The exhibition includes works by Olga de Amaral, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Mickalene Thomas, and Meraki Artist Award recipients Lorna Simpson and Sarah Sze

(Boston, MA—Dec. 10, 2025) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) presents To My Best Friend, a collection-focused exhibition featuring stunning works by 17 of today’s leading artists. This exhibition features works gifted and promised to the ICA by longtime supporters of the museum, Fotene Demoulas and Tom Coté. Committed to supporting artists at every stage of their career through exhibitions, publications, and museum acquisitions, Demoulas and Coté have foregrounded the visionary work of historically-underrepresented and women artists through their philanthropy. The included artworks represent multiple generations, styles, media, and thematic concerns, exemplifying a sustained interest in formal and material complexity and a steadfast belief in the singular perspectives that artists contribute to the world. To My Best Friend opens with 20 works by 17 women artists—including several recent acquisitions on view for the first time—by artists Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Olga de Amaral, Huma Bhabha, Charline von Heyl, Roni Horn, Deana Lawson, Laura Owens, R. H. Quaytman, Deborah Roberts, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Rose B. Simpson, Becky Suss, Mickalene Thomas, Vivian Suter, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and Meraki Artist Award recipients Lorna Simpson and Sarah Sze. The exhibition borrows its title from an installation by Lorna Simpson which opens the show and features more than 100 found elements, including 85 found photobooth images—an early democratic form of self-representation. Much like the title of this artwork, To My Best Friend evokes the warmth and reciprocity at the heart of the relationships the ICA has built between artists, audiences, and collectors. The exhibition is organized by Erika Umali, Curator of Collections at the ICA, and will be on view from Jan. 23, through Dec. 31, 2026.

“The ICA has a very long history of presenting the work of women and underrepresented artists,” said Nora Abrams, Ellen Matilda Poss Director at the ICA. “And, we have been able to build a diverse collection based on this ethos because of our generous supporters in and around Boston. We are so grateful for Fotene’s and Tom’s support towards this vision.”

“It is with great pleasure that I have continued to support the ICA in presenting and acquiring the work of women artists at every stage of their career,” said Demoulas. “I am excited to see works from the past 20 years reflected in this exhibition.” 

To My Best Friend draws primarily from the ICA Collection. The ICA has a long exhibition history of presenting women artists, queer artists, and artists of color; and since the museum started collecting in 2006, it has continued to reflect the same ethos. Today, 60% of the collection is made up of women artists and over 40% of the artists in the collection identify as BIPOC. 

A sampling of the works that will be presented include:  

  • Surround Sound (After Studio), 2019, by 2025 Meraki Artist Award recipient Sarah Sze (born 1969 in Boston). Sze uses everyday materials to explore the built environment and our increasingly image-saturated world. In this over 8-foot-tall work, Sze layers images of speakers, Post-it notes, and mirrored surfaces to capture the unique sonic, physical, and aesthetic space of the artist’s studio. As Sze said in the same year this painting was made: “In the age of the image, a painting is a sculpture.” 
  • Bruma W, 2018, by Olga de Amaral (born 1932 in Bogotá, Colombia). Known for her large-scale, abstract, fiber-based works, Amaral brings together local traditions and global developments in the art world through her innovative weavings. In Bruma W, part of the artist’s Brumas series, linen threads cascade from a wooden panel to create an optical effect that recalls the work’s title, Bruma, the Spanish word for mist. Discussing her practice, Amaral notes: “As I build surfaces, I create spaces of meditation, contemplation, and reflection. Every small unit that forms the surface is not only significant in itself, but is also deeply resonant of the whole. Likewise, the whole is deeply resonant of each individual element.” 
  • Guitar Gangster, 2013, by artist Charline von Heyl (born 1960 in Mainz, Germany). Heyl’s paintings encourage dialogue between painting and abstraction. In this large-scale painting, the artist combines architectonic and organic forms and bright expanses of color to give the work dynamic energy. About her work, Heyl says: “It is about the feeling that painting can give—when you can’t stop looking because there is something that you want to find out, that you want to understand.” 

Exhibition credits: 
To My Best Friend is organized by Erika Umali, Curator of Collections at the ICA. 

This exhibition is funded, in part, with support from Leadership in Arts Museums, an initiative to create more racial equity in art museum leadership, supported by the Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Pilot House Philanthropy, and Alice L. Walton Foundation. 

Media Contact: Theresa Romualdez, press@icaboston.org