The ICA moved to the Boston waterfront in 2006. Below are the exhibitions presented in that space.

2022

A painting of Black children against a white background with photocollaged features

To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood

Oct 6, 2022 – Feb 26, 2023
Childhood, a subject of universal significance and personal experience, provides a compelling framework for understanding the past and imagining the future. To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood investigates the influence of children and childhood on visual artists from the early 20th century to today.More
Large, framed embroidered work consisting of patterned rectangles hang opposing each other in a gallery with benches between them

Jordan Nassar: Fantasy and Truth

Aug 11, 2022 – Jan 29, 2023
Jordan Nassar’s solo exhibition—his first in Boston—presents a selection of his intricate embroidered and mixed media works. Nassar (b. 1985 in New York) draws on traditional Palestinian craft techniques to investigate ideas of...More
Closeup of a clay female figure holding a baby with other sculptures in view behind

Rose B. Simpson: Legacies

Aug 11, 2022 – Jan 29, 2023
The artwork of Rose B. Simpson (b. 1983 in Santa Clara Pueblo, NM) encompasses ceramic sculpture, metal work, performance, installation, writing, and automobile design, offering poignant reflections on the human condition. Her ceramic figurative...More
Two walls of wooden crates and debris installed in a warehouse gallery

Revival: Materials and Monumental Forms

May 26 – Sep 5, 2022
In summer 2022, the ICA Watershed presents Revival: Materials and Monumental Forms , an exhibition of large-scale installations by six international artists who reclaim and reuse industrial and everyday materials. Inspired by the Watershed building...More
Large scale colorful paintings with loose brushstrokes hang in a gallery

A Place for Me: Figurative Painting Now

Mar 31 – Sep 5, 2022
Colorful, surprising, and full of life, A Place for Me celebrates a new generation of artists at the vanguard of contemporary painting.More
A video still of seven people in a v-formation outdoors

Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Burca: Swinguerra

Mar 31 – Sep 5, 2022
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...More
A color photograph shows a pale older woman holding a dog and a plastic bag of various materials, standing next to a pale school-age boy in a red jacket and black patterned knit hat who smiles directly at the viewer.

Photographs from Ukraine

Mar 18, 2022 – Jan 8, 2023
The ICA is committed to sharing artists’ perspectives on the world. These two photographs are in the museum’s permanent collection and were made in Ukraine by photographer Boris Mikhailov, who was featured in a solo exhibition at the ICA...More
A colorful textile depicting a face with brown skin and red eyes surrounded by words including "To be free," hanging on an orange wall.

Napoleon Jones-Henderson: I Am As I Am—A Man

Feb 17 – Jul 24, 2022
For more than 50 years, Napoleon Jones-Henderson (b. 1943, Chicago) has created works that strive to highlight, celebrate, and empower the communities where he lives. Jones-Henderson is a longstanding founding member of the influential artist...More

2021

Scratched up reproduction of a vintage-looking photo of a woman with dark skin, gold hanging earrings, and matching coral lips and nails looking at the camera from a slight angle

Deana Lawson

Nov 4, 2021 – Feb 27, 2022
“I photograph family, friends, and strangers, and I operate on the belief that my own being is found in union with those I take pictures of.” —Deana Lawson This exhibition is the first museum survey dedicated to the work of Deana Lawson (b. 1979 in...More
Brightly colored printed flags installed on the ceiling in rows in a white gallery with glass windows on the right

Renée Green

Nov 4, 2021 – Feb 27, 2022
Somerville-based artist, filmmaker, and writer Renée Green is known for her densely layered, multifaceted artworks, which include room-filling multimedia installations, films, sound-based works, and photography. Space Poem #1 is a new...More
A multi-colored, glittery horse sculpture is in the middle of the room. A few smaller, similarly textured sculptures are partially in view, and a collaged tapestry hangs to the left while a multi-colored circular collage hangs in the very back.

Raúl de Nieves: The Treasure House of Memory

Sep 1, 2021 – Jul 24, 2022
Raúl de Nieves (b. 1983, Michoacán, Mexico) is a New York–based interdisciplinary artist, performer, and musician whose multifaceted practice ranges from stained-glass-style narrative paintings to animated performances, to...More
A blue and white painted wooden architectural structure spanning across a gallery with worn paintings and photographs hanging on it and antique-style wooden furniture on top of it.

2021 James and Audrey Foster Prize

Sep 1, 2021 – Jan 30, 2022
The 2021 James and Audrey Foster Prize exhibition features Marlon Forrester (b. 1976, Georgetown, Guyana), Eben Haines (b. 1990, Boston), and Dell Marie Hamilton (b. 1971, New York). This group of artists works in a diversity of media, including...More
Together, nine photograph tiles show the silhouette of a body, wrapped in fabric and wearing a straw headdress.

The Worlds We Make: Selections from the ICA Collection

Aug 14, 2021 – Dec 31, 2022
With every call for social change arrives the possibility to make the world anew. The Worlds We Make: Selections from the ICA Collection explores how artists have visualized beyond present reality to imagine, dream, and realize the world-otherwise...More
Front view of bright green shirt with graffitied white block slightly obscuring thick graffiti-like black text saying "ICA" and "Virgil Abloh", worn by a dark skinned model.

Virgil Abloh: “Church & State”

Jul 3 – Dec 24, 2021
In conjunction with the exhibition Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech” the ICA will host “Church & State,” a pop-up retail experience featuring a variety of products designed by Abloh. Offerings include a line of exhibition-specific apparel, as...More
Six teenagers wearing Virgil Abloh ICA clothing stare directly at the camera in front of a neutral background.

ICA Teens X OJ Slaughter: “Breaking Cycles”

Jul 3 – Oct 17, 2021
As part of a larger photography project for Virgil Abloh’s “Church & State,” Boston-based artist OJ Slaughter (born 1993 in Richmond, Virginia) collaborated with ICA teens on an editorial fashion shoot inspired by Abloh’s...More
A gallery with a heap of rugs and furniture in the middle, a sculpture resembling a tilted all-black gas station sign on the right, and three shelves of sneakers in the background.

Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech”

Jul 3 – Sep 26, 2021
Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech” is the first museum exhibition devoted to the work of the genre-bending artist and designer Virgil Abloh (b. 1980, Rockford, IL). Abloh pioneers a practice that cuts across media and connects visual...More
A room with white walls, iron beams and gantries, a selection of colorful fabric wall hangings under the title "INDIGO," and three people sitting at a small table.

Stephen Hamilton: Indigo

Jul 3 – Sep 6, 2021
On display in the ICA Watershed Harbor Room is a project by Boston-based artist Stephen Hamilton highlighting the generations-long tradition of indigo dyeing in West Africa too often ignored in the accounting of early American history. Included is...More
A woman in a red dress walks among a sculpture resembling an architectural ruin inside an industrial-style building. A bright blue perforated canopy creates a light-dappled effect on the floor and walls.

Firelei Báez

Jul 3 – Sep 6, 2021
In summer 2021, the ICA Watershed featured a newly commissioned, monumental sculpture by acclaimed artist Firelei Báez. In her largest sculptural installation to date, the artist reimagined the archeological ruins of the Sans-Souci Palace in...More
A visitor standing in a spacious lobby and looking up at a monumental hanging wall sculpture made from bands of colorful coated mesh fabric draped in various lengths to create series of interlocking circular forms.

Eva LeWitt

Mar 20, 2021 – Oct 23, 2022
Eva LeWitt’s vibrant, handmade sculptures are fashioned from everyday commercial and industrial materials. She casts, dyes, and cuts these pliable, soft, and often synthetic materials before composing them in captivating arrangements of...More

2020

An acrylic painting shows a Black man and two younger Black figures standing one behind the other against a bright pink background and looking directly at the viewer.

i’m yours: Encounters with Art in Our Times

Nov 19, 2020 – May 23, 2021
Events of this year have brought the world to a halt, affecting global commerce and security, putting our own mortality in sharp focus, and heightening existing inequities, injustices, and political tensions. In this time, we ask: What is the role of art and museums?More
An installation shows a projection of a map with text that reads "bring enemy revolverr," "I assure you, we are not afraid. We are not sentimental," "annihilate," and "brutes" in all caps and in various parts of the map.

William Kentridge: KABOOM!

Nov 18, 2020 – May 23, 2021
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...More
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Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors

Sep 30, 2020 – Aug 15, 2021
The first newly installed exhibition at the museum following months of closure during the global COVID-19 pandemic, Ragnar Kjartansson’s The Visitors is a truly beloved artwork in the ICA’s permanent collection, one that continually inspires and moves our community.More
One three-dimensional oblong form sits stacked askew on top of another. The top for is translucent yellow with swirls of red that appear to be rising up. The bottom form appears to be a wooden box painted yellow, with the letters WS ROLLING hand-drawn on the side in red.

Sterling Ruby

Feb 26 – Oct 12, 2020
ICA/Boston presents the first comprehensive museum survey for American artist Sterling Ruby. The exhibition features more than 70 works that demonstrate the relationship between material transformation in Ruby’s practice and the rapid evolution of...More
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Carolina Caycedo: Cosmotarrayas

Jan 20 – Sep 7, 2020
The interdisciplinary practice of Los Angeles–based artist Carolina Caycedo (b. 1978, London) is grounded in vital questions related to asymmetrical power relations, dispossession, extraction of resources, and environmental justice. Since 2012,...More
A large mixed- media painting depicts the abstracted figure of a man in a tank top and sneakers standing on a sidewalk holding a beer can and the leg of another figure in red gingham pants that appears to have just walked out of the frame.

Tschabalala Self: Out of Body

Jan 20 – Sep 7, 2020
Tschabalala Self (b. 1990, Harlem, New York) creates large-scale figurative paintings that integrate hand-printed and found textiles, drawing, printmaking, sewing, and collage techniques to tell stories of urban life, the body, and humanity. The...More

2019

MIGRATION_Kallat installation view by Mel Taing

When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art

Oct 23, 2019 – Jan 26, 2020
When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art considers how contemporary artists are responding to the migration, immigration, and displacement of peoples today. We are currently witnessing the highest levels of movement on...More
An installation of a mirrored glass case holdings hand-blown mirrored glass geometric objects to create an infinitely repeating mirrored visual effect.

Beyond Infinity: Contemporary Art after Kusama

Sep 24, 2019 – Jul 25, 2021
Drawn primarily from the ICA’s permanent collection , this exhibition presents artworks that engage with the pioneering ideas of Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929, Matsumoto, Japan). Beyond Infinity: Contemporary Art after Kusama celebrates Kusama’s prescient...More
A photo shows a mirrored room filled with inflated glowing tentacles in different colors and colored with black dots of varying sizes.

Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING

Sep 24, 2019 – Mar 13, 2020
An icon of contemporary art, Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929, Matsumoto, Japan) has interwoven ideas of pop art, minimalism, and psychedelia throughout her work in paintings, performances, room-size presentations, outdoor sculptural installations, literary...More
An abstract, brightly colored watercolor, with a composition made up of geometric shapes, some striped.

2019 James and Audrey Foster Prize

Aug 21 – Dec 31, 2019
The 2019 installment of the ICA’s biennial James and Audrey Foster Prize exhibition highlighting the work of Boston-area artists will feature four individuals: Rashin Fahandej (b. 1978, Shiraz, Iran), Josephine Halvorson (b. 1981, Brewster, MA...More
SUTER_MelTaing_013_Installation view h wide shot

Vivian Suter

Aug 21 – Dec 31, 2019
Vivian Suter (b. 1949, Buenos Aires, Argentina) works in close partnership with the natural environment surrounding her home and studio in Panajachel, Guatemala. Her method often involves moving her canvases between the indoors and outdoors and...More
LIAB_Schapiro, Miriam - Mexican Memory

Less Is a Bore: Maximalist Art & Design

Jun 26 – Sep 22, 2019
Less Is a Bore: Maximalist Art & Design brings together works in painting, sculpture, ceramic, dance, furniture design, and more that privilege decoration, pattern, and maximalism. Borrowing its attitude from architect Robert Venturi’s...More
An installation of six screens featuring video stills of soft, blue landscapes in a dark room

John Akomfrah: Purple

May 26 – Sep 2, 2019
Co-commissioned by the ICA and making its U.S. premiere at the ICA Watershed , Purple is an immersive six-channel video installation by the acclaimed artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah (b. 1957, Accra, Ghana). Akomfrah draws from hundreds of hours...More
A bust by Huma Bhaba, that is gray and organic in texture, with the top covered in light blue paint.

