurse, social worker, and World War II survivor. Part Two, Analogy/Lance: Pretty aka The Escape Artist is a tragic yet humorous journey through the sex trade and drug use of the 1980s. The final part of the trilogy, Ambros: The Emigrant, tells the story of a German valet and his glamorous travels with his charge Cosmos through Europe and the Middle East on the eve of WWI, and then his life after Cosmo’s descent into madness and death.
 

Fri, Mar 15 + Sat, Mar 16, 8 PM
Alessandro Sciarroni
UNTITLED­_I will be there when you die
$15 ICA members + students / $25 nonmembers

Italian visual artist and choreographer Alessandro Sciarroni returns to the ICA with a hypnotic reflection on the passing of time. Working with a cast of four professional jugglers, Sciarroni emphasizes the performers’ discipline, focus, and concentration to thrilling effect. By stripping away the trappings of the circus, Sciarroni illustrates the essential elements of juggling and the medium’s nearly endless combination of patterns and tosses. Every toss and every catch marks the passage of time—a hypnotic and thrilling effect—again and again and again.
 

Fri, Apr 12 + Sat, Apr 13, 8 PM
Claudia Rankine, Will Rawls, and John Lucas
What Remains
$15 ICA members + students / $25 nonmembers

Boston-born choreographer Will Rawls returns for a performance collaboration with MacArthur Fellow Claudia Rankine and filmmaker John Lucas. What Remains is an investigation of cultural violence and disappearance through movement, language, installation, and projection. Inspired by Rankine’s texts on racial violence—Citizen and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely—What Remains explores hidden histories, broken tongues, and premature death in the lives of African Americans. Featuring performers Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste, Leslie Cuyjet, Jessica Pretty, and Tara Aisha Willis. What Remains is a Summer Stages Dance @ the ICA/Boston project.
 

Film

Sun, Sep 16, 3 PM
Black Radical Imagination
$5 for members + students / $10 nonmembers

Black Radical Imagination is an international touring program of moving image shorts that highlights new stories by filmmakers and visual artists from within the African diaspora. This year’s program, FUGITIVE TRAJECTORIES, meditates on the various ways Black people are tending to their lives despite traumatic histories, both personal and collective, and a troubling present. Black Radical Imagination is cofounded by Erin Christovale and Amir George, and the 2018 program is curated by Jheanelle Brown and Darol Olu Kae. Participating artists include Ephraim Asili, Frances Bodomo, Alima Lee, Jenn Nkiru, Amelia Umuhire, and dana washington. Jheanelle Brown will be in attendance.
 

Sun, Oct 21, 3 PM 
Where the Pavement Ends
$6 for members + students / $12 nonmembers

The death of Michael Brown, shot by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer in 2014, was national news after protests erupted there. But the history of Ferguson, a formerly whites-only “sundown town,” and the neighboring black town of Kinloch, now semi-abandoned, is not well known. Incorporating reflections of residents of Kinloch and Ferguson (including Gillooly, who grew up in Ferguson), this film explores the relationship between these two towns. Beginning with a 1960s roadblock that divided then-white Ferguson from black Kinloch, the film depicts a micro-history of race relations in America. Filmmakers Jane Gillooly, Khary Saeed Jones, Aparna Agrawal, in attendance.
 

Sun, Nov 11
Boston Jewish Film Festival
$5 for members + students / $10 nonmembers

Join the ICA for the 30th Annual Boston Jewish Film Festival on November 11. The Boston Jewish Film Festival presents premieres of documentary and narrative films with Jewish themes from around the world. Films are followed by conversations with filmmakers and special guests. The Boston Jewish Film Festival runs November 7–19 and will be at the ICA all day on November 11. Check bjff.org for more details.
 

Talks

Free with museum admission, unless otherwise specified.

