The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is founded.
The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is founded.
The Hammer Museum is founded.
Milena Kalinovska joins the ICA as director, serving in that position until 1998.
Robert Mapplethorpe’s first U.S. museum survey culminates at the ICA after traveling nationally from the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. At two other venues, the exhibition’s homoerotic content becomes embroiled in a highly visible censorship scandal involving the National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Congress, and conservative organizations, serving as a cause célèbre for both sides of the Culture Wars. The ICA’s determination to proceed with the exhibition in the midst of this heated debate testifies to its commitment to artists over politics, and to speaking out against censorship.
Pioneering performance and conceptual artist Chris Burden receives his first U.S. museum survey, organized by the Newport Harbor Art Museum and shown at the ICA.
In conjunction with the ICA’s 50th anniversary, the museum launches a landmark project including a major print catalogue and three exhibitions around Dissent: The Issue of Modern Art in Boston. This important project analyzes the distinct attitudes and ideas, during the first half of the 20th century, that set Boston modern art apart from the mainstream as defined by New York City.
The Pérez Art Museum Miami is founded.
David Ross joins the ICA as director, serving in that position until 1990.
The ICA organizes Art and Dance, examining a century of exchange between visual art and dance from 1890 to 1980, featuring works by dozens of artists, including Marcel Duchamp, Yvonne Rainer, and Merce Cunningham.
The ICA mounts Florine Stettheimer: Still Lifes, Portraits and Pageants, 1910–1942, a successor to her retrospective at Museum of Modern Art in 1946. Stettheimer is recognized as one of the most individualistic American painters of the era between the wars.