Huma Bhabha: They Live

Mar 23 – May 27, 2019
Since the early 1990s, Huma Bhabha (born 1962 in Karachi) has developed a distinct visual vocabulary that draws upon a wide variety of influences, including horror movies, science fiction, ancient artifacts, religious reliquary, and modernist...More
Kjartansson_RK_THE_VISITOR_BANNER.png

Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors

Feb 13 – Jul 28, 2019
A sentimental portrayal of friendship, love, and loss and one of the best-loved works in the ICA’s permanent collection, Ragnar Kjartansson’s (b. 1976, Reykjavik, Iceland) masterwork The Visitors (2012) is a monumental nine-channel sound...More
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Nina Chanel Abney

Jan 17, 2019 – Jan 31, 2021
Deeply invested in creating imagery that is legible and accessible, Nina Chanel Abney (b. 1982, Chicago) is known for weaving colorful geometric shapes, cartoons, language, and symbols into chaotic and energetic compositions. At the ICA, she has...More

2018

Man experiencing William Forsythe's The Fact of Matter by climbing through suspended rings

William Forsythe: Choreographic Objects

Oct 31, 2018 – Feb 21, 2019
The ICA presents the first comprehensive American exhibition of performative objects, video installations, and interactive sculptures of the internationally celebrated choreographer William Forsythe. World renowned, Forsythe is counted among the...More
Jason Moran, STAGED: Three Deuces

Jason Moran

Sep 19, 2018 – Jan 21, 2019
Interdisciplinary artist Jason Moran (b. 1975, Houston) grounds his practice in musical composition and bridges the visual and performing arts through stagecraft. Moran draws from his personal experience to create dynamic compositions that challenge...More
THATER_V04.jpg

Diana Thater

Jul 4 – Oct 8, 2018
Inaugurating the new ICA Watershed in East Boston is an exhibition of two works by artist Diana Thater (b. 1962, San Francisco) that create immersive experiences through light and moving image projections. The installation centers on Thater’s...More
Arthur Jafa, Love is The Message, The Message is Death (still)

Arthur Jafa: Love is the Message, The Message is Death

Jun 27 – Sep 30, 2018
Artist, cinematographer, and filmmaker Arthur Jafa (b. 1960, Tupelo, Mississippi) frequently states that he hopes to create cinema that “replicates the power, beauty, and alienation of black music.” Jafa’s Love is the Message, The...More
WWAR_RevolutionarySister2012crop.jpeg

We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85

Jun 27 – Sep 30, 2018
Focusing on the work of black women artists, We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85 examines the political, social, cultural, and aesthetic priorities of women of color during the emergence of second-wave feminism. It is the...More
Caitlin Keogh, Blank Melody, Old Wall

Caitlin Keogh: Blank Melody

May 9 – Aug 26, 2018
This exhibition is the first solo museum presentation of the paintings of New York–based artist Caitlin Keogh (b. 1982, Anchorage, Alaska). Keogh’s work explores questions of gender and representation, articulations of personal style,...More
Kevin Beasley, Untitled (11), 2015

Kevin Beasley

May 9 – Aug 26, 2018
One of the most exciting artists to emerge in recent years, New York–based Kevin Beasley (b. 1985, Lynchburg, VA) uniquely combines sound and clothing—his core artistic materials—in stunning, densely packed sculptures and immersive...More
An oil painting depicts a man seated in a subway car holding the subway pole in his left hand and embracing a white dog with a red cone around its head in his right hand.

ICA Collection: Entangled in the Everyday

Mar 17, 2018 – Aug 25, 2019
The thirteenth installment of the ICA’s annual collection exhibition presents major works that showcase artists’ engagement and entanglement with the everyday. Interest in common materials and quotidian subjects has been a defining theme...More
Camille Henrot, Grosse Fatigue (still)

Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today

Feb 7 – May 20, 2018
Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today examines how the internet has radically changed the field of art, especially in its production, distribution, and reception. The exhibition comprises a broad range of works across a variety of mediums...More
Wangechi Mutu, A Promise to Communicate, 2017

Wangechi Mutu: A Promise to Communicate

Jan 20 – Dec 31, 2018
Artist Wangechi Mutu (b. 1972, Nairobi, Kenya) is known for her self-proclaimed “maximalist aesthetic,” hybrid compositions, and wall-based works that add texture and dimension to architectural spaces. Feminism, Afrofuturism,...More

2017

HitoSteyerl_ArtistsSpace.jpg

Hito Steyerl: Liquidity Inc.

Dec 13, 2017 – Apr 22, 2018
Hito Steyerl (b. 1966, Munich, Germany) is an artist, filmmaker, and writer whose art speaks urgently to our digitally mediated era. In her work, she has addressed the wide-ranging effects of today’s mass proliferation and dissemination of...More
Nicholas Nixon, The Brown Sisters, New Canaan, Connecticut, 1975

Nicholas Nixon: Persistence of Vision

Dec 13, 2017 – Apr 12, 2018
Based in Boston since the 1970s, Nicholas Nixon has captured the intimate details of family, relationships, and life as it unfolds in front of his camera. Using a large-format 8 x 10–inch camera and black-and-white film, he has photographed...More
Mark Dion, Cabinet of Marine Debris, 2014

Mark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist

Oct 4 – Dec 31, 2017
Mark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist , 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,...More
An oil painting depicts an abstracted scene of two children in colorful clothing playing on a sandy beach as an enormous dark wave filled with drowning figures approaches the shore.

