
Wolfgang Tillmans, Shaker rainbow, 1995. Chromogenic color print. Dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist; David Zwirner, Hong Kong and New York; Galerie Buchholz, Berlin and Cologne; and Maureen Paley, London. © Wolfgang Tillmans
(Boston, MA—JANUARY 16, 2025) On Feb. 13, 2025, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) opens Believers: Artists and the Shakers, a tightly conceived group exhibition revisiting The Quiet in the Land: Everyday Life, Contemporary Art and the Shakers, an exhibition presented at the ICA in 1998. The Quiet in the Land was organized by independent curator France Morin and brought to the ICA by Jill Medvedow at the beginning of her tenure as Ellen Matilda Poss Director. Believers reunites a core group of works first presented in The Quiet in the Land by artists Janine Antoni, Kazumi Tanaka, Wolfgang Tillmans, Nari Ward, and Chen Zhen—some of which have been remade for this exhibition—alongside more recent works by artists Jonathan Berger, Taylor Davis, Gordon Hall, Pallavi Sen, and Cauleen Smith. Believers considers how contemporary artists continue to derive inspiration from the utopian community’s vital experience as “ordinary people attempting to live an extraordinary life.” On view from Feb. 13 to Aug. 3, 2025, Believers: Artists and the Shakers is organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Mannion Family Curator, with Tessa Bachi Haas, Assistant Curator.
“The Quiet in the Land was a deeply meaningful project for me when I began my work at the ICA,” said Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director of the ICA. “I look forward to revisiting many of the artworks included in the 1998 exhibition and to discover how Shaker ideas around community, utility, and simplicity continue to resonate with artists today.”
The Quiet in the Land featured a dynamic body of works born out of an unorthodox residency initiated by Morin in 1996. During this residency, ten artists were invited to live, work, and worship in the only remaining active Shaker community located near New Gloucester in Sabbathday Lake, Maine. According to Morin, The Quiet in the Land set out “to explore the complex relationship between artistic practice and everyday life, as well as to define the spiritual impetus of the creative act,” with and through the art works inspired by the Shakers. Believers builds on the ways the earlier project “sought to probe conventional notions of gender, work, and spirituality, to redefine the making and experiencing of art, and to challenge the widespread belief that art and life exist in separate realms.”
Since arriving in America from England 250 years ago, the Shakers—a radical Christian sect—have occupied a unique and romantic place in American national identity and the public imaginary. Also known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, the Shakers ascribe to values and practices of celibacy, communal living, pacifism, shared property, and gender and racial equality, and they are widely recognized for their simple living and architectural style, music, and furniture design. The Shakers have captured the imagination of many artists since at least the early 20th century, when ideas about self-perfection, practicality, and the austere elegance associated with Shaker material culture and religious practice took hold. These ideas entered more strongly into the American consciousness following a string of influential exhibitions and books, many of them organized and authored by those outside of Shaker communities (what Shakers refer to as “the world”).
“Whereas artists were attracted initially to the sense of perfection and simplicity they associated with Shaker furniture, many artists today find in the Shakers a model for living otherwise at a time of radical social transformation,” said De Blois. “Long-held Shaker values like communal living, pacifism, shared property, and gender and racial equality are appealing for many artists—ideas that Believers traces from The Quiet in the Land to artists responding to the Shaker legacy in their work today.”
Believers presents selected works from The Quiet in the Land alongside more recent works by Jonathan Berger and Cauleen Smith. Taylor Davis, Gordon Hall, and Pallavi Sen have made new works for the exhibition. Examples include:
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