The ICA presented Rama’s first U.S. retrospective, Carolrama, in 1998.
A short (and definitely not comprehensive) list of exhibitions worth traveling for this season.
From Bauhaus to Buenos Aires
MoMA
Through Oct 4
MoMA’s From Bauhaus to Buenos Aires is the first major exhibition exploring the work and relationship of two leading avant-garde photographers of the 1920s and beyond, Grete Stern and Horacio Coppola. Stern’s photomontages are a celebration of the progressiveness of the day, heavily influenced by a strong Leftist emphasis on social commentary, her Bauhaus tutelage, and a fascination with psychoanalysis and the female unconscious. Coppola, introduced to the Bauhaus by Stern after meeting her in Berlin, combines an enthusiasm for Surrealism and the uncanny with a politically motivated depiction of social reality. —Kate McBride, Marketing Associate
Image: Grete Stern (Argentine, born Germany. 1904–1999). Dreams No. 1. 1949. Gelatin silver print, 10 ½ x 9” (26.6 x 22.9 cm). Latin American and Caribbean Fund through gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis in honor of Adriana Cisneros de Griffin. © 2014 Galería Jorge Mara-La Ruche
Ron Nagle
Matthew Marks Gallery
Through Oct 24
Simply one of the best sculptors, and painters, working today. Nagle is not shown enough in museums or on the East Coast, though the deft, humorous, and deliciously weird forms of his exquisitely colored ceramic sculptures say as much about bodies, human behavior, architecture, abstraction, and the sheer power of individualized beauty as anything else on public view. —Dan Byers, Mannion Family Senior Curator
Zanele Muholi: Isibonelo/Evidence
Brooklyn Museum
Through Nov 1
Zanele Muholi is an activist who makes stunning, unforgettable photographs of the LGBTI communities in South Africa, who are under constant threat of violence and discrimination in their country. Often printed in large-format and displayed in disarming grids, her photographs capture the individuality, defiance, beauty, and complexity of her subjects in a way that registers across the expanses of silent galleries. —Dan Byers, Mannion Family Senior Curator
Image (at top): Zanele Muholi (South African, born 1972). Ayanda & Nhlanhla Moremi’s wedding I. Kwanele Park, Katlehong, 9 November 2013, 2013. Chromogenic photograph, 10 7/16 x 14 9/16 in. (26.5 x 37 cm), framed. © Zanele Muholi. Courtesy of Stevenson Cape Town/Johannesburg and Yancey Richardson, New York
Berlin Metropolis: 1918–1933
Neue Galerie
Oct 1–Jan 4, 2016
As a former Berliner, I’m drawn to most things having to do with this dynamic and fascinating city. But this exhibition is something really special: a multifaceted endeavor bringing to life one of the most progressive, prolific, and ultimately disastrous cultures in history, a time marked by sexual emancipation, artistic experimentation, and an intoxicating modernity in art, design, film, jazz, and more. Chronologically—and even thematically—it also leads right into our big fall exhibition Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957, and with artists and teachers escaping Germany around this time and landing at BMC, I bet we’ll see some threads of influence. —Kris Wilton, Creative Content Manager
Swedish Wooden Toys
Bard Graduate Center Gallery
Through January 17, 2016
I’d also really like to see this exhibition of Swedish toys. With playthings from the 17th through the 21st centuries, I bet it’ll be a really interesting lens through which to consider changes of all kinds—in manufacturing, design, conceptions of childhood, pedagogical theory, societal roles, materials, materialism… And be really cute to boot. —Kris Wilton, Creative Content Manager
Walid Raad
MoMA
Oct 12, 2015–Jan 31, 2016
I am extremely excited to see the new Walid Raad exhibition, opening next week at MoMA and organized by our Barbara Lee Chief Curator Eva Respini. Raad, a Lebanese-born artist living and working in NY, tackles insistent questions about history in his photographs, videos, sculptures, and performances: Who writes history? Who excavates, who archives, who constructs our understanding of war and conflict? Raad’s work is painfully relevant today, especially as we witness the thousands of refugees fleeing Syria and ask who will write their histories. The ICA is proud to present Walid Raad to Boston audiences when it travels to the ICA in January 2016. —Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director
Picasso Sculpture
MoMA
Through Feb 7, 2016
This fall, I will be waiting in line for the Picasso Sculpture exhibition that just opened at MoMA. It is not every day that Roberta Smith (of the New York Times) calls a show a “once-in-a-lifetime event.” And I say this with some authority, since stalking, or as I like to term it, “assiduously following” art critics, is part of my official job capacity! —Colette Randall, Director of Marketing and Communications
Walter De Maria, The New York Earth Room
141 Wooster Street
Open fall, winter, and spring
One of my favorite things about fall: The Earth Room re-opens! It is a natural respite in the middle of a brick and mortar city. Go, breathe, and enjoy—it’s a delight. —Anna Lyman, Chief of Staff
The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) presents award-winning choreographer Faye Driscoll in Thank You For Coming: Attendance on Thursday Oct. 8, Friday, Oct. 9, and Saturday, Oct. 10 at 8:00 p.m., in the Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater at the ICA (100 Northern Ave., Boston). General admission tickets are $25, $15 for members and students, and can be purchased at www.icaboston.org or by calling (617) 478-3103.