Thu, Sep 27, 7 PM
The Artist’s Voice: Dindga McCannon 

Exhibiting artist Dindga McCannon visits the ICA for the closing week of the exhibition We Wanted A Revolution. McCannon, who is an author, illustrator, painter, and more, actively participated in critical moments in the history of art, including as a member of the Weisui Artist Collective in the 1960s and the Where We At collective composed of professional women of color who supported one another’s creative careers in the 1970s. Join McCannon as she recalls her earlier years as an artist in New York, her many subsequent accomplishments as an artist, and her active involvement in this expansive touring exhibition that recognizes the many important contributions of women of color from the 1960s to 80s. 
 

Thu, Nov 15, 7 PM
The Artist’s Voice: Jason Moran with Glenn Ligon

Ten years ago, Jason Moran created the soundtrack for Glenn Ligon’s The Death of Tom, an abstractionist recreation of the final scene of the 1903 silent film Uncle Tom’s Cabin, based on the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Join the artists in revisiting this important collaboration with a screening and live performance, and hear more about Moran’s expansive creative practice and his first touring exhibition in a conversation led by Ligon.
 

Thu, Feb 21, 7 PM 
The Artist’s Voice: William Forsythe

William Forsythe is counted among the foremost choreographers of our time. Parallel to his stage productions, Forsythe has developed installations, sculptures, and films that he calls Choreographic Objects. In this public program, Forsythe will be in conversation with Barbara Lee Chief Curator Eva Respini about his artistic practice, choreographic objects, physical thinking, and problem solving in his work.
 

Fall Exhibitions

Jason Moran
Sep 19, 2018–Jan 21, 2019

The first museum presentation of interdisciplinary artist Jason Moran features the full range of Moran’s work from performance and collaborations with visual artists to his own sculptural works. Moran, who has taught at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston since 2010, is known for using personal experience to create dynamic musical compositions that challenge the conventional form of the medium. His experimental approach to artmaking embraces the intersection of objects and sound, pushing beyond the traditional staged concert or sculpture and drawing to amplify ways that both are inherently theatrical. In-gallery musical performances, activating the sculptures, will be orchestrated during the run of the show. Jason Moran is organized by the Walker Art Center; the Boston presentation is organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator.
 

William Forsythe: Choreographic Objects
Oct 31, 2018–Feb 24, 2019

The ICA presents the first comprehensive U.S. exhibition of celebrated artist and world-renowned choreographer William Forsythe. Spanning over two decades of Forsythe’s work, this major exhibition includes room-size interactive sculptures, participatory objects, and video installations. Since the 1990s, parallel to his stage productions, Forsythe has developed site-responsive, interactive works that are designed to stimulate movement and invite the viewer to confront and engage with the fundamental principles of choreography. Forsythe calls these works Choreographic Objects. Via the artist’s instructions for action posted on the wall next to the works, visitors are encouraged to move freely through the performative exhibition and generate an infinite range of individual choreographies. In shifting choreographic thinking from the trained dancer to the layperson, and from the stage to the gallery, Forsythe emphasizes that choreography is possible everywhere. This exhibition is organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, with Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator.

 

Acknowledgments

Support for the ICA’s 2018–19 Performance Season is provided by Vivien and Alan Hassenfeld and Ellen Poss. 
 
Coproduction support for Caen Amour: Barbican Center (London), Kampnagel (Hamburg), Festival Avignon, Theater Freiburg, Arsenic (Lausanne), Gessnerallee (Zurich), ICA/Boston, Kaaitheater (Brussels), Productiehuis Rotterdam.
 
Also supported by TANZFONDS ERBE- German Federal Cultural Foundation Initiative
 
The ICA’s presentation of Twyla Tharp: Minimalism and Me is made possible, in part, with the generous support of George and Ann Colony.

Minimalism and Me and What Remains are Summer Stages Dance @ the ICA/Boston projects and are made possible, in part, with the support of Jane Karol and Howard Cooper, David Parker, The Aliad Fund, George and Ann Colony, and Stephanie and Leander McCormick-Goodhart.
 
