Closed Today

From painting to performance to virtual reality, sweeping exhibition features work of an international, intergenerational group of artists, including Cory Arcangel, Dara Birnbaum, Harun Farocki, Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin, Juliana Huxtable, Trevor Paglen, Nam June Paik, Frances Stark, Hito Steyerl, and Anicka Yi.

Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today
The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston
February 7–May 20, 2018

Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today is the first major thematic group exhibition in the United States to examine the radical impact of internet culture on visual art. Featuring 60 artists, collaborations, and collectives, the exhibition is comprised of over 70 works across a variety of mediums, including painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video, web-based projects, and virtual reality. Themes explored in the exhibition include emergent ideas of the body and notions of human enhancement; the internet as a site of both surveillance and resistance; the circulation and control of images and information; the possibilities for exploring identity and community afforded by virtual domains; and new economies of visibility accelerated by social media. Throughout, the work in the exhibition addresses the internet-age democratization of culture that comprises our current moment. Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today is organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, with Jeffrey De Blois, Curatorial Associate.
 
“Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today shows the extraordinary changes in contemporary art that have developed alongside the rise of the internet. Our exhibition looks at the implications of these changes—and our understanding of self, privacy, community, and virtual and physical space—and the ways that artists convey, explore, and challenge them,” said Jill Medvedow, the ICA’s Ellen Matilda Poss Director.

“Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today explores how all art—whether painting or moving images, sculpture or photography, websites or performance—has been radically transformed by the cultural impact of the internet,” said Respini. “The exhibition also establishes important historical links between ideas pioneered by artists before the internet age and artists working today.”

The earliest work in the exhibition is from 1989, the year that Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web while working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory outside of Geneva, Switzerland. This development, and others that followed in quick succession, modernized the internet, and in the process radically changed our way of life―from how we shop, make friends, and share experiences, to how we imagine our future bodies and how nations police national security. The development of the internet after 1989 engendered the introduction of new digital technologies, allowing for the now ubiquitous platforms for social media and communication, and the massive proliferation of images of all kinds, drastically altering the ways in which we access and generate information. 1989 also marked a watershed moment across the globe, with significant shifts in politics, geographies, and economies. Events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and protests in Tiananmen Square signaled the beginning of our current globalized age, which cannot be imagined without the internet.
 
Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today is divided into five thematic sections: “Networks and Circulation,” “Hybrid Bodies,” “Virtual Worlds,” “States of Surveillance,” and “Performing the Self.”
 
In “Networks of Circulation” artists working with objects, images, and materials aggregated from the endless stream of information proliferating online and off explore the widespread social and political impact of our previously unimaginable level of interconnectivity, often pointing to how an accelerated image economy increasingly structures our everyday experience.
 
The age-old question “what does it mean to be human?” remains critically important, and takes on new urgency in today’s technologically mediated societies. Artists in “Hybrid Bodies” explore various related subjects, as well as how the body remains a site for politics, history, and contestation amidst the increasing complexity of science, politics, and international relations.
 
In “Virtual Worlds,” artists explore the aesthetic possibilities of computer-generated spaces as sites of production and inquiry, even as they mark the increasing elision between the virtual and the real in everyday life.
 
In “States of Surveillance,” artists employ a variety of strategies to examine the wide-reaching effects of surveillance technologies while pointing to paths of resistance.
 
The artworks in “Performing the Self” explore the extraordinary visibility afforded to individuals and groups moving within digital networks as well as their far-reaching effects offline.

The exhibition will feature a newly commissioned site-specific virtual reality installation by artist Jon Rafman. The ICA’s architecture and location on Boston Harbor feature prominently in the work, collapsing real and virtual space in a dreamscape that unfolds over eight minutes.

Art + Tech: A Citywide Collaboration
Art in the Age of the Internet is the lead exhibition in a region-wide exploration of art and technology. Fourteen art organizations and educational institutions will offer a range of exhibitions, performances, film screenings, and talks all exploring the relationship between art and technology in celebration of the Boston area’s rich history of technical innovation.

Artist List
aaajiao (Xu Wenkai) (b. 1984, Xi’an China)
Cory Arcangel (b. 1978, Buffalo, NY)
Ed Atkins (b. 1982, London, United Kingdom)
Alex Bag (b. 1969, New York, NY)
Judith Barry (born 1954, Columbus, OH)
Gretchen Bender (b. 1951, Seaford, DE)
Frank Benson (b. 1976, Norfolk, VA)
Dara Birnbaum (b. 1946, New York, NY)
Lee Bul (b. 1964, Seoul, South Korea)
Antoine Catala (b. 1975, Toulouse, France)
Kate Cooper (b. 1984, Liverpool, United Kingdom)
Simon Denny (b. 1982, Auckland, New Zealand)
DIS (collective, founded 2010)
Aleksandra Domanović (b. 1981, Novi Sad, Serbia [former SFR Yugoslavia])
Gregory Edwards (b. 1981, Rocky Point, NY)
Harun Farocki (b. 1944, Nový Jičín, Czech Republic [former Czechoslovakia])
Cao Fei (b. 1978, Guangzhou, China)
Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin (b. 1981, Bloomington, IN and Webster, TX)
Celia Hempton (b. 1981, Stroud, United Kingdom)
Camille Henrot (b. 1981, Paris, France)
HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN? (collective, founded 2013)
Juliana Huxtable (b. 1987, Bryan-College Station, TX)
Pierre Huyghe (b. 1962, Paris, France)
JODI.org (collaborative founded c. 1995)
Jon Kessler (b. 1957, Yonkers, NY)
Josh Kline (b. 1979, Philadelphia, PA)
Oliver Laric (b. 1981, Innsbruck, Austria)
Mark Leckey (b. 1964, Birkenhead, United Kingdom)
Lynn Hershman Leeson (b. 1941, Cleveland, OH)
Olia Lialina (b. 1971, Moscow, Russia [former Soviet Union])
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (b. 1967, Mexico City, Mexico)
M/M Paris (Mathias Augustyniak and Michael Amzalag) (b. 1967, Cavaillon, France and 1968, Paris, France)
Jill Magid (b. 1973, Bridgeport, CT)     
Michel Majerus (b. 1967, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg)
David Maljkovic (b. 1973, Rijeka, Croatia [former SFR Yugoslavia])
Mike Mandel and Chantal Zakari (b. 1950, Los Angeles, CA and 1968, Izmir, Turkey)
Ryan McNamara (b. 1979, Phoenix, AZ)
Mariko Mori (b. 1967, Tokyo, Japan)
Rabih Mroué (b. 1967, Beirut, Lebanon)
Albert Oehlen (b. 1954, Krefeld, Germany)
Laura Owens (b. 1970, Euclid, OH)
Trevor Paglen (b. 1974, Camp Springs, MD)
Nam June Paik (b. 1938, Seoul, South Korea)
Sondra Perry (b. 1986, Perth Amboy, NJ)
Paul Pfeiffer (b. 1966, Honolulu, HI)
Seth Price (b. 1973, East Jerusalem, Israel)
Jon Rafman (b. 1981, Montreal, Canada)
Pamela Rosenkranz (b. 1979, Uri, Switzerland)
Thomas Ruff (b. 1958, Zell am Harmsbach, Germany)
Julia Scher (b. 1954, Los Angeles, CA)
Cindy Sherman (b. 1954 Glen Ridge, NJ)
Taryn Simon and Aaron Swartz (b. 1975, New York, NY and 1986, Highland Park, IL)
Avery Singer (b. 1987, New York, NY)
Frances Stark (b. 1967, Newport Beach, CA)
Hito Steyerl (b. 1966, Munich, Germany)
Martine Syms (b. 1988, Los Angeles, CA)
Wu Tsang (b. 1982, Worcester, MA)
Amalia Ulman (b. 1989, Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Penelope Umbrico (b. 1957, Philadelphia, PA)
Anicka Yi (b. 1971, Seoul, South Korea)
 
