First Fridays

The ICA will close at 5 PM tonight for First Fridays: Après Ski. This 21+ event is sold out. 

Get tickets

Advance tickets are recommended and are available for visits through December. Book now

Join exhibition artist Tammy Nguyen and Associate Curator and Publications Manager Jeffrey De Blois, to hear more about the paintings, works on paper, and unique artist books featured in Tammy Nguyen. This talk is drop-in and first-come, first-served, as space permits.

Tammy Nguyen is on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston from August 24, 2023, to January 28, 2024. 

“You look at the landscape, but the landscape also looks back at you; Landscape is more about what you don’t see than what you do see.” 

Acclaimed artist Teresita Fernández joins Jeffrey De Blois, organizing curator for the Boston presentation of Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s-Today, for an evening of conversation on art, the Caribbean, and the sources of inspiration for her breathtaking mixed media artwork in the exhibition– Manigua(Mirror).  

Teresita Fernández is a 2005 MacArthur Foundation Fellow, also known as the Genius Grant, for demonstrating ‘extraordinary creativity’. In 2011, she was appointed by former President Obama to serve on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and is the first Latina to serve on the 100-year-old federal panel, which advises the president and Congress on national matters of design and aesthetics. In 2016, she conceived and directed the U.S. Latinx Arts Futures Symposium with the Ford Foundation, which brought together artists, curators, museum directors, and scholars from across the country to discuss modes of visibility within cultural institutions. 

Her work has been exhibited internationally in prestigious venues such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Harvard University, Cambridge; Smithsonian Museum of American Art; and Castello di Rivoli, Turin, among others. Fernández has also created numerous large-scale public sculptures, including at the Brooklyn Academy of Music; New Orleans Museum of Art; Ford Foundation, New York; and Madison Square Park. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. 

Generous support for Artist’s Voice: Teresita Fernández is provided by The Ronni Casty Lecture Fund. 

Join Jeffrey De Blois, Associate Curator and Publications Manager, for a deep dive into select works on view in Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s–Today.  

Join ICA’s Ellen Matilda Poss Director Jill Medvedow in conversation with writer, curator, and podcaster Helen Molesworth on her new book, Open Questions: Thirty Years of Writing about Art (Phaidon). Over the past three decades, Molesworth’s singular voice and lively curatorial vision has established her as one of the most dynamic and influential voices in the world of contemporary art. Open Questions, the first ever collection of her writings, presents 24 essays from the past 30 years, gathered from exhibition catalogs and art publications such as Artforum, Documents, frieze, and October. In this wide-ranging conversation, Molesworth and Medvedow will explore art’s unique capacity for merging knowledge and feeling, reflections on Molesworth’s past writing, and new ways of viewing and thinking about contemporary art.  

About Helen Molesworth

Helen Molesworth is a writer, curator, and podcaster based in Los Angeles. Her major monographic exhibitions include Ruth Asawa, Moyra Davey, Noah Davis, Steve Locke, Kerry James Marshall, Josiah McElheny, Catherine Opie, Amy Sillman, and Luc Tuymans. Molesworth, a prolific and award-winning author, is the recipient a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Clark Art Writing Prize, and the Bard Center for Curatorial Studies Award for Curatorial Excellence. Her podcast Death of an Artist made numerous “Best of 2022” lists. Molesworth was the ICA’s Barbara Lee Chief Curator from 2010 to 2014. The first ever collection of her writings, Open Questions: Thirty Years of Writing about Art, is available now from Phaidon.

Artists Cicely Carew, Venetia Dale, and Yu-Wen Wu—the featured artists in the ICA’s 2023 James and Audrey Foster Prize exhibition—come together for a conversation on art and life in Boston as visual artists. Hear about their creative practices in this public program moderated by Assistant Curator, Anni Pullagura.

2023 James and Audrey Foster Prize is on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston from August 24, 2023, to January 28, 2024.

Artist Ethan Murrow transformed the ICA’s Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall with a monumental drawing using a familiar writing tool—Sharpie. To celebrate the work, Murrow, Professor of Painting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, joins ICA Assistant Curator Ruth Erickson in an engaging conversation exploring his ideas, inspirations, and influences.

This program is made possible, in part, with the support of Ronald and Ronni Casty.

Celebrated American photographer Sara VanDerBeek joins Eva Respini, the ICA’s Barbara Lee Chief Curator, in this evening dialogue that explores the many artistic contributions of her father Stan VanDerBeek, alumnus of Black Mountain College. Learn more about Stan’s work during and after his tenure at Black Mountain in this unique introduction by his daughter that will also reflect his influential role on her own practice.

This program is presented in collaboration with Northeastern Center for the Arts and the After Black Mountain College: Community & Collaboration symposium.  

For Theater Piece No. 1 x 50, in association with the exhibition Leap Before You Look, the ICA collaborated with five area artists of various disciplines to celebrate the first Happening. The artists were asked to respond to the college’s history and connect it with contemporary practice. Their actions will be presented in the galleries during the exhibition. Hear directly from the artists on their intensive participation in this distinct project honoring the legacy of Black Mountain College.

Artists Helen Miller and Joshua Hart of ARE (Aesthetic Relational Exercises) lead visitors through simple artistic exercises in response to artworks found in Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957. Previously featured at the Whitney Museum of American Art and Dia Art Foundation, ARE’s workshops encourage visitors to experience works of art through artmaking. No previous art experience required. Capacity is limited; pre-registration recommended.

*A limited number of full scholarships are available for Boston Public School teachers with advance registration. For more information, contact Lenny Schnier at lschnier@icaboston.org or 617-478-3136.

All performances are sold out.

The ICA/Boston presents Walkthrough, by leading contemporary artist Walid Raad, as part of his first comprehensive museum survey in the United States. Central to the exhibition is the importance of performance, narrative, and storytelling in Raad’s oeuvre. The artist will give 55-minute presentations in the ICA’s West Gallery multiple times over the duration of the exhibition. Raad’s current ongoing project, Scratching on things I could disavow, examines the recent emergence in the Arab world of new infrastructures for the visual arts—art fairs, biennials, museums, and galleries—alongside the geopolitical, economic, and military conflicts that have consumed the region.

Walkthrough is free with museum admission; advance tickets are required. Online tickets include museum admission. (Students at member universities may reserve tickets at the Box Office at 617-478-3103.)

Please note that access to portions of the exhibition Walid Raad will be restricted during Walkthrough performances for a total of 90 minutes per performance. Please plan your visit accordingly.

At the request of the artist, no one will be admitted after the performance has begun, so please arrive at the performance prior to the time indicated on your ticket. Unclaimed seats will be redistributed 15 minutes before the performance begins. Walkthrough is 55 minutes long and attendees should plan to stay for the entire duration.

For visitors unable to attend during a performance, an audio recording of Walkthrough will be available on the ICA Mobile Guide starting February 24.