Dana Schutz

Jul 26 – Nov 26, 2017
Dana Schutz is a concise exhibition of the artist’s recent work. One of the most prominent painters of her generation, the New York–based Schutz (b. 1976, Livonia, Michigan) is known for her distinctive visual style characterized by...More
Nari Ward, "Scandal Bag; History Feeds Mistrust," 2015

Nari Ward: Sun Splashed

Apr 26 – Sep 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...More
An acrylic painting shows a Black man and two younger Black figures standing one behind the other against a bright pink background and looking directly at the viewer.

ICA Collection: New Acquisitions

Feb 15, 2017 – Feb 25, 2018
Though founded in 1936, the ICA formed its permanent collection just ten years ago. After the expansive presentation in First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA , New Acquisitions continues to focus on the incredible growth of the collection...More
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Steve McQueen: Ashes

Feb 15, 2017 – 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...More
Lucy Kim,

2017 James and Audrey Foster Prize

Feb 15 – Jul 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...More

2016

Gillian Wearing, Rock ’n’ Roll 70, 2015

Gillian Wearing

Dec 9, 2016 – Dec 31, 2017
Best known for her photographic and video works that intimately capture aspects of our familial and personal histories, Gillian Wearing (b. 1963, Birmingham, UK) continues to explore the nuances of identity, the intersections of public and private,...More
Pierre Leguillon, La grande évasion (The Great Escape), 2012

The Artist’s Museum

Nov 16, 2016 – Mar 26, 2017
The desire to collect objects and images of personal significance, and to make connections between them, is a nearly universal human experience. For centuries, artists have collected artworks, along with diverse cultural artifacts and natural...More
A black-and-white photograph of the artist posing in a small, cramped kitchen, looking over her shoulder. She wears a sleeveless top and dramatic eye makeup and the image is cropped to include dishes and dish detergent but cut off the top of her head.

First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA

Aug 17, 2016 – Jan 16, 2017
Coinciding with the ten-year anniversary of ICA’s move to its iconic waterfront building, this exhibition will celebrate the museum’s first decade of collecting. Drawn entirely from ICA’s collection and featuring multiple thematic...More
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ICA Teen Photography

Jul 16 – Oct 30, 2016
This installation features new works made by Boston-area teens in the ICA’s nationally recognized Teen Programs. Throughout the school year, participants in the museum’s rigorous digital photography courses learned to use museum-issued...More
Installation view of Nalini Malani “In Search of Vanished Blood”

Nalini Malani: In Search of Vanished Blood

Jun 29 – Oct 16, 2016
Nalini Malani (b. 1946, Karachi) is India’s foremost video and installation artist and a committed activist for women’s rights. Currently living and working in Mumbai, Malani came to India as a refugee during the 1947 partition of India...More
Installation view of Liz Deschenes exhibition

Liz Deschenes

Jun 29 – Oct 16, 2016
Deschenes (b. 1966, Boston), is known for her lushly beautiful and meditative work in photography and sculpture, and since the early 1990s has produced a singular and influential body of work that probes the relationship between the mechanics of...More
Ugo Rondinone, MOONRISE sculptures

Ugo Rondinone: Moonrise Sculptures

May 17 – Sep 11, 2016
Best known for his large-scale sculptures and installations, Ugo Rondinone (born 1964, Brunnen, Switzerland) works in a diverse range of media, including drawing, painting, photography, and video. Rondinone’s series Moonrise— his first...More
Geoffrey Farmer, The Surgeon and the Photographer,

Geoffrey Farmer

Apr 13 – Jul 17, 2016
Geoffrey Farmer (b. 1967, Vancouver) is best known for his installations and large-scale, sculptural photo collages. This immersive survey of the artist’s recent major “paper works” presents room-sized installations composed of...More
Walid Raad, We decided to let them say “we are convinced” twice. It was more convincing this way, 1982/2004

Walid Raad

Feb 24 – May 30, 2016
This exhibition will be the first comprehensive North American museum survey of the internationally recognized artist Walid Raad (b. 1967, Lebanon), whose work in photography, video, sculpture, and performance in the last 25 years investigates the...More

2015

Diane Simpson, Formal Wear

Diane Simpson

Dec 16, 2015 – Mar 27, 2016
Chicago-based artist Diane Simpson’s (b. 1935, Joliet, Illinois) elegantly constructed sculptures evolve from a diverse range of materials, clothing, and architectural sources. While elements of her creations appear to effortlessly hang and...More
Installation view, Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, and Hesam Rahmanian: The Birthday Party, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 2015

Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, and Hesam Rahmanian: The Birthday Party

Dec 16, 2015 – Mar 27, 2016
Ramin Haerizadeh (b. Tehran, 1975), Rokni Haerizadeh (b. Tehran, 1978), and Hesam Rahmanian (b. Knoxville, 1980) live and work communally in a shared house in Dubai. The three Iranian artists—two brothers and their childhood friend—...More
Willem de Kooning, Asheville, 1948

Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957

Oct 10, 2015 – Jan 24, 2016
Leap Before You Look is the first comprehensive museum exhibition on the subject of Black Mountain College to take place in the United States.More
A framed black-and-white photograph of bare feet walking on a dirty sidewalk with boots tied to the ankles, propped on a wooden floor and leaned against a white wall.

Mona Hatoum

Aug 26 – Nov 29, 2015
Over the past three decades, Lebanese-born Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum (b. 1952, Beirut) has explored the fine line between the familiar and the uncanny in her visceral body of work. Through the juxtaposition of contradictory materials, changes...More
Erin Shirreff

Erin Shirreff

Aug 26 – Nov 29, 2015
Working across media, with a focus on material and the analogue, Brooklyn artist Erin Shirreff (b. 1975, Kelowna, British Columbia) explores the intertwined relationship between sculpture and photography. Covering several years of the emerging...More
A video still of a stack of sugar cubes covered in dark oil on a silver plate.

Transcending Material: ICA Collection

Jul 23, 2015 – Jul 17, 2016
Sculpture today is an expansive medium that includes a range of phenomena, forms, techniques, and materials; the category includes discrete objects, installations, staged video displays, and even performance. This display of collection works brings...More
Ethan Murrow: Seastead.