Additional support for Will Rawls’s residency comes from the American Repertory Theater.
 
We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85 is organized by the Brooklyn  Museum. Support for the Boston presentation is provided by The Robert E. Davoli and Eileen L. McDonagh Charitable Foundation, Fotene Demoulas and Tom Coté, Allison and EdwardJohnson, Barbara Lee, David and Leslie Puth, and Charles and Fran Rodgers.
 
Jason Moran is organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and is made possible with generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund. Additional support provided by Mike and Elizabeth Sweeney. Piano by Steinway & Sons.


 
William Forsythe: Choreographic Objects is sponsored by First Republic Bank and Saks Fifth Avenue. 
 
Additional support is generously provided by Edward Berman and Kathleen McDonough and Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser.

Bill T. Jones, Analogy/Abrose: The Emigrant. Photo by Paul B. Goode 

This summer, the ICA debuted a new visual identity conceived and carried out by award-winning designer Abbott Miller and his team at the international design consultancy Pentagram. Timed to the opening of the new ICA Watershed, the new identity strives to communicate ideas of openness, accessibility, and radical welcome embedded in both the new space and the institution’s strategic plan released in 2016.

From founding the multidisciplinary studio Design/Writing/Research to working with museum and corporate clients there and through Pentagram, where he is a partner, to extensive writing and publication projects, Miller has long used design as a way of exploring and interpreting art, architecture, public space, performance, fashion, and design. This deep and varied experience makes him uniquely suited to take on this important reimagining of the ICA’s public face.

At Design/Writing/Research, Miller pioneered the concept of “designer as author,” and he has written extensively about design, including in the 2014 monograph Abbott Miller: Design and Content. Learn more about his celebrated, wide-ranging work there or at pentagram.com.

Miller spoke with the ICA about the aims for the new ICA identity, the particular challenges of museum visual identities, and why he “hates” logos.

In your 2014 book Design and Content you wrote, “I hate logos. …[E]veryone gets obsessed with the logo when they should really be more concerned with how it’s used.” What is the role of design and a logo identity in giving voice to an art institution?

There are a couple of things embedded in that “I hate logos” rant. A “logo” is often invested with both too much importance and too little real estate. There is often a pressure on this graphic mark to try to sum up everything an organization stands for, when in fact it’s part of an ensemble of elements: words, typography, imagery, color, not to mention all of the actual services, things, and people that are represented by that mark. It has an outsized importance because it sometimes has to travel in isolation of all those other elements and still be memorable and meaningful and convey something about the organization. 

You’ve worked with a wide range of ICA staff and constituents in the course of this project. Can you describe how you kick off a project like this?

The process involved the staff and the board: we met over several meetings to define the aspirations of the ICA and what makes the ICA unique, and to understand its role in the lives of its audiences. We had a couple of brainstorming sessions that helped us understand the spirit and tone of the ICA, and we did a full audit of the communications from previous years. That helped to define what the new identity needed to achieve.     

What were your aims for the ICA logo and its context?

Our goal was for the mark to effectively tether itself in people’s minds to the spirit of the ICA and, over time, for it to function metonymically for the whole of the ICA. There are several other contemporary art museums with the acronym ICA (Boston was the first in the United States to be so named), so we also had to consider our visual expression in relation not just to other art museums, but to art museums with the same set of letters! This led us to focus on the typographic expression, and to look for a strong gestalt in the ensemble of the letters. 

You’ve worked with museums including the Guggenheim, the Barnes Foundation, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Sigmund Freud Museum, as well as commercial clients like American Express and Harley Davidson. How is designing or branding for an art institution is different from the commercial realm?

Corporate emblems like the American Express blue box or the Harley-Davidson logo have some advantages in having been around for many decades, and having deep exposure in different markets all over the world. Very few art museums can claim so much constancy in their visual expression. One of the founding designers of Pentagram, Alan Fletcher, designed the V&A logo in 1989 and it still looks as good as ever, but that is a real exception. There is generally higher turnover in the world of cultural institutions. That could be because they don’t have the opportunity to become as deeply entrenched as corporate marks.  