Publication
The exhibition is accompanied by a generously illustrated scholarly publication, co-published with Yale University Press, which will be a major resource and scholarly contribution to the field. The publication features a range of established and emerging scholars, critics, and curators, including Kim Conaty, Lauren Cornell, Tim Griffin, Caitlin Jones, Caroline A. Jones, Thomas J. Lax, Omar Kholeif, Gloria Sutton, and the exhibition’s organizers. The catalogue also features topical conversations between artists Lynn Hershman Leeson and Hito Steyerl, Paul Pfeiffer and Josh Kline, and Martine Syms and Wu Tsang,
 
Web Platform
Art in the Age of the Internet is also accompanied by an extensive web platform, designed by Wkshps, which will expand on the themes and works in the exhibition by including additional content, such as special projects by artists in the exhibition.

Exhibition Press Preview
February 6, 2018 | 9:30AM-11:00AM
Media are invited to attend a tour of the exhibition led by Respini. RSVP to Margaux Leonard, mleonard@icaboston.org.

Exhibition-related programs
Join us for thought-provoking programming featuring talks by artists and relevant experts, exhibition tours, parties, family activities, and networking opportunities. A full list of exhibition-related programs can be found here.

Major support for Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
 
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
 
Additional support is generously provided by Edward Berman and Kathleen McDonough, Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser, Karen Swett Conway and Brian Conway, Robert Davoli and Eileen McDonagh, Fotene Demoulas and Tom Coté, Bridgitt and Bruce Evans, Vivien and Alan Hassenfeld, Jodi and Hal Hess, Kristen and Kent Lucken, Kim and Jim Pallotta, Ted Pappendick and Erica Gervais Pappendick, Charles and Fran Rodgers, Mark and Marie Schwartz, and Charlotte and Herbert S. Wagner III.

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Annual Fashion-Themed Event Includes Looks From Baja East’s S18 Collection and Designs from ICA Teens

On Oct. 6, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) celebrates Boston Fashion Week with a special fashion-focused edition of First Fridays, featuring brand Baja East and the Boston-based concept store All Too Human. The museum’s annual fashion-themed First Fridays will showcase looks from Baja East’s Spring 2018 collection, which debuted only weeks earlier in New York and Paris. Baja East designers John Targon and Scott Studenberg will be at the ICA to discuss their practice, inspiration, and journey as artists and designers in a series of mini conversations. The designers have invited NY-based DJ—and fashion-world favorite—Mike Nouveau to perform at the event.

The First Fridays event will also launch a unique collaboration between Baja East and the ICA Teen Arts Council—a co-designed, custom sweatshirt to be sold exclusively at All Too Human and the ICA Store. During the evening event, the collaborative sweatshirt will be sold alongside other Baja East products, with proceeds going to the ICA’s Teen Arts Education Program.

The collaboration marks the start of Baja East and All Too Human’s BE UNITED campaign, which seeks to create a positive social platform through art and fashion to celebrate, learn about, and respect our shared experiences. “Given what’s going on in the world today, from gender and race inequality, to Hurricane Harvey, the lens that youth are growing up in can appear dismal. BE UNITED is a social initiative to address these things in a way that is timely, relevant, impactful and inspiring,” said Targon, founder and creative director of Baja East.

EVENT DETAILS

When and Where
Friday, October 6
5-10 PM at the ICA (25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA 02210)

About Baja East
LOOSE LUXURY – a new kind of fashion and lifestyle concept pioneered by Baja East, the globally inspired luxury brand based in New York City, established in October, 2013 by Scott Studenberg and John Targon. Embodying a “go anywhere” attitude, the duo combines west coast laid-back cool with a city street edge in pieces that are as elegant as they are effortless. The brand built a name for itself effortlessly blurring the lines between men’s and women’s with its core concept of ambisexual dressing that continues to thrive. Over the course of 15 seasons they have developed new layers of red- carpet-ready to off-duty dressing, specifically targeted to women. Baja East is coveted on and off the red carpet by celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Lady Gaga, and Gigi Hadid.

About All Too Human
ALL TOO HUMAN is an experiential fashion and lifestyle boutique for both men and women with exceptional local and international fashion design as its focus, selling only the most interesting and current collections from a blend of emerging and stand out brands. ALL TOO HUMAN also acts as a show space for various creative mediums such as Home Furnishings, art and events. “With fashion at as our core, ALL TOO HUMAN seeks to push the limits of creative engagement and expressionism through collaboration, installations and special programming,” states Jessica Knez, Owner of ALL TOO HUMAN. “We’re a creative space, and believe in the distinct overlap between art and fashion. ALL TOO HUMAN is always discovering, encouraging and promoting partnerships between artists and designers, in all forms.”

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 on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Visitors of all ages can experiment and create art about Boston Harbor in this immersive laboratory

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) has invited artist Evelyn Rydz to create an interactive art installation in the museum’s Bank of America Art Lab, opening October 7. Titled Salty > Sour Seas, Rydz’s new project turns the Bank of America Art Lab into an art studio and scientific laboratory where visitors can investigate, experiment, and create work while considering the museum’s unique site on Boston Harbor. Rydz conceived of Salty > Sour Seas to raise awareness about the effects of carbon dioxide on microscopic phytoplankton that live in the earth’s changing oceans and seas. These small but mighty organisms create about half the planet’s oxygen and help feed many animals. Human activities, however, are affecting phytoplankton and the oceanic ecosystem by warming water temperatures and increasing levels of acidification. Using pH test paper, participants can test various liquid acidity levels—including that of Boston Harbor—and see acidity as a changing visual element within their process of investigating and art making.

Salty > Sour Seas will be open on Saturdays and Sundays from 12-4pm, from October 7 through March 11.  The activity is free for all visitors with museum admission.

Meet the Artist on Saturday, October 7 and Saturday, March 10 from 2-4pm
On these dates, visitors can join Rydz for a sour phytoplankton popsicle tasting. The tastings will allow visitors to explore the unexpected sourness of taste and the unwanted souring of seas, creating a common point for questions and conversation on ideas of ocean acidification and the future of ocean ecosystems. The phytoplankton popsicles will be colored with microalgae to create a blue-green color, flavored with lime juice for acidity, and dipped in Atlantic sea salt for a salty surface. More information at icaboston.org

Also On View
Salty > Sour Seas will be open during the ICA’s exhibition Mark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist (October 4-December 31). Dion has forged a distinct, interdisciplinary practice by exploring and appropriating scientific methodologies to question how we collect, interpret, and display nature. This monumental exhibition spans 30 years of the artist’s work and brings together several hundred objects—including live birds, books, curiosity cabinets, plant and animal specimens, vintage photos, and much more—for a rare look at the unique course of the artist’s practice.