A song whose sole lyrics are the names of each of the audience members. A stage that becomes the seating. Costumes that become cords connecting audience and dancers. These are just some of the strategies used by Driscoll in Attendance, the first work in Faye Driscoll’s Thank You For Coming trilogy. The performance continues her interest in how people perceive themselves in relationship to others—an idea also expressed in her earlier work You’re Me, performed at the ICA in 2012. Intimately staged in the round, the work creates a heightened reality of observation and interdependence as five performers (along with Driscoll and composer Michael Kiley) morph through physical entanglements and scenes of distorted familiarity with physical rigor and humor. Audience and performers become one as a beautiful shared identity emerges.
The second part of the trilogy: Thank You for Coming: Play (working title) was in development at the ICA this past summer as part of a Summer Stages Dance at ICA choreographic residency. It will be presented at the museum in 2016.
Free preshow talks with David Henry, Director of Performing and Media Arts at the ICA, 30 minutes prior to curtain.
About Faye Driscoll
Faye Driscoll is a Bessie Award-winning choreographer and director who has been hailed as a “startlingly original talent” by the New York Times. Her work is rooted in an obsession with the problem of being ‘somebody’ in a world of other ‘somebodies’ and all of the conflicts and comedy born in our interactions with others. Works include: Wow Mom, Wow a postmodern/pop musical/death metal fantasy (2007); 837 Venice Boulevard (2008; Bessie Award) an autobiographical work taking place in a theater within a home; There Is So Much Mad In Me (2010) an exploration of ecstatic states; You’re Me (2012) a duet distorted by props, paint and manic costume shifts; and she is currently at work on a series called Thank You for Coming that implicates the audience in the work and invites the sensation of co-creation.
This performance is supported, in part, by the David Henry Fund for Performance.
First Republic Bank is proud to sponsor the ICA’s 2015–16 Performance Season.
New site offers expanded artist and curatorial content, greater access to images and information from the ICA’s collection and exhibitions, multimedia features, and more
(Boston, Sept. 17, 2015)—The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) has relaunched its website, www.icaboston.org, today announced Jill Medvedow, the museum’s Ellen Matilda Poss Director. The first major redesign in ten years, the relaunch represents a new chapter in the ICA’s online presence. The site will feature robust, expanded content—including artist interviews, curatorial essays, behind-the-scenes museum images, and related news features from Boston and beyond—to more fully reflect the richness of the museum’s exhibitions, performance, and educational programs.
“The relaunch marks the start of an exciting new era in how the ICA creates and shares our collection, programs, and knowledge,” said Medvedow. “Our online features extend the artists’ voice and curatorial ideas—commentary, interviews, images, and publications—into the digital sphere where they are open to a global audience. We share diverse perspectives on the art at the ICA as well as timely and relevant voices from our community and around the world, all contributing to a dynamic online discourse and new ICA experience.”
New web features include:
The site launches with an essay on Black Mountain College by Medvedow, as well as an introduction to the coming year’s internationally driven exhibition schedule by recently appointed Barbara Lee Chief Curator, Eva Respini. Forthcoming content to be published on icaboston.org this fall includes:
The new site is overseen by Kris Wilton, the ICA’s Creative Content Manager, an art writer and former editor at ARTnews and Artinfo.com. “It’s been extremely gratifying to delve deep into the ICA’s programming, mission, and goals and reconsider how the institution presents itself digitally,” Wilton said. “Launching the new site is just part of a larger refresh of how we offer dynamic engagement with art of all kinds for visitors both near and far, one that will continue to be a priority in years to come.”
