“Doors are fascinating objects, rich with symbolism. They can hide or reveal, express opposites of light or dark, exterior or interior, open or closed… They are commonplace, yet unfamiliar. We find ourselves wondering what is on the other side, where we may end up. There is fear and anxiety we associate with the unknown, but also anticipation and potential.” — Christian Marclay

Christian Marclay (born 1955 in San Rafael, California) is a pioneering DJ, composer, and visual artist renowned for his experimental work across sound, video, sculpture, collage, and installation.

In Doors (2022), Marclay stitches together hundreds of short film clips featuring the opening and closing of doors. More than a decade in the making, the moving image collage draws from nearly all genres of narrative cinema ranging from French New Wave to Hollywood blockbusters. Carefully edited by Marclay, the visual narrative follows actors entering new spaces, with each door marking an editing point and transitioning between films and soundscapes. The work suggests a labyrinthine journey where protagonists get lost and found again. Marclay describes the video as sculptural – a “mental architecture that the viewer might or might not follow and get lost in.”

This exhibition is the U.S. premiere of Doors.

Collaborating since 2011, Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca create works in video, photography, and installation that explore contemporary histories of underground dance and musical genres. Frequently made in collaboration with cinematographer Pedro Sotero, these moving-image works, which they refer to as “documentary musicals,” often center on urban subcultures in the South Atlantic diaspora, from the Franco-Indo creole musical genre maloya to frevo dancers and brega singers in Recife, Brazil, where the artists live and work. Constructing images together with performers, their approach merges the cinematic with the fictional, documentary, and ethnographic to address questions of surveillance, visibility, and creativity in an increasingly connected, postcolonial world. A recent acquisition and room-filling installation on view for the first time, Swinguerra (2019) focuses on disadvantaged queer communities of color in Recife, Brazil, with an emphasis on transgender and nonbinary performers. The film features three contemporary dance styles—swingueira, brega funk, and passinho da maloca—as performed by three competitive dance groups. These mixed dance styles recall Brazil’s colonial and slave trade history, where music and dance functioned as discreet methods of organizing politically under oppressive regimes. Fast-paced, athletic, sexy, dreamlike, and aggressive, the dance styles, like the music, make Swinguerra an exhilarating and unforgettable viewing experience, illustrating how dance and music offer rich sources of agency, resistance, and community for marginalized individuals.  

Note: Swinguerra contains a brief sequence of flashing light which may not be suitable for people with visual sensitivities. 

Listen to music inspired by Swinguerra

The central focus of the wide-ranging, interdisciplinary work of William Kentridge (b. 1955, Johannesburg, South Africa) is the prolonged effects of colonialism in South Africa. Using a diverse range of media, from drawing, performance, and film to opera and other large-scale theatrical productions, Kentridge reanimates painful histories and uncomfortable paradoxes of colonialism—“what we’ve chosen not to remember,” as he says.

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 nearly two million African porters used by British, French, and German colonial forces during World War I. Set to a rousing, orchestral score co-composed by Philip Miller and Thuthuka Sibisi, the monumental, three-channel video is projected onto a scale model of the stage from Kentridge’s tour-de-force performance The Head & the Load, which premiered at Tate London before being presented at New York’s Park Avenue Armory.

Employing his trademark multidisciplinary approach and his recurring trope of the procession, Kentridge builds up dynamic layers of drawings, moving images, and texts projected onto sculptural paper props and found objects to embody the dramatic arc and theatrical intensity of The Head & the Load at gallery scale. The title of The Head & the Load comes from a Ghanaian proverb — “The head and the load are the troubles of the neck” — and the porters in KABOOM! shoulder the physical load transported all across Africa. As the work suggests, they are the ones who ultimately bear the historical legacy of colonialism and war.

Note: Space is limited in this exhibition and visitors may need to wait to gain access to the work. 

Educational materials

Intro wall text

Suggested materials for further exploring themes in William Kentridge’s KABOOM! 

Essays, articles, and books

Videos

Discussion Questions

Credits

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

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 Demoulas and Tom Coté Art Acquisition Fund.