About the Artist
Over the last decade, Boston-based artist Evelyn Rydz has focused her work on contemporary coastlines and ways our everyday lives impact are impacted by changing oceans. Exploring perceptions of scale, her work draws connections between everyday actions and lasting impacts, fleeting and geologic time, unstable and fixed conditions. The artist’s work has been exhibited the Palmer Art Museum, Penn State University (forthcoming); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Tufts University Art Gallery; a Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition at the Anchorage Museum, Alaska, USC Fisher Museum, L.A., and CDC Museum, Atlanta; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park; Maseeh Hall, MIT, Cambridge; Julie Saul Gallery, NY; El Parque Cultural del Caribe, Barranquilla, Colombia; and Brattleboro Museum, Vermont. Rydz has led community art projects as visiting artist at the MFA, Boston; the ICA, Boston; and MOCA, North Miami. She is currently an Associate Professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

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.

Exhibition surveys over four decades of Nixon’s prolific career, featuring The Brown Sisters series shown with other works from same year.

 

This December, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) opens Nicholas Nixon: Persistence of Vision, a survey of the Boston-based artist’s prolific career. Including 113 works, the exhibition is organized around Nixon’s remarkable ongoing project The Brown Sisters, a series of group portraits of his wife and her three sisters taken annually since 1975. The Brown Sisters will be presented in its entirety—including a new portrait from 2017 making its U.S. debut—and each portrait will be paired with other photographs made by Nixon in the same year, drawn from various bodies of work. Together these pictures allow viewers to both take in the visual sweep of passing time through The Brown Sisters series, and delve more deeply into each year through close looking. Accompanying the exhibition is an extensive audio guide narrated by the artist, giving audiences insights into the various bodies of work completed by Nixon over the last four decades. The exhibition is organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, with Jessica Hong, Curatorial Associate, and will be on view from December 13, 2017 through April 22, 2018. 

“In his numerous series, Nixon gets to know his subjects while photographing them, making the role of time, inherent to the medium of photography, an integral part of the content and process of his work,” says Respini. “Amidst today’s increasingly frenetic pace of life and digitally mediated social relations, Nixon’s pictures invite us to slow down, look, and reflect on the nature of human relationships.” 

Other works in the exhibition include, among others, additional family photographs; self-portraits; images from his hallmark series of people with AIDS or near death; studies of students at schools such as the Perkins School for the Blind outside of Boston or his son’s elementary school in Cambridge, MA; and Boston cityscapes.

Working exclusively on film, Nixon uses a large format 8×10 inch camera, affording his pictures an unparalleled clarity of detail and description.  He often photographs his subjects at close range, encouraging a sense of intimacy in the act of photographing and looking. Organized in collaboration with the artist, the selected photographs demonstrate the breadth of Nixon’s practice and dedication to revealing the incredible moments in the everyday. Together with The Brown Sisters, these compelling pictures are a testament to Nixon’s persistence of vision.
 
About the artist
Based in Boston since the 1970s, Nicholas Nixon was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1947. The artist earned a B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1969 and an M.F.A. from the University of New Mexico in 1975. He has been awarded three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and two Guggenheim Fellowships. Recent solo exhibitions have been held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) (2014/2006), the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2010), the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas (2006), the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (2005), and the Cincinnati Art Museum (2005). His work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the MoMA in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, among many others. The ICA presented exhibitions of Nixon’s work in 1982, Nicholas Nixon’s New Contact Prints, and in 1983, Nicholas Nixon: Photographs From One Year, and has also collected his work.

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 inspiring performances and compelling artist talks as part of its upcoming season. 

July 25, 2017

Highlights include new and indie music by Weyes Blood, performances by award-winning choreographers Faye Driscoll, Pam Tanowitz, and Okwui Okpokwasili, a concert by the Arditti Quartet featuring all-female composers, and a free talk by legendary artist and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen (12 Years A Slave).

All events take place in the Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater at the ICA, 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston. Ticketed programs go on sale to ICA members on July 25 and to the general public on July 27. Tickets can be purchased at www.icaboston.org or by calling 617-478-3103.

MUSIC

THU, SEP 14 | 8 PM
Weyes Blood
$15 for ICA members + students / $20 for nonmembers
Active in underground music since 2006, singer-songwriter Natalie Mering has released four records as Weyes Blood. Mering, together with co-producer Chris Cohen and some special guests, contrasts live-band intimacy with the postmodern electric sheen of A.M. radio atmospherics. Experimental flourishes sparkle amid succinct, thoughtful arrangements. With arpeggiated piano, acoustic guitar, druggy horns, and outer-space electronics, this is the folk music of the near future. 

SUN, OCT 1 | 7:30 PM
Zola Jesus
$20 for ICA members + students / $22 for nonmembers
Nika Roza Danilova has been recording music as Zola Jesus for over a decade. Her most recent music was written in pure catharsis, and as a result, the songs are heavy, dark, and exploratory. Danilova has crafted a profound meditation on loss and reconciliation that speaks of tragedy with wisdom and clarity. Returning to the ICA, Danilova’s live performance will plumb the dark depths of her past, but reflect on the light of new beginnings. Opening set by John Wiese.

THU, OCT 12 | 8:00 PM
Mr. Harrison’s Gamelans featuring Johnny Gandelsman, Sarah Cahill, and Gamelan Galak Tika
Performing Suite for Violin and American Gamelan, Concerto for Piano with Javanese Gamelan, and By the Numbers
$15 for ICA members + students / $25 for nonmembers
The ICA and MIT present a centennial celebration of composer Lou Harrison. MIT’s Gamelan Galak Tika joins forces with violinist Johnny Gandelsman and pianist Sarah Cahill to present a program of Harrison’s groundbreaking works for gamelan and western instruments, performed on two gamelans built by the composer and William Colvig and curated by Jody Diamond. The concert will also feature the world premiere of composer and MIT Professor Evan Ziporyn’s “By the Numbers,” an homage to Harrison for violin and re-tuned piano.

SUN, OCT 22 | 3 PM
Arditti Quartet
$15 for ICA members + students / $20 for nonmembers
“The world’s pre-eminent contemporary music quartet” (The Guardian), the acclaimed Arditti Quartet returns to the ICA in collaboration with the Boston University Center for New Music. Founded in 1974 by Irvine Arditti, the quartet’s concerts and albums of 20th- and 21st-century music have been praised for their technical expertise and spirited interpretations. At the ICA, the Arditti Quartet will perform a concert of prominent 21st-century female composers.
Program:
Liza Lim, Hell 
Clara Iannota, Dead wasps in the jam jar
Rebecca Saunders, Fletch interval
Hilda Paredes, Bitacora Capilar 
Olga Neuwirth, In the realms of the unreal 

SUN, DEC 3 | 7:30 PM
Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton
$28 for ICA members + students / $33 for nonmembers
Emily Haines, lead vocalist and songwriter of the band Metric and a member of Broken Social Scene, brings her solo project Soft Skeleton to the ICA for an intimate concert event. Haines is touring in support of her new album Choir of the Mind, her first solo release in a decade. Her distinctive vocals are the focal point of her new songs, which she uses to create spellbinding orchestrations for an effect that is subtle, ghostly, lush, and deeply powerful.