Ethan Murrow: Seastead

Jul 11, 2015 – Nov 27, 2016
In the nine years since the ICA opened on the waterfront, curators have invited a series of leading contemporary artists to propose and realize monumental, site-specific works on the museum’s sprawling Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall. In...More
Arlene Shechet: All at Once

Arlene Shechet: All at Once

Jun 10 – Sep 7, 2015
Arlene Shechet’s remarkable body of work—including, most recently, mash-ups of functional objects and whimsical figurines—shows an artist at the top of her form.More
Meleko Mokgosi, Democratic Intuition, Exordium, 2013–present

Meleko Mokgosi: Democratic Intuition

Apr 21 – Aug 9, 2015
African history meets Western forms of expression in the work of Meleko Mokgosi, a Botswana–born, New York–based artist who investigates Southern Africa’s past and present in monumental paintings hung close together like the frames of a filmstrip.More
Vela Phelan, Obscurus Novenas: I. Obscurus Conventus, 2015

The 2015 James and Audrey Foster Prize

Apr 21 – Aug 9, 2015
This year’s exhibition captures an artistic energy thriving today in Boston: artist collectives and performance artists.More

When the Stars Begin to Fall: Imagination and the American South

Feb 4 – May 10, 2015
When the Stars Begin to Fall brings together 35 artists of different generations and working in different mediums who share an interest in the American South as both a real and fabled place. The exhibition includes art works by self-taught, spiritually inspired, and incarcerated artists alongside projects by prominent contemporary artists such as Kara Walker, Kerry James Marshall, David Hammons, and Theaster Gates.More
Sonic Arboretum

Sonic Arboretum: Sculpture by Ian Schneller / Sound by Andrew Bird

Feb 4 – May 10, 2015
Sculptor/instrument-maker Ian Schneller and composer/violinist Andrew Bird share a fascination with sound and its interaction with the natural world. Since 2010, the duo has collaboratively produced Sonic Arboretum, an installation of over 30...More

2014

Adriana Varejão

Nov 19, 2014 – Apr 5, 2015
The ICA presents Adriana Varejão, one of Brazil’s leading artists, in her first solo museum show in the United States. Like her modernist forebearers, Varejão devours the rich and diverse culture of post- colonial, multicultural Brazil, churning it together with a strong art-historical sensibility to create work that is provocative, perceptive, and disarmingly visceral.More
A diptych of color portrait photographs of a young woman with pale skin and shoulder-length dark hair, one in a black tank top, one in military uniform.

ICA Collection: In Context

Oct 22, 2014 – Jul 19, 2015
Works from the ICA collection are brought into conversation with borrowed pieces to explore particular themes and modes of art making. Included are recently acquired works by Gilbert and George, Leslie Hewitt, and Yasumasa Morimura.More
Elsi Giauque, Élément spatial (Spatial Element), 1979

Fiber: Sculpture 1960–present

Oct 1, 2014 – Jan 4, 2015
Fiber: Sculpture 1960 – present is the first exhibition in 40 years to examine the development of abstraction and dimensionality in fiber art from the mid-twentieth century through to the present. Read moreMore

Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors

Jul 23 – Nov 2, 2014
“A generational masterpiece.” –Boston Globe A celebration of creativity, community, and friendship, The Visitors (2012) documents a 64-minute durational performance Kjartansson staged with some of his closest friends at the romantically...More

Jim Hodges: Give More Than You Take

Jun 4 – Sep 1, 2014
“Delicate art that conveys a sense that everything is precariousness, everything is fleeting, so embrace this lovely moment.” –WBUR’s The ARTery “Really beautiful, fascinating pieces.” –WGBH Jim Hodges: Give...More

Multiple Occupancy: Eleanor Antin’s “Selves”

Mar 19 – Jul 6, 2014
Eleanor Antin once declared, “I consider the usual aids to self-definition—sex, age, talent, time and space—as tyrannical limitations upon my freedom of choice.” Antin, who was born in New York in 1935, is a pioneer of...More

Nathalie Djurberg + Hans Berg: A World of Glass

Mar 19 – Jul 6, 2014
An extraordinary installation encompassing 193 polyurethane sculptures and four video projections, A World of Glass responds to the transparency, fragility, and vulnerability of the world. Swedish artist Nathalie Djurberg and Swedish composer Hans...More
Matthew Ritchie, art wall

Remanence/Remonstrance

Feb 28, 2014 – Mar 1, 2015
Remanence/Remonstrance , Ritchie’s contribution to the Fineberg Art Wall in the ICA lobby, will continue his exploration of the possibilities, limitations, and collaborative capabilities of various media. Here, painting escapes its traditional...More

William Kentridge: The Refusal of Time

Feb 5 – May 5, 2014
The Refusal of Time “reveals a great artist working at the peak of his powers.” —Boston Globe South African artist William Kentridge’s recent installations have skillfully integrated moving image, sound, theater and...More

Nick Cave

Feb 5 – May 4, 2014
“Pure delight.” —Boston Globe Nick Cave first gained widespread recognition for his “Soundsuits”: full-body outfits crafted from discarded objects found in antique shops and flea markets. Part sculpture, part costume,...More

2013

Christina Ramberg

Nov 13, 2013 – Mar 2, 2014
Christina Ramberg once wrote of watching, when she was a young girl, her mother dress for a party: “She would wear these—I guess that they are called “Merry Widow[s]”—and I can remember being stunned by how it transformed her...More

LaToya Ruby Frazier: WITNESS

Nov 13, 2013 – Mar 2, 2014
LaToya Ruby Frazier was just a teenager when she began the body of work shown in WITNESS, but even then she showed, as The New York Times has remarked, a “preternatural” maturity. Frazier’s upbringing in Braddock, Pennsylvania, was...More
An oil painting of abstracted views of two landscapes stacked on top of one another and separated by a sky-blue band.