There is a major difference in designing for cultural organizations because, with fewer resources and platforms, they have to use every opportunity to speak clearly and effectively to their audiences and they need to establish a tone of voice and personality. The visual quotient is especially high with art museums: much of what we design is really about creating a frame that interacts well with the art that gets put inside of it. Art “brands” and corporate brands need to function well and be consistent, but in the cultural sector you also need to watch out for things feeling overly branded.    

One of the ICA’s aims is to keep artwork at the forefront of its materials, without letting them get too stark. How do you create design that is clean and elegant but still inviting?

We needed an expression for the ICA that was declarative but still inviting, contemporary, and accessible. I think the visual identity we’ve developed allows for the ICA to have more prominence in its messaging about exhibitions: with fewer opportunities to get the word out there, it’s critical for the “authorship” of the ICA to be understood and appreciated. There is a graphic impact and scalability to the mark that allows for it to be a small emblem on a badge or as big as a single floor of the building. I think that range is due to the form being comprised of separate elements that coalesce.  

Institutional identity projects are, by definition, institution-centric. And yet, when an organization chooses to work with a designer, they’re choosing their point of view. How do you balance your own vision with that of the client?

It might be a traditional metaphor, but it’s sort of like portraiture: you can see the sensibility of the painter or photographer in the finished piece, but the portrait has to ultimately convey the personality of the subject. There should be some initial affinity between the organization and the designer, but the goal is to give an expression to the place that feels true to the personality of the client and gives them a visual language for all of their needs. 

Learn more about the thinking and work behind the ICA’s new identity in the video below.

First comprehensive U.S. exhibition provides an in-depth look at the art of world-renowned choreographer

(Boston, MA—July 27, 2018) On October 31, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) opens the first comprehensive U.S. exhibition of celebrated artist and world-renowned choreographer William Forsythe. Spanning over two decades of Forsythe’s work, this major exhibition includes room-size interactive sculptures, participatory objects, and video installations. Since the 1990s, parallel to his stage productions, Forsythe has developed site-responsive, interactive works that are designed to stimulate movement and invite the viewer to confront and engage with the fundamental principles of choreography. Forsythe calls these works Choreographic Objects. Via the artist’s instructions for action posted on the wall next to the works, visitors are encouraged to move freely through the performative exhibition and generate an infinite range of individual choreographies. In shifting choreographic thinking from the trained dancer to the layperson, and from the stage to the gallery, Forsythe emphasizes that choreography is possible everywhere. On view October 31, 2018 through February 21, 2019, William Forsythe: Choreographic Objects is organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, with Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator. 

“In this sweeping survey, William Forsythe presents movement and gesture as a mindful and expressive act for all human beings,” said Jill Medvedow, the ICA’s Ellen Matilda Poss Director. “Forsythe’s work is inspiring, generous, and empowering. The ICA is proud to present the artist’s first comprehensive solo museum exhibition in the United States.”

“Forsythe goes beyond the innovations of avant-garde dance and performance art to query the relationship between performer and audience,” said Respini. “Through the medium of choreography, he explores ideas that resonate with some of the most daring artistic experiments of the past fifty years. His overarching proposition is radical in the way that it alters our understanding of the body as a material to be molded within the public sphere.”

Forsythe is counted among the foremost choreographers of our time. For over four decades, he has created productions that redefine classical ballet’s vocabulary, and his groundbreaking approach to choreography, staging, lighting, and dance analysis has influenced countless choreographers and artists. William Forsythe: Choreographic Objects coincides with Forsythe’s long-term partnership with Boston Ballet. On March 7, 2019, Boston Ballet will debut his first world premiere created on an American company in over two decades at the Boston Opera House as part of the Full on Forsythe program, presenting a unique opportunity for audiences to experience the full range of Forsythe’s pioneering body of work—both in the galleries and on stage.