DANCE

FRI, OCT 20 | 8 PM
SAT, OCT 21 | 2 PM + 8 PM
Faye Driscoll
Thank You For Coming: Play
$15 for ICA members + students / $25 nonmembers
Free pre-performance talks 30 minutes prior to curtain.
Faye Driscoll and company return to the ICA with the second installment of her Thank You For Coming series. Play revisits Driscoll’s ongoing concerns about the experience and performance of self, of being among others and being alone. While the first installment, Attendance, foregrounded movement and the relationship between audience and performers, Play explores our reliance on stories to relate to one another and form our identities as individuals and citizens. Play highlights how language both defines and reduces our lived experiences. Five multitalented and energetic performers ventriloquize, shape-shift, sing, and speak through and for each other in this strange and enthralling collage of gesture, image, voice, and persona.

FRI, DEC 8 + SAT, DEC 9 | 8 PM
SUN, DEC 10 | 2 PM
Pam Tanowitz and Simone Dinnerstein
New Work for Goldberg Variations
$25 for ICA members + students / $35 nonmembers
Free pre-performance talk 30 minutes prior to curtain.
New Work for Goldberg Variations is an evening-length piece for piano and seven dancers created by classical pianist Simone Dinnerstein and choreographer Pam Tanowitz. Inspired by and set to a live performance of Bach’s iconic and demanding Goldberg Variations, the work is performed by Dinnerstein with Tanowitz’s company, Pam Tanowitz Dance. The artists spent a week in the ICA’s theater this summer developing the work. Dinnerstein, who distinguished herself internationally with her impassioned interpretation of the Variations, brings her nuanced understanding of the demanding score to the project; Tanowitz’s choreography adds a slyly deconstructed classical dance vocabulary to translate Bach’s intricate score into movement.

FRI, MAR 9 + SAT, MAR 10 | 8 PM
Okwui Okpokwasili
Poor People’s TV Room
$15 for ICA members + students / $25 nonmembers
Bessie Award–winning artist Okwui Okpokwasili and director-designer Peter Born use an interdisciplinary approach to examine gender, culture, and identity in the lives of four women. Poor People’s TV Room recovers buried histories and forgotten stories of women’s resistance movements and collective action in Nigeria. This exploration was set in motion by two historical incidents: the Women’s War of 1929, a resistance movement against British colonial powers, and the Boko Haram kidnappings of more than 300 girls in 2014, which launched the Bring Back Our Girls movement.
Through choreography, song, text, and film, Okpokwasili and Born, along with a multigenerational cast of women, craft a performance of haunting intensity and visceral beauty. Poor People’s TV Room plays out like a fever dream, a potent reflection on history’s erasure of female resistance.
 
FRI, MAY 18 + SAT, MAY 19 | 6:30 PM and 8:30 PM
Ryan McNamara
MEƎM: A Story Ballet About the Internet
$15 for ICA members + students / $25 nonmembers
Through our smartphones and laptops, we now have access to infinite streams of information available in an instant. We can get lost in the internet for hours, clicking through hundreds, if not thousands, of videos, links, and images at a dizzying rate. Visual artist Ryan McNamara reimagines our impulse to click, copy, paste, and share in MEƎM 4 Boston: A Story Ballet About the Internet, an immersive, museum-wide, and unforgettable performance experience. Working with a cast of 13 dancers, McNamara samples and remixes music and movement—from classical ballet to contemporary dance—in an inventively staged physical realization of our virtual experience. 
 

THEATER

FRI, NOV 17 + SAT, NOV 18 | 8 PM
Lars Jan/Early Morning Opera
The Institute of Memory (TIMe)
$15 for ICA members + students / $25 nonmembers
Called “incendiary with hope…” (Los Angeles Magazine), The Institute of Memory (TIMe) is a multimedia performance about how the future of remembering is currently changing. Two men hunt each other as a kinetic light sculpture hovers and cuts through the air, signaling keystrokes from a hacked 1950s typewriter. Featuring archival wire-tap transcriptions, communist spy missives, and MRI brain scans, TIMe conjures a portrait of director Lars Jan’s enigmatic father — a Cold War operative whose story exhibits how the future of privacy looks dangerously like the darkest era of its past. The son of émigré parents from Afghanistan and Poland, Jan grew up in Cambridge, where his father, Henryk Ryniewicz, moved after World War II to take a position at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Today Lars is a director, writer, visual artist, and the founder of Early Morning Opera, a genre-bending performance and art lab whose works explore emerging technologies. 
 

TALKS + MORE
Free with museum admission, unless otherwise specified.

THU, SEP 14 | 6 PM
Curator’s Perspective: Eva Respini with Danielle Legros Georges on Dana Schutz
Barbara Lee Chief Curator Eva Respini discusses Dana  Schutz’s paintings with Danielle Legros-Georges, Lesley University professor and Boston Poet Laureate, in the galleries. Visitors will gain a greater understanding of Schutz’s artistic influences, get a curator’s perspective on hanging an exhibition of contemporary painting, and consider some of the challenges of organizing a show amidst artist controversy. Capacity is limited; admission is first-come, first served.
 
THU SEP 28 | 7 PM
ICA Forum: Representation and Responsibility in Creative Spaces
Within social, political, and cultural arenas, issues of representation—the act of depicting and/or speaking on behalf of someone—and responsibility have come into even sharper focus in recent months. These issues, surfacing in the commentary surrounding the leadership of the Women’s March, contentious government elections, speeches by literary figures, and calls for the removal of artworks in museums, proliferate news and social media feeds as communities try to make sense of it all in a new era of rapid consumption of information. Within the arts, important questions are being raised, primarily: who gets to represent whom in art? The ICA and Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research invite you to join artists, scholars, and educators in a series of conversations this fall and spring that address ideas of cultural appropriation and creative license in the 21st century. 
 
THU, OCT 5 | 7 PM
The Artist’s Voice: Mark Dion
“He is a genealogist of sorts, tracing the bloodlines of Western intellectual history to ask, among other things, how European colonial expansion, environmental plundering and the creation of the museum all relate to the ecological disasters we face today.” —The New York Times
 
Artist Mark Dion, whose exhibition Mark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist in on view October 4, 2017 through January 1, 2018, takes on art, science, our evolving understanding of the natural world, and his own practice in conversation with Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator at the ICA.
 
SAT, NOV 4 | 2 PM                                                                           
The Artist’s Voice: Steve McQueen
“He holds his lens steady to achieve a truer sense of bodies in real time, and to give the viewer no choice but to let their mind unravel the implications behind the images.”  —The Atlantic
Filmmaker and artist Steve McQueen, recipient of both the Academy Award and Turner Prize, will be in conversation with Hamza Walker, Director of LAXART and former curator at the Renaissance Society. McQueen’s Ashes, currently on view at the ICA, is a freestanding video installation that shows a young carefree fisherman and his unexpected fate. McQueen’s upcoming film Widows will be released next fall.
 