The website was created in partnership with Digital Loom, a web design and development company based in Cambridge, Mass.
Sol LeWitt, Run I, 1962. Oil on canvas and wood, 63.5 x 63.5 x 3.5 inches. LeWitt Collection, Courtesy Pace Gallery, New York. © 2015. The LeWitt Estate/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
ICA staff let you know where they’ll be this fall.
Converging Lines: Eva Hesse And Sol Lewitt
Addison Gallery of American Art
Through Jan 10, 2016
Two of the late 20th century’s most important artists, Eva Hesse and Sol LeWitt shared a close and generative friendship. If curator Veronica Robert’s insightful, generous catalog is any indication, this exhibition will not only elucidate the artists’ shared and diverging aesthetic and conceptual concerns, but also their friendship, an oft-overlooked aspect of artistic creativity also at the center of the ICA’s upcoming Leap Before you Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957. —Dan Byers, Senior Curator
I also recommend Converging Lines: Eva Hesse And Sol Lewitt! The selected art creates a correspondence focused on a visual/personal relationship illuminating the genesis of conceptual art. —Ruth Quattlebaum, Tour Guide
Laura McPhee, The Home and the World
Carroll and Sons
Through Oct 31
As a photographer myself, I’ve been a big fan of Laura McPhee’s work for a while now, especially her projects River of No Return and Guardians of Solitude. She teaches at MassArt and she’s one of my favorite Boston area photographers. I just learned about this series The Home and the World, in which she photographs gorgeous domestic architecture in Kolkata, India. I can’t wait to check it out at the gallery. Her prints are beautiful and if you want to see all the marvelous details, you really need to see them in person. —Chris Hoodlet, Membership Manager
Language vs Language
Sol Koffler Graduate Student Gallery at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence
Sep 15–Oct 11
The Sol Koffler Graduate Student Gallery is a great place to see what RISD students are putting out throughout the year. This fall’s exhibition, Language vs Language, is a group exhibition exploring “language, translation, and intercultural space.” RISD’s grad student open studio events are amazing also—the chance to see hundreds of artists’ work—but details for the fall event haven’t been released yet, it seems. —Africanus Okokon, Interpretive Media and Adult Education Coordinator
The Krieg Cycle: Käthe Kollwitz and World War I
The Davis Museum at Wellesley College
Through Dec 13
I’m fascinated by woodcuts in general—and how they so evocatively show the traces of the artist’s hand and the hours of painstaking work. I can’t wait to see this exhibition of woodcuts by the wrenching East German artist Käthe Kollwitz from her print series Krieg (War), published nine years after her son was killed in battle in World War I. I expect to be awed, inspired, rattled, heartbroken, and galvanized, in equal measure. — Kris Wilton, Creative Content Manager
Image: Käthe Kollwitz, The Parents (plate 3) from the portfolio “War,” 1923. © 2015 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.
Sübsamsøñ and the BLAA (Boston LGBTQIA Artist Alliance) teamed up for Makeover!, a show of 18 Boston-affiliated or -based artists whose work considers reshaping, modifying, and updating the self. With the recent loss of a permanent space, the BLAA is undergoing its own makeover and this exhibition is an exciting first look at the organization’s new direction. [Disclosure: I have work in this show. See it here.] Come to the opening reception! Friday, Oct 9 from 6–8 PM. —Lenny Schnier, Education Department Assistant
24th Drawing Show: Feelers
Mills Gallery at the Boston Center for the Arts
Oct 9–Dec 20
For the 24th installment of the Mills Gallery’s annual Drawing Show, the BCA enlisted guest curator Susan Metrican (one quarter of the 2015 ICA Foster Prize recipient kijidome). The 56 artists in the exhibition explore the possibilities of existing in a two-dimensional reality through drawing’s inherent encounter with flatness. [Full disclosure: I have work in this show too.] Come to this opening reception too, Fri, Oct 9 from 6–8 PM! —Lenny Schnier, Education Department Assistant
Rosa Barba: The Color Out of Space
MIT List Visual Arts Center
Oct 23, 2015–Jan 3, 2016
Rosa Barba’s much-needed first survey exhibition in North America, at MIT’s List Center, includes a diverse range of works made over the last ten years. The exhibition premieres Barba’s latest work, The Color Out of Space, a film that incorporates images collected over the past year from the Hirsch Observatory at Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute, which expands on the artist’s sustained interest in different registers of time. —Jeffrey DeBlois, Curatorial Assistant
Lorraine O’Grady: Where Margins Become Centers
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University
Oct 29, 2015–Jan 10, 2016
Lorraine O’Grady, born in Boston in 1934, has been one of the more perceptive observers of contemporary culture since bursting onto the New York scene in the 1980s. I am excited to witness her energetic and critical engagement with questions of race, gender, and class across six bodies of work brought together in this survey exhibition. —Ruth Erickson, Assistant Curator
Image: Lorraine O’Grady, Miscegenated Family Album (Sisters I), 1980/1994. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates.