Exhibition Highlights
The exhibition presents large-scale installations, objects, and videos, encompassing several aspects of movement and audience participation. Forsythe’s Choreographic Objects fall into three broad categories: large-scale interactive installations that invite viewers to move through an environment; smaller-scale sculptures that engage them in a haptic, or tactile, experience; and video-sculptures where the body is the sole sculptural element. Each work answers the driving question posed by Forsythe ‘What could physical thinking look like?’ in a different way, and each visitor answers it in their own deeply personal way. Several works have been developed in response to the architecture of the ICA.

  • In Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time, No. 3 (2015), Forsythe creates an interactive maze with eighty hanging pendulums that the viewer is invited to enter and navigate through. The participants are instructed to avoid touching the pendulums with their body. The pendulums are programmed to move separately, thus challenging visitors’ perceptions and reflexes as they move through the installation.
  • In Towards the Diagnostic Gaze (2013), participants are instructed to hold a feather duster absolutely still, an impossible task because of the continuous internal movements of the body that are often otherwise undetectable. As in all of Forsythe’s Choreographic Objects, participants are compelled to consider the body’s physical capacities, casting into relief its strengths and limitations as part of Forsythe’s decades-long investigation of action-based knowledge.
  • In The Fact of Matter (2009), which is comprised of dozens of gymnastic rings hanging from the ceiling at varying heights, the artist invites viewers to traverse the space only using the rings. Participants become acutely aware of gravitational pull and are prompted to think about physical limitations, the illusion of weightlessness, the inevitability of failure, and the heroism of Sisyphean endeavor, all steadfast concerns of Forsythe.
  • The video installation Alignigung 2 (2017) features the dancers Rauf “Rubberlegz” Yasit and Riley Watts, who both have highly flexible joints and unique organizational sensibilities. At first glance, the work appears to be a still image, but close looking reveals it to be a video showing a knot of bodies moving with glacial slowness. In this human “entanglement,” the complex “threading” of these bodies into their own negative spaces creates visual conundrums that frequently defy the apparent logic of the situation. The title is a word play that, like the human situation it describes, threads two languages together. The English word “align” sounds like the German word allein (alone) and is fused with the German word Einigung (agreement). The result is a pun and a paradox—to align with oneself and another at the same time.

Catalogue
The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated publication, co-published with Prestel Publishing/Delmonico Books, which will be an important resource and scholarly contribution. The publication features major essays by writers from the disciplines of both art and dance, including Respini, Roslyn Sulcas, Rebecca M. Groves, Daniel Birnbaum, Susan Leigh Foster, Molly Nesbit, as well as a conversation between Forsythe and co-editor Louise Neri.

The Artist’s Voice: William Forsythe
Thursday, February 21, 7 PM
In this public program, Forsythe will be in conversation with Barbara Lee Chief Curator Eva Respini about his artistic practice, choreographic objects, physical thinking, and problem solving in his work. Event is free, but tickets are required.

About the Artist
William Forsythe was born in New York in 1949, and resides in Vermont. Trained in classical ballet in Florida and New York, Forsythe joined the Stuttgart Ballett in 1973 and went on to direct the Ballett Frankfurt for twenty years. He directed the smaller, more specialized The Forsythe Company, in Frankfurt and Dresden, from 2005 to 2015. His Choreographic Objects have been exhibited internationally in venues such as Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, London, the Venice and Sydney Biennales, La Villette/Grande Halle, Paris as part of Festival d’automne, and museums such as Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany; and Hayward Gallery, London. He has received numerous awards and was honored with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale in 2010.

Acknowledgements

William Forsythe: Choreographic Objects is sponsored by First Republic Bank and Saks Fifth Avenue. 

Additional support is generously provided by Edward Berman and Kathleen McDonough and Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser.

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