OPENING THIS FALL:

Mark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist
OCT 4, 2017 – JAN 1, 2018
The artist’s first U.S. survey examines 30 years of his pioneering inquiries into how we collect, interpret, and display nature. Since the early 1990s, Mark Dion (b. 1961, New Bedford, MA) has forged a unique, interdisciplinary practice by exploring and appropriating scientific methodologies. Often with an edge of irony, humor, and improvisation, Dion deconstructs both scientific and museum-based rituals of collecting and exhibiting objects by critically adopting them into his artistic practice. He has traveled the world to gather plant and animal specimens, conducted archeological digs, and rummaged through forgotten collections, arranging his finds into brimming curiosity cabinets and charismatic sculptures. His projects and exhibitions offer novel approaches to questioning institutional power, which he sees as connected to the control and representation of the natural world. 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First Republic Bank is proud to sponsor the ICA’s 2017–18 Performance Season.

First Republic Bank logo

The Music of Lou Harrison is co-presented with MIT as part of the MIT Sounding concert series.

The Arditti Quartet is co-presented with the Boston University Center for New Music.

Dance UP is presented by 

WorldMusic CrashArts logo

Thank You for Coming: Play is co-commissioned by Summer Stages Dance @ the ICA.  Driscoll and Company were in residence in the Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater for two weeks in the summer of 2015. The presentation of Thank You For Coming: Play was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts. 

NEFA logo

Anne Myer and Dancers is presented by

WorldMusic CrashArts logo

New Work for Goldberg Variations was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. General Operating support for Pam Tanowitz Dance was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project with funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. New Work for Goldberg Variations is part of Summer Stages Dance @ the ICA/Boston and is made possible, in part, with the support of Jane Karol and Howard Cooper, David Parker, The Aliad Fund, George and Ann Colony, and Stephanie McCormick-Goodhart.

NEFA logo

The presentation of Poor People’s TV Room was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts. 

NEFA logo

The Institute of Memory (TIMe) is funded in part by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Theater Project, with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 

NEFA logo

 

Dana Schutz Opens July 26 at the ICA

(BOSTON, MA – July 24, 2017) — On July 26, The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) opens Dana Schutz. Schutz is among the foremost painters of her generation and is part of a group of artists leading a revival of painting today. Her distinct combination of figuration and abstraction, expressive color palette, and her use of imagined and hypothetical scenarios are unique among her contemporaries. The artist’s work captures the frenzy, tension, vulnerability, and struggle of life today, as her subjects actively manage, even fight, both the limitations of the canvas and their depicted environments.

The impressive scale of many of Schutz’s paintings reference the monumentality of history painting, the genre considered most important in the history of Western art. Her paintings challenge history painting’s typical subjects–heroic portrayals of historical and allegorical events–and instead monumentalize everyday scenes (laying in bed, getting dressed, carpooling, riding in an elevator).  Schutz confronts the traditional hierarchies of painting and expands the possibilities for the medium today.

Dana Schutz, a concise survey of the artist’s recent work, comprises 17 paintings, several at monumental scale and including two new ones, and four charcoal drawings. Schutz’s enormous new painting, Big Wave (2016), acquired by the ICA in December, is on view for the first time in the United States. Open through November 26, Dana Schutz is organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, with Jessica Hong, Curatorial Associate.

“Drawing on the legacies of both figurative and abstract painting, with nods to touchstone figures such as George Grosz and Max Beckmann, Schutz’s unique voice in painting exemplifies the expansive possibilities of the medium today,” said Respini.

Over the last decade, Schutz has honed her approach to painting, creating tightly structured scenarios and compressed interiors. Her works capture subjects who seem to be actively managing, even fighting, the limitations of their depicted environments—boundaries set by the canvases’ actual borders.

Schutz’s paintings often show hypothetical or impossible physical feats and explore the uncanny through wit and the expressive use of color. Her physically imposing canvases—one nearly 18 feet—are worlds onto themselves. Building the Boat While Sailing (2012) displays a mass of people, working, sailing, and lounging, all at once. Shaking out the Bed (2015) portrays a couple in bed seen from a birds-eye vantage point, a common gesture transformed by the artist into a tornado of energy that includes pizza slices, body parts, cups, and dirty laundry. In Big Wave (2016) two figures in the foreground play in the sand, seemingly oblivious to the ferocious incoming tidal wave that is swallowing up fish, a tangle of bodies, and assorted objects.

Dana Schutz also includes several paintings illustrating single figures involved in everyday scenarios such as showering or getting dressed. Works that have a more melancholy tenor include Piano in the Rain (2012) and Slow Motion Shower (2015), where each protagonist is encased within the work’s tight borders. Schutz’s vibrant color palette is widely expressive, encompassing violence, wit, melancholy, and absurdity. Teeming with energy, commotion, and struggle, her paintings capture a high level of tension and compression that is part of today’s zeitgeist.

Artist Bio

Dana Schutz was born in Livonia, a suburb of Detroit, in 1976. The artist earned a B.F.A. at the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2000 and an M.F.A. at Columbia University, New York, in 2002. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Rose Museum, Brandeis University (2006); Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto (2010); Neuberger Museum of Art (2011); Miami Art Museum (2012); Denver Museum of Contemporary Art and Denver Art Museum (2012); Hannover Kesterngesellschaft and Hepworth Wakefield (2013); Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2015/2016), her first solo exhibition at a Canadian institution; and a forthcoming exhibition at The Cleveland Museum of Art (2017). She was included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, where one of her paintings ignited a vigorous debate around the role of art, artists, and institutions in the representation of race, a conversation that resonates with larger issues in our current political and cultural landscape.

Exhibition-related programming

THU, SEP 14 | 6 PM
Curator’s Perspective: Eva Respini with Danielle Legros Georges on Dana Schutz
Barbara Lee Chief Curator Eva Respini discusses Dana  Schutz’s paintings with Danielle Legros-Georges, Lesley University professor and Boston Poet Laureate, in the galleries. Visitors will gain a greater understanding of Schutz’s artistic influences, get a curator’s perspective on hanging an exhibition of contemporary painting, and consider some of the challenges of organizing a show amidst artist controversy. Capacity is limited; admission is first-come, first served.

THU, SEP 28 | 7 PM
ICA Forum: Representation and Responsibility in Creative Space
Within social, political, and cultural arenas, issues of representation—the act of depicting and/or speaking on behalf of someone—and responsibility have come into even sharper focus in recent months. These issues, surfacing in the commentary surrounding the leadership of the Women’s March, contentious government elections, speeches by literary figures, and calls for the removal of artworks in museums, proliferate news and social media feeds as communities try to make sense of it all in a new era of rapid consumption of information. Within the arts, important questions are being raised, primarily: who gets to represent whom in art? The ICA and Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research invite you to join artists, scholars, and educators in a series of conversations this fall and spring that address ideas of cultural appropriation and creative license in the 21st century. 

SUN, OCT 8 | 2 PM
Gallery Talk: Josephine Halvorson on Dana Schutz
Join artist Josephine Halvorson as she shares her insights on Dana Schutz’s monumental painting Big Wave. Halvorson, whose own artistic practice emphasizes attention to detail and experience, will shed light on Schutz’s painting, which reflects the moods and anxieties of everyday contemporary life. Halvorson is Professor of Art and Chair of Graduate Studies in Painting at Boston University. She was previously Senior Critic in the MFA Painting and Printmaking program at Yale University.