Amy Sillman: one lump or two

Oct 3, 2013 – Jan 5, 2014
“Big, confident, and sensuous works. In front of them, you feel joy and exuberance.” — Boston Globe Painting is perhaps more vital today than any time since the heyday of the New York School in the late 1940s and 1950s, and Amy...More
LOCKE_there is no one left to blame(web).jpg

Steve Locke: there is no one left to blame

Jul 31 – Oct 27, 2013
For several years Boston-based artist Steve Locke has been making images of male heads with their tongues sticking out—a curious expression that suggests disgust or dislike as much as it does teasing or flirting. Lushly painted in a wide-...More

Mary Reid Kelley

Jul 31 – Oct 27, 2013
The first thing you’ll notice is the eyes. Whether goggled, bug-like, or comic strip–esque, the eyes are obscured. But behind Mary Reid Kelley’s signature prosthetics, the characters see—and say—very much. Composed of...More

ICA Collection: Expanding the Field of Painting

May 1, 2013 – Oct 12, 2014
Since the end of the nineteenth century, painting has gone through a repeated cycle of death and rebirth in the face of artistic innovations such as photography, conceptual art, installation, and digital-imaging technologies. At each of these...More

Jeffrey Gibson, Love Song

May 1 – Jul 14, 2013
Jeffrey Gibson’s paintings and sculptures deftly combine geometric abstraction and Minimalism with the traditional materials and motifs of his Native American heritage. Jeffrey Gibson’s paintings and sculptures deftly combine geometric...More

2013 James and Audrey Foster Prize

May 1 – Jul 14, 2013
“We congratulate this year’s James and Audrey Foster Prize winner, Katarina Burin, whose fictional archive of a Bauhaus-era female architect explores themes of absence and presence through the physical traces of human history.”...More
A monumental installation consisting of a towering sculpture made of television screens, a wall-sized mural, and a convex sculpture made of colorful framed graphics coming off the wall.

Barry McGee

Apr 6 – Sep 2, 2013
“It’s pure chaos, claiming a territory that doesn’t belong to you to state your own identity. It’s like saying, ‘I’ve got no other way to say I exist.” —BARRY McGEE Barry McGee began exhibiting his art in the late 1980s...More

Multiple Mourning Room: Mirrored

Jan 19, 2013 – Feb 1, 2014
South Korea–born artist Haegue Yang has transformed the Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall with a new, site-specific installation titled Multiple Mourning Room: Mirrored . Made in collaboration with graphic designer Manuel Raeder, the...More

2012

Mickalene Thomas

Dec 12, 2012 – Apr 7, 2013
Combining the genres of portraiture and domestic interior, Mickalene Thomas draws on art history and popular culture to create contemporary images of black female sexuality, beauty, and power. Meticulously composed of layers of bold patterns and...More

Ragnar Kjartansson: Song

Dec 12, 2012 – Apr 7, 2013
“The temporality of the videos and performances—often live, elongated, repeated, stalled, and then repeated many times over—confuses distinctions between story, character, and artwork, and plants them in the now, always to be felt in the...More

This Will Have Been: Art, Love and Politics in the 1980s

Nov 15, 2012 – Mar 3, 2013
An ambitious presentation that represents the diversity and complexity of art produced during the 1980s—from the Pictures generation to neo-expressionism, from the rise of photography to the emergence of abject art—offering a historical overview while situating our contemporary moment within the history of art of the recent past.More

Os Gemeos

Aug 1 – Nov 25, 2012
Organized by Pedro Alonzo, ICA Adjunct Curator This August the ICA presents the first solo exhibition in the United States of works by the Brazilian brothers Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo. Best known as Os Gemeos, the twins are a major force in...More

Dianna Molzan

Jul 1 – Nov 25, 2012
Organized by Jenelle Porter, ICA Senior Curator Dianna Molzan’s paintings cast in relief the very materials of painting: paint, canvas, and wooden stretcher bars. Her vibrant, easel-sized paintings alter our expectations of what a painting can...More
An installation of a mirrored glass case holdings hand-blown mirrored glass geometric objects to create an infinitely repeating mirrored visual effect.

Josiah McElheny: Some Pictures of the Infinite

Jun 22 – Oct 14, 2012
Some Pictures of the Infinite tackles cosmic questions, tracing this persistent theme in the work of Josiah McElheny. Over the past two decades, the problem of infinity has driven McElheny’s efforts to represent the unrepresentable, as the...More

ICA Collection

Mar 21, 2012 – Jan 6, 2013
The ICA collection reflects a history of exhibitions by such trailblazing photographers as Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Rineke Dijkstra, Roe Ethridge, Nan Goldin, and Catherine Opie, all of whom are known primarily for portrait-related imagery...More

Charline Von Heyl

Mar 21 – Jul 15, 2012
Charline von Heyl presents a survey of work by this compelling and important artist. Known for her vibrant, insistent, enigmatic paintings and works on paper, von Heyl demonstrates that painting is still intensely relevant in contemporary art. Von...More
Installation view, Figuring Color: Kathy Butterly, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Roy McMakin, Sue Williams

Figuring Color: Kathy Butterly, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Roy McMakin, Sue Williams

Feb 17 – May 20, 2012
Organized by Senior Curator Jenelle Porter Color is a daily experience, from the colors we wear, the subway lines we ride, the food we eat, and the flags we fly. We use colors to describe our emotions: we are green with envy, turn crimson with shame...More

2011

Isaac Julien: Ten Thousand Waves

Oct 28, 2011 – Mar 4, 2012
“Ten thousand waves takes us to the shore Home will arrive under our feet” —Wang Ping, The Great Summons Isaac Julien’s Ten Thousand Waves is an immersive, nine-screen video installation that interweaves three stories linking China...More

Jessica Jackson Hutchins

Oct 28, 2011 – Mar 4, 2012
Organized by Senior Curator Jenelle PorterJessica Jackson Hutchins (b. 1971, Chicago) transforms life into art, creating sculptures and collages from everyday objects. With the addition of ceramic and papier-mâché, her family’s...More

Dance/Draw

Oct 7, 2011 – Jan 16, 2012
This fall, we celebrate the spirit of adventure that has always defined the ICA with a season of nonstop art and performance. The centerpiece of our 75th Anniversary season is Dance/Draw, a landmark exhibition exploring the dynamic exchange taking...More