Actually, everything this fall at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard
What other organization can get away with a program that combines the elegantly cerebral institutional interventions of Martin Beck, the participatory and public boat building of Mare Liberum, the stunning monotypes of Dutch graphic design giant Karel Martens, Josiah McElheny’s walking mirrors, and film screenings by Boston-born and LA-based Kerry Tribe, not to mention exhibitions by an artist long overdue (Lorraine O’Grady) and prescient (Shahryar Nashat). And that’s not even everything. —Dan Byers, Senior Curator
Walid Raad, We decided to let them say “we are convinced” twice. It was more convincing this way, 1982/2004, pigmented inkjet print, 44 x 67 inches. Courtesy the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut/Hamburg. © 2015 Walid Raad
The ICA looks abroad with exhibitions featuring Walid Raad; Nalini Malani; and Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, and Hesam Rahmanian
When I arrived in Boston six months ago to take the post of Barbara Lee Chief Curator at the ICA, the long, cold days of winter provided me with the time and space to think about ICA’s future program of exhibitions, performances, talks, and events. The Internet has allowed for the virtual erasure of geographic boundaries and easy exchange and access to information, products, images, communities, and visual cultures from anywhere with an Internet connection. In today’s globalized world, I believe it is imperative for American museums to examine art beyond the United States and Western Europe to make connections with the various histories, traditions, artists, and institutions outside our own country. This can be achieved by exhibiting artists from around the globe, but also by expanding our web reach, with images and dialogues that can be accessed by anybody, anywhere, anytime.
This year the ICA is launching a series of exhibitions and programs by a roster of international artists that address a variety of issues in contemporary art. In December we will host The Birthday Party, the first exhibition in an American museum of three Iranian artists based in Dubai; in February, we will open the first American mid-career survey of Lebanese artist Walid Raad; and in summer, we will present an all-encompassing installation of the Indian artist Nalini Malani. In The Birthday Party, Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, and Hesam Rahmanian will transform the gallery space into a total installation that includes the trio’s work in sculpture, video, painting, and collage, which brings together an impressive array of references and objects—from zaar music and mermaids to the work of Louise Bourgeois, and Hassan Sharif. Raad’s work in photography, video, sculpture, and performance, which weaves together fact and fiction, examines how we write, construct, and remember history, specifically the histories of regions in conflict. Malani, India’s leading artist and a committed activist, will present her enthralling multimedia installation In Search of Vanished Blood, which tells the story of a struggling female artist and visionary. Each of the exhibitions will be accompanied by a rich array of educational offerings and programs that will allow our audiences—both local and virtual—to engage with these artists’ work and ideas.
Of course we will keep exhibiting the work of artists closer to home, including Chicago-based sculptor Diane Simpson (opening December); Canadian artist Geoffrey Farmer (opening April); and the Boston-born, New York–based photographer Liz Deschenes (opening July). Made under a diverse range of geographic, political, social, and aesthetic circumstances, these exhibitions together present a wide range of approaches to the artistic, political, social, and cultural flux that have shaped the current global landscape.
The legendary and eccentric collector changed art history forever.
A patron of the arts; a confidante, friend and lover to the modern masters; and a dedicated and ambitious art collector, Peggy Guggenheim was larger than life. New documentary Peggy Guggenheim – Art Addict, by director Lisa Immordino Vreeland, details the exceptional, international life of a woman who broke the rules both publicly and privately. Centered on recently recovered tapes of Peggy Guggenheim’s last interview, this film explores the vision amid tragedy of an iconic woman who eschewed tradition in both her collection and social life.
Learn more when Peggy Guggenheim—Art Addict screens at the ICA Sep 18 + 19.