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; 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.

ICA/BOSTON PRESENTS MAJOR, MID-CAREER RETROSPECTIVE OF MARK DION

First U.S. Survey of Internationally Recognized Artist Spans 30 Years
 

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) presents the first U.S. survey of the American artist in Mark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist. Dion has forged a distinct, interdisciplinary practice by exploring and appropriating scientific methodologies to question how we collect, interpret, and display nature. On view October 4, 2017, through December 31, 2017, the exhibition covers the last 30 years and brings together several hundred objects—including live birds, books, curiosity cabinets, plant and animal specimens, vintage photos, and much more—offering a rare look at the unique course of the artist’s practice. The exhibition is organized by Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator, with Jessica Hong, Curatorial Associate, and Kathrinne Duffy, Research Fellow.

“Dion’s sculptures and installations are full of the wonder of the world, and he brings a welcome earnestness for what we, as a society, see, make, discard, discount, and prize. Dion combines this sense of amazement with a piercing awareness of what we risk when we squander our natural resources and contribute to their demise,” said Jill Medvedow, the ICA’s Ellen Matilda Poss Director. “We are particularly pleased that this exhibition, his first museum survey in North America, is just up the road from the beaches and marshlands of New Bedford, Massachusetts, where Mark grew up and where his curiosity and treasure hunts began.”

Dion has created sculptures, installations, prints, drawings, and public projects that capture the imagination, but also critique the power assumptions within the scientific study of natural history—for example, the placement of “man” at the top of animal hierarchies. His work invites viewers to reexamine the history and development of human knowledge about the natural world, connecting these beliefs to environmental politics and public policy in the age of the Anthropocene.

“Using archaeological and other scientific methods of collecting, ordering, and exhibiting objects, Dion acts as an intermediary between times and disciplines, and between the cultural and natural worlds, said Erickson. “His work reveals that nature, for all the resources and pleasures it gives us, is a primary area for the expression of power and ideology.”

Mark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist presents more than 20 of the artist’s most significant artworks, as well as a newly commissioned interactive sculpture and a salon titled The Time Chamber containing ephemera, journals, prints, and drawings. The exhibition’s organization was influenced by the methods Dion has developed over the past three decades. It begins with collecting as an activity foundational to knowledge, and then moves into fieldwork, excavation, and cultivation. Each approach has been necessary to the acquisition of information about the natural world. With these techniques as the exhibition’s organizing principle, visitors can better understand the genesis of Dion’s practice and, in turn, those of art history and the museum.

Exhibition Highlights
Playing with the scale differences present in Dion’s work, the exhibition includes immersive single-room installations, expansive galleries of sculptures, and an intimate salon room with three-dimensional models of major public artworks. In all of these works, Dion marries conversations of science with those of the art museum, revealing the interrelationships between the two as sources of knowledge and truth.

  • Seminal pieces The N.Y. State Bureau of Tropical Conservation (1992) and Toys ’R’ U.S. (When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth) (1994) offer two strikingly distinct collections—a storeroom of natural specimens gathered from a Venezuelan rainforest; and a child’s dinosaur-themed bedroom—reflecting on consumption, extinction, and the global environmental crisis.
  • In Rescue Archeology (2005), a project not seen since its creation, Dion excavated the grounds of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, during a major expansion, salvaging and displaying fragments of wallpaper, mantles, and ceramics to uncover the museum’s material origins at a moment of irreversible change.
  • In the immersive The Library of the Birds of New York / The Library for the Birds of Massachusetts (2016/2017), Dion will place in a gallery a 20-foot cage that houses live finches and canaries commingling with the accessories of ornithology—nets, binoculars, and books—arranged around a tree. The library about birds becomes a library for them, a home and site of spectacle within the museum.

Catalogue
Mark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist will be accompanied by an illustrated publication, co-published with Yale University Press, with major essays by Erickson, James Nisbet, Sarina Basta, and Petra Lang-Berndt, as well as reflections by Lucy Bradnock, Andrea Barrett, Lisa Corrin, Denise Markonish, Alastair Gordon, Colleen Sheehy, and Sarah Suzuki, and an interview between Dion and the esteemed curator Mary Jane Jacob.

Symposium
A symposium inspired by Dion’s practice will take place on October 12 and 13, 2017. Artists and scholars will deliver talks about their work and invite discussion on the cultural history and future of nature through various disciplinary perspectives. The ICA is organizing this event in partnership with the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, Lowell, and Boston; and Northeastern University.

Biography
Dion lives in New York City and received a BFA (1986) and an honorary doctorate (2003) from the University of Hartford School of Art, Connecticut. He also studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York from 1982-84 and participated in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program from 1984-85. He has received numerous awards, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Lucida Art Award (2008) and the ninth annual Larry Aldrich Foundation Award (2001).

Exhibition History
Dion’s work has been the subject of major exhibitions worldwide. Notable solo exhibitions include Mark Dion: Wayward Wilderness at Marta Herford in Herford, Germany (2015), Mark Dion: The Academy of Things at The Academy of Fine Arts Design in Dresden, Germany (2014), The Macabre Treasury at Museum Het Domein in Sittard, The Netherlands (2013), Oceanomania: Souvenirs of Mysterious Seas at Musée Océanographique de Monaco and Nouveau Musée National de Monaco / Villa Paloma in Monaco (2011), The Marvelous Museum: A Mark Dion Project at Oakland Museum of California (2010-11), Systema Metropolis at Natural History Museum, London (2007), The South Florida Wildlife Rescue Unit at Miami Art Museum (now Pérez Art Museum Miami) (2006), Rescue Archaeology, a project for The Museum of Modern Art (2004), and his renowned Tate Thames Dig at the Tate Gallery in London (1999).

Major support is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Additional support is generously provided by Jane and Robert Burke, Steve Corkin and Dan Maddalena, Jean-François and Nathalie Ducrest, and Cynthia and John Reed.

Visitors can experience the art of summer at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) this season with an exciting line-up of exhibitions, performances, outdoor art, and events. Tickets for events and programs are on sale to members on Tuesday, May 9; and Thursday, May 11 for non-members. Visit www.icaboston.org for complete schedule and details.

MUSIC

HARBORWALK SOUNDS
JULY 6 – AUGUST 31 | 6-8:30 PM
On ICA Free Thursday nights, visitors can enjoy outdoor concerts on the waterfront as part of Harborwalk Sounds, a collaboration between the ICA and Berklee College of Music. These popular evenings include free admission to the galleries, free concerts by some of Berklee College of Music’s best bands, and summer-inspired food and drink.

SUMMER FRIDAYS AT THE ICA
Kickstart the weekend every Friday at the ICA. From July through Labor Day, every Friday offers waterfront music, dancing, and the best vibes in the city.  The museum’s popular First Fridays program (June 2, July 7, Aug 4) is rounded out with DJ nights featuring artists such as Devendra Banhart, Spinderella, and Baio (of Vampire Weekend).

FIRST FRIDAYS
The first Friday of every month from 5 to 10 PM is an evening of art, music, fun activities, specialty cocktails, and dancing all night. FREE for members. $15 for nonmember advance purchases / $20 day-of.