Anthropocene Extinction: A site Specific Installation by Swoon

Sep 3, 2011 – Dec 30, 2012
There’s a good chance you’ve encountered Swoon’s work before: her intricately cut, life-sized portraits have covered abandoned buildings and warehouses in cities around the world. Often found in beautiful states of decay, her wheat...More

ICA Collection

Sep 3, 2011 – Mar 4, 2012
The 2011-2012 exhibition saw a number of minor rotations throughout the year. These included: the removal of the Paul Chan’s `First Light’ for the 75th Anniversary display of donated drawings, and a timeline of the ICA’s history:...More

Eva Hesse Studiowork

Jul 20 – Oct 10, 2011
“My interest is in finding my own way.” —Eva Hesse, 1970 American artist Eva Hesse (1936–1970) played a central role in the transformation of sculpture that took place in the 1960s. In addition to her large-scale sculptures, over the...More

Leslie Hewitt

Jul 20 – Oct 10, 2011
Leslie Hewitt explores the role of photography in recapturing the past. She is interested in how much we rely on images to provide memories of personal experience, how collective memory of past events is shaped and preserved, and in how the two...More

Catherine Opie: Empty and Full

Apr 15 – Sep 5, 2011
“A timely exhibition…frames questions about the most basic human values.” One of the defining artists of her generation, Catherine Opie is known for her portraits and landscapes. In this exhibition, Opie’s photographs explore the...More

The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl

Apr 15 – Sep 5, 2011
Seemingly obsolete in today’s era of MP3s and iTunes, vinyl is experiencing a significant resurgence, and not just among collectors and audio purists—records and record players are increasingly popular as vehicles of expression for...More

Gabriel Kuri: Nobody needs to know the price of your Saab

Feb 2 – Jul 4, 2011
Using familiar materials such as receipts, newspaper, band soaps, and plastic bags, Gabriel Kuri focuses our attention on contemporary consumer culture and the circulation of money, information, and energy in both our global economy and in our day-...More

2010

Mark Bradford

Nov 19, 2010 – Mar 13, 2011
“It’s about…tracing the ghost of cities past. It’s the pulling off of a layer and finding another underneath.” — Mark Bradford Through his collaged paintings, sculptures, videos, and installations, Mark Bradford...More

2010 James and Audrey Foster Prize

Sep 22, 2010 – Jan 17, 2011
Nine Boston-area artists have been selected for the ICA’s biennial award and exhibition program From large-scale photographs of the Peruvian Amazon to experimental film to installations inspired by 17th-century frescoes, the artists selected...More

ICA Collection 5

Aug 4, 2010 – Aug 14, 2011

Charles LeDray: workworkworkworkwork

Jul 16 – Oct 17, 2010
For over 20 years, New York-based artist Charles LeDray has created handmade sculptures in stitched fabric, carved bone, and wheel-thrown clay. LeDray painstakingly fashions smaller-than-life formal suits, embroidered patches, ties, and hats, as...More

Francesca DiMattio

Jul 3, 2010 – Aug 14, 2011
DiMattio’s dizzying, perspective-defying paintings weave together disparate objects—from construction cranes to disco balls—in a tangled web. The New York-based painter combines imagery from a wide range of architectural,...More

Dr. Lakra

Apr 14 – Sep 6, 2010
Discover the playful and provocative works of this artist and accomplished tattooist Jerónimo López Ramírez, also known as Dr. Lakra, is an renowned tattoo artist who lives and works in Oaxaca, Mexico. Under his pseudonym,...More

Roni Horn aka Roni Horn

Feb 19 – Jun 13, 2010
Using materials such as pure pigment, gold, and glass and images inspired by nature and literature, Horn’s often gorgeous works explore notions of identity, perception, and place. The most comprehensive survey of the American artist’s...More

2009

Momentum 15: R.H. Quaytman

Nov 18, 2009 – Mar 28, 2010
Exhibition Guide , Chapter 15 Boston-born artist R.H. Quaytman incorporates optical abstractions, silkscreened photographs, diamond dust layers, and hand-painted trompe l’oeil elements into her works. Using these diverse techniques, she weaves...More

Krzysztof Wodiczko…Out of Here: the Veterans Project

Nov 4, 2009 – Mar 28, 2010
…OUT OF HERE: The Veterans Projec t is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art. The project is also made possible through the support of the Nimoy Foundation...More

Damian Ortega: Do it Yourself

Sep 18, 2009 – Jan 18, 2010
Damián Ortega is known for taking things apart and putting them back together again Born in 1967 in Mexico City, Ortega is one of the most prominent artists of the new Mexican generation. This exhibition, the first-ever survey of Ortega...More

ICA Collection: In the Making

Jul 29, 2009 – Jul 18, 2010
Each year, since its debut in 2006, the ICA Collection is reinstalled to present new works and new themes. This fourth exhibition, In the Making , marks the Collection’s ongoing growth with a focus on artists’ process and materials in...More

Momentum 14: Sentimental Disappointment

Jul 29 – Nov 1, 2009
Los Angeles–based artist Rodney McMillian creates sculptures, videos, and paintings, often based on found objects or elaborately constructed forms. Formally striking and emotionally charged, their poetic force is often sharpened by an...More

Acting Out: Social Experiments in Video

Mar 18 – Oct 18, 2009
Five contemporary artists capture the impromptu actions of ordinary people—to surprisingly powerful effect The five contemporary artists in Acting Out invite real people—non-actors—to be taped participating in these varied...More

Momentum 13: Eileen Quinlan: My eyes can only look at you

Mar 18 – Jul 12, 2009
The photograph has often been described as a transparent window into a frozen moment. For Eileen Quinlan it is not a window but a mirror—reflecting our tendency to see even constructed images as truth when delivered by the camera. Fascinated...More

Shepard Fairey

Feb 6 – Aug 16, 2009
The first museum survey of one of the most influential street artists of our time From humble beginnings as a defiant, skateboard-obsessed art student pasting homemade stickers, Shepard Fairey has developed into one of the most influential street...More