  • JUNE 2 | HOT HOT HOT: A preview of Boston Caribbean Fashion Week, a harborside cocktail, Island Creek Oysters, and an al fresco dance party with DJ Mikey D.
  • JULY 7 | SUMMER POP: The magnetic Ed Balloon, a Boston-based musician who splits R&B and rap with a heavy dose of glam-pop, plus a few ice-cold brews.
  • AUG 4 | WHITE HOT VOL 4: A harborside dance party, oysters on the half shell, and a refreshing cocktail to match white outfits.

DJ NIGHTS
FRIDAYS JULY 14–AUG 25*| 6:30–10 PM
$5 ICA members/$15 general admission unless otherwise noted
Big-name DJ dance parties, vibrant art installations, and the perfect waterfront setting.
*except August 4, a First Friday

DANCE

Simone Dinnerstein + Pam Tanowitz Open Rehearsal
JULY 15 | 2-5 PM, free with museum admission
This summer, Dinnerstein, Tanowitz, and seven dancers will occupy the ICA’s Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater for a weeklong Summer Stages Dance @ the ICA/Boston residency, before returning to the ICA to perform New Work for Goldberg Variations in December.

Skeleton Architecture, The Future of Our Worlds
JULY 23 | 3 PM, free with museum admission; tickets available onsite on day of performance
Skeleton Architecture will reconvene at the ICA this summer in conjunction with Summer Stages Dance @ the ICA/Boston, with 24 leading black performing artists from Boston and New York. Representing different generations and dance genres, the artists will gather for a weeklong investigation of the collaborative process, creative strategies, and improvisational practices that will culminate in an informal performance.

FAMILY + TEENS

PLAY DATES
Family Play Dates are the last Saturday of every month with themes and activities varying each month. In July, Play Dates cross the harbor for a day of fun in East Boston.

Making Bridges Together
SAT, JUNE 24 | 10 AM – 4 PM
Try contemporary art sleuthing skills in the galleries with the help of visiting assistants: how does the art on view connect to your lives? Design and construct small-scale bridges with the help of onsite architects and engineers as a guide, then “test” how the bridges bear weight. Don’t miss a family performance at 1:30 pm.

**Special East Boston Play Date
Creating Wonderful Worlds
SAT, JULY 29 | 10 AM – 4 PM
Visitors enjoy time at the ICA’s waterfront location, then celebrate the museum’s pending expansion to East Boston. BYO picnic and cruise across Boston Harbor for adventures in East Boston’s Piers Park from noon to 3 PM, including a family concert and sailboat rides.

ICA Seaside Adventures
SAT, AUG 26 | 10 AM – 4 PM
Gallery Games and family Pop-Up Talks, paint scenes of the sea en plein air, and enjoy a concert by the Farewells at 1:30 pm. To soak up the waning summer, bring a picnic, relax on the ICA grandstand overlooking Boston Harbor, and try outdoor family yoga and sketching activities for all ages.

SUMMER TEEN NIGHT
AUG 16 | 6–9 PM, Hosted by the Teen Arts Council, free for teens
Organized by teens for teens, the evening features teen-led art tours, art making activities, and youth performances in the coolest theater in Boston, the Barbara Lee Family Theater. See icateens.org for more details on activities.

FREE FUN FRIDAY
AUG 18 | 10 AM–9 PM
The seventh annual Free Fun Fridays program sponsored by the Highland Street Foundation allows the ICA to open its doors at no cost to visitors all day long, with activities for all ages. For a complete schedule of participating institutions, visit www.highlandstreet.org

EXHIBITIONS

OPENING THIS SUMMER
Dana Schutz
JULY 26 – NOV 26, 2017
Dana Schutz, a concise survey of the artist’s recent work, comprises 16 paintings, several at monumental scale, and five charcoal drawings, including two new ones. Schutz’s enormous new painting, Big Wave (2016), acquired by the ICA in December, is on view for the first time in the United States. Additionally, one new painting will premiere in this exhibition.

ONGOING
2017 James and Audrey Foster Prize
THROUGH JULY 9, 2017
The James and Audrey Foster Prize is key to the ICA’s efforts to nurture and recognize Boston-area artists of exceptional promise. First established in 1999, the James and Audrey Foster Prize (formerly the ICA Artist Prize) expanded its format when the museum opened its new facility in 2006. James and Audrey Foster, passionate collectors and supporters of contemporary art, endowed the prize, ensuring the ICA’s ability to sustain and grow the program for years to come. 

Nari Ward: Sun Splashed
THROUGH SEPT 4, 2017
Nari Ward: Sun Splashed is the largest survey of the artist’s work to date. Emerging alongside a notable group of black artists in New York City in the 1990s, Nari Ward (b. 1963 in St. Andrew Parish, Jamaica) actively engages with local sites—their histories, communities, and economies—to create spectacular, ambitiously scaled artworks out of unlikely materials. He derives inspiration from his immediate environment, incorporating found objects gathered in and around urban neighborhoods and embracing varied cultural references.

Steve McQueen: Ashes
THROUGH FEB 25, 2018
The ICA/Boston is pleased to present the U.S. debut of Ashes (2002–2015), a video installation by the artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen (b. London, UK, 1969). A standout from the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015, Ashes presents footage on two sides of a freestanding screen. One side, originally shot on soft, grainy Super 8 film, shows a young, carefree fisherman named Ashes balancing playfully on a pitching boat against a horizon of blue sky and water. The other side shows a second projection, shot in 16mm film that chronicles Ashes’s unexpected fate. Never seen together, yet linked by a shared soundtrack, the videos conjure an easy vitality and a vivid description of place against the darker forces of society and fate.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ICA Summer is presented in partnership with Converse

DANCE
New Work for Goldberg Variations was commissioned by Duke Performances/Duke University and Peak Performances/Montclair State University, co-commissioned by Opening Nights Performing Arts/Florida State University and Summer Stages Dance at the Institute for Contemporary Art/Boston, and received creative development support from the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC) at Florida State University, The Yard at Martha’s Vineyard, the NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts, and New York City Center.

New Work for Goldberg Variations was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. General Operating support for Pam Tanowitz Dance was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project with funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

NEFA logo

New Work for Goldberg Variations is part of Summer Stages Dance @ the ICA/Boston and is made possible, in part, with the support of Jane Karol and Howard Cooper, David Parker, The Aliad Fund, George and Ann Colony, and Stephanie McCormick-Goodhart.

the future of our worlds is part of Summer Stages Dance @ the ICA/Boston and is made possible, in part, with the support of Jane Karol and Howard Cooper, David Parker, The Aliad Fund, George and Ann Colony, Stephanie McCormick-Goodhart, Sharon Watson Beck, and Chayla M. Freeman.

FAMILY + TEENS
Play Dates are sponsored by Vivien and Alan Hassenfeld and the Hassenfeld Family Foundation, and Holly and David Bruce.

The ICA’s Teen Arts Council and Teen Nights are generously sponsored by MFS Investment Management and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.

ICA Teen Programs are sponsored by UNIQLO.

Teen Programs are made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Award Number MA-10-16-0305-16.

Additional support is provided by the Deborah Munroe Noonan Memorial Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee; the Thomas Anthony Pappas Charitable Foundation, Inc.; the Mabel Louise Riley Foundation; the Rowland Foundation, Inc.; the William E. Schrafft and Bertha E. Schrafft Charitable Trust; the Surdna Foundation; and The Willow Tree Fund.

MFS logo

Uniqlo logo

Institute of Museum and Library Services Logo

Free Fun Friday is sponsored by the Highland Street Foundation.

Summer Friday Fun Highland Street Logo

 

FIRST FRIDAYS
Support for ICA First Fridays is provided by  

Harpoon logo

UFO logo

 

EXHIBITIONS
Support for Dana Schutz is generously provided by James and Audrey Foster, Barbara Lee, Ted Pappendick and Erica Gervais Pappendick, and David and Leslie Puth.

Steve McQueen’s Ashes is a gift of Tristin and Martin Mannion.

The 2017 James and Audrey Foster Prize exhibition and the Foster Talks are generously endowed by James and Audrey Foster.

The 2017 James and Audrey Foster Prize exhibition is supported by

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Organization of Nari Ward: Sun Splashed and its presentation at the Pérez Art Museum Miami has been made possible by Citi and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, with additional support from the Funding Arts Network and Gander and White.

Ansell’s Sculptural “Fish Out of Water” Explores Migration, Flight, and Movement Themes;
Meet the Artist at April 29 ICA Play Date

Houston-based artist and educator Bennie Flores Ansell’s interest in migration, flight, and movement makes a bold appearance at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (ICA) this spring with the Boston debut of Fish Out of Water. This interactive installation with images of flying fish celebrates the many journeys made by the people of Boston—including the 27 percent of residents who are immigrants.

With Ansell’s work as a starting point, ICA visitors will be encouraged to reflect on their own personal family journeys and, using stencils, special papers and artists’ paint markers, create their own unique airborne creatures that tell a story. After personalizing their fish, guests will be encouraged to write the country or region from where their ancestors originated, and then add them to the installation. Participants can also try mirror symmetry drawing to create a colorful piece to take home.

As more and more visitors participate and add their creations to the Fish Out of Water installation, the fish will grow in number and soar together as one body throughout the museum’s Bank of America Art Lab walls, highlighting Boston’s rich diversity. The project will be open select hours during April School Vacation Week—Tuesday, April 18 through Friday, April 21 from 11 AM – 4 PM each day, and on subsequent weekends. Please note: Young children will need adult assistance for the project. The ICA will be closed on Monday, April 17 for the Patriots’ Day holiday.

Meet the Artist at ICA Play Date, Saturday, April 29
Visitors can meet and talk with Ansell at a forthcoming ICA Play Date with the theme “Uncovering Artists’ Stories,” as well as try related artmaking investigations. Families can also see the exhibition Nari Ward: Sun Splashed (opens April 26), which includes artworks made from soda pop bottles, shoelaces, shopping carts, and a fire escape, and speaks to issues around migration, identity, and spirituality. A special concert by Boston Children’s Chorus with music and stories from around the world will also take place. For ICA Play Dates, admission is free for up to 2 adults per family when accompanied by children ages 12 and under. Youth 17 and under are always admitted free to the ICA. All ages welcome; programs best-suited for ages 6 and older. Use #ICAFishOutofWater to share photos and experiences.

Play Dates are sponsored by Vivien and Alan Hassenfeld and the Hassenfeld Family Foundation, and Holly and David Bruce.

About the Artist
As a very young child, Ansell made a long journey from the Philippines to the United States. Her family’s personal experience traveling across vast oceans and continents encouraged her to further explore ideas of migration, flight, and movement in her later work as an artist. These ideas are important to Ansell, who believes that this early experience formed her view of herself, as well as how others regard her. Ansell’s intricate installations look like maps, topographical views, and swarms of butterflies, but upon closer inspection reveal surprising hidden imagery. The artist’s work has been exhibited at the International Center for Photography, NY; the Seattle Art Museum, WA; the San Diego Museum of Art, CA; and the Berkshire Museum, MA. Her most recent installation was exhibited at the 2016 Daegu Photo Biennale in South Korea. Read a Q+A with the artist

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) announces its 2017 ICA Reads selection: Damian Duffy and John Jennings’s Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation. The book is an interpretation of Octavia Butler’s bestselling classic that has quickly become a bestseller itself. An artful take on the book club, ICA Reads presents a book of critical and societal importance and an opportunity to gather for discussion and meet the author(s).

More than 35 years after Kindred’s release, the powerful story continues to draw in new readers with its unforgettable strong female protagonist, Dana, and her deep exploration of the violence and loss of humanity caused by slavery in the United States, and its complex and lasting impact on the present day. A unique introduction for those unfamiliar with Butler’s masterful work, adapted by academics and comics artists Duffy and Jennings, the graphic novel powerfully renders her mysterious and moving story, spanning racial and gender divides in the antebellum South through the 20th century. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Díaz describes Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation as, “A glorious tribute to Octavia Butler’s masterpiece. Extraordinary.” For more information visit.

Held up as an essential work in feminist, science-fiction, and fantasy genres, and a cornerstone of the Afrofuturism movement, Kindred has sold more than 500,000 copies. The intersectionality of race, history, and the treatment of women addressed within the original work remain critical topics in contemporary dialogue, both in the classroom and in the public sphere. Frightening, compelling, and richly imagined, Kindred offers an unflinching look at our complicated social history, transformed by the graphic novel format into a visually stunning work for a new generation of readers.

The Artist’s Voice: Damian Duffy and John Jennings, Thursday, May 4, 7 PM
ICA visitors can meet Duffy and Jennings and join a timely and thought-provoking conversation about Kindred and its lasting impact. Book signing to follow (copies available for purchase at the ICA store). Free admission, first come, first served; tickets available at the box office two hours prior to start of program.

About the Authors

  • John Jennings is Associate Professor of Visual Studies at the University at Buffalo and has written several works on African-American comics creators. His research is concerned with the topics of representation and authenticity, visual culture, visual literacy, social justice, and design pedagogy. He is an accomplished designer, curator, illustrator, cartoonist, and award-winning graphic novelist, who most recently organized an exhibition/program on Afrofuturism and the Black Comic Book Festival, both at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library.
  • Damian Duffy, cartoonist, writer, and comics letterer, is a PhD student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Graduate School of Library and Information Science, and a founder of Eye Trauma Studios (eyetrauma.net). His first published graphic novel, The Hole: Consumer Culture, created with artist John Jennings, was released by Front 40 Press in 2008. Along with Jennings, Duffy has curated several comics art shows, including Other Heroes: African American Comic Book Creators, Characters and Archetypes and Out of Sequence: Underrepresented Voices in American Comics, and published the art book Black Comix: African American Independent Comics Art and Culture. He has also published scholarly essays in comics form on curation, new media, diversity, and critical pedagogy.
  • Octavia Estelle Butler (1947–2006), often referred to as the “grand dame of science fiction,” was born in Pasadena, California, on June 22, 1947. She received an Associate of Arts degree in 1968 from Pasadena City College, and also attended California State University in Los Angeles and the University of California, Los Angeles. Butler was the first science-fiction writer to win a MacArthur Fellowship (“genius” grant). She won the PEN Lifetime Achievement Award and the Nebula and Hugo Awards, among others.