2008

Momentum 12: Gerard Byrne: Lying in Wait

Nov 12, 2008 – Mar 1, 2009
Byrne’s work blurs the lines between past and present, fiction and documentary Gerard Byrne’s multimedia practice invites us to consider contemporary culture through the filter of the recent past. His work references a wide range of...More

The 2008 James and Audrey Foster prize

Nov 12, 2008 – Mar 1, 2009
Four early-career artists making an impact in Greater Boston and beyond These artists, while presenting vastly different views of the world around us in a variety of media, all share a confident artistic approach—a sign of breakthroughs to...More

Ugo Rondinone

Oct 28, 2008 – Jan 3, 2010
Rondinone’s work combines an irreverent pop sensibility with a deeply introspective tone. Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone is creating the third installation of the Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall. Rondinone will enliven the ICA lobby with a...More

Tara Donovan

Oct 10, 2008 – Jan 4, 2009
In the artist’s hands, common, mass-produced items—toothpicks, buttons, drinking straws—become captivating sculptures. For over a decade, American sculptor Tara Donovan has transformed huge volumes of everyday items into stunning...More

ICA Collection: Portrait of a Museum

Jul 30, 2008 – Jul 12, 2009
Portrait of a Museum Established in 1936, the ICA had a long history of exhibiting, but not collecting, the work of notable artists working to push the boundaries of contemporary art. Now looking ahead, the museum has begun to acquire works by...More

Momentum 11: Nicholas Hlobo

Jul 30 – Oct 26, 2008
Using material as metaphor, Hlobo blends innovation with tradition, probing with healing, and irreverence with respect. Nicholas Hlobo creates works on paper, sculptures, and performances that harness the associative potential of materials, such as...More
Anish Kapoor, S-Curve, 2008

Anish Kapoor: Past, Present, Future

May 30 – Sep 7, 2008
The sculptor’s thrilling and seductive work suggests a world beyond our grasp Anish Kapoor: Past, Present, Future assembles 14 works made since 1980, a period in which Kapoor’s sculptures and installations have grown increasingly...More

Street Level: Mark Bradford, William Cordova, Robin Rhode

Mar 19 – Oct 19, 2008
For these artists, city streets act as fluid, living sources of inspiration. Street Level presents recent work by three promising artists whose works draw directly from street culture: Mark Bradford (Los Angeles), William Cordova (Lima, Miami, New...More

Momentum 10: Rajani Shettar

Mar 19 – Jul 13, 2008
Sun-sneezers blow light bubbles Born in Bangalore, India, where she lives and works, Ranjani Shettar creates delicate sculptural installations that deftly blend references to the natural and the man-made, the landscape and the urbanscape. Her...More

The World as a Stage

Feb 1 – Apr 27, 2008
In works that are more interdisciplinary, more interactive, and more kinetic than ever before, 16 international artists reinterpret traditional notions of spectacle, performance, and the gallery space. The World as a Stage —the title inspired...More

2007

Dave Muller

Nov 14, 2007 – Oct 12, 2008
As Below, So Above The Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall will transform for the first time since the museum’s opening with a new work by Los Angeles-based artist Dave Muller. Entitled As Below, So Above , Muller’s first project in...More

Momentum 9: Kader Attia: Sleeping from Memory

Nov 14, 2007 – Mar 2, 2008
“Human beings create things, but emptiness gives them meaning.” This quotation from Chinese philosopher Lao Tzeo is at the core of Kader Attia’s new work for Momentum 9 , the artist’s first solo exhibition in the U.S. The French-Algerian...More

Design Life Now

Sep 28, 2007 – Jan 6, 2008
This large-scale exhibition of innovative contemporary American design is part of an ongoing series that presents the best work from the prior three years in product design, architecture, furniture, film, graphics, new technologies, animation,...More

ICA Collection: Accumulations

Jul 25, 2007 – Jul 13, 2008
More than the sum of their parts… As the ICA collection continues to grow, potential connections with our exhibitions expand even further. Highlighting the museum’s latest acquisitions, this new installation takes the significance of...More

Momentum 8: Dave McKenzie

Jul 25 – Oct 28, 2007
In Present Tense , the artist considers the possibilities, limits, and consequences of self-transformation. New York-based artist Dave McKenzie works in a variety of media—sculpture, video, painting, and performance. His work takes a playful...More

Art on the Harbor Islands

Jun 23 – Oct 8, 2007
Art on the Harbor Islands was a multi-sensory discovery of the Boston Harbor Island’s remarkable resources—water and sky, sand and city, historic sites and new trails, all just a ferry ride from the heart of Boston. This national park...More

Philip-Lorca diCorcia

Jun 1 – Sep 3, 2007
Philip-Lorca diCorcia is among the most influential and innovative photographers of the past thirty years. Bringing together 125 photographs made from the late-1970s to the present, including selections from all of his distinct series, this...More
Installation view, Bourgeois in Boston, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, 2007–08.

Bourgeois In Boston

Mar 28, 2007 – Mar 2, 2008
Spanning six decades, Bourgeois in Bostonbrings together sculptures, prints, drawings, and a rare, early painting, all lent from area museums and private collections. In the sixty years since her first solo exhibition, Louise Bourgeois has become...More

Momentum 7: Misaki Kawai

Mar 28 – Jul 8, 2007
Space and time collide as Kawai blends a futuristic space community, a 1960s hippie commune, and a surrealist fantasia. Misaki Kawai’s whimsical installations are created from papier-mâché, wood, fabric, and other low-tech, “...More

2006

Chiho Aoshima: The Divine Gas

Dec 10, 2006 – Dec 28, 2007
An elegant and energetic fusion of opposing forces, The Divine Gas invites viewers into Aoshima’s fantastical daydream. Chiho Aoshima, a Tokyo-born, largely self-taught artist, is known for digitally-rendered drawings, animations, sculptures,...More

Permanent Collection

Dec 10, 2006 – Jul 8, 2007
In 2000, as the ICA embarked on preparations for a new building, the Board of Trustees voted to become a collecting institution. It was a historic moment for the museum, which had concentrated on temporary exhibitions since its founding in 1936. The...More

ICA Collection: Super Vision

Dec 10, 2006 – Apr 29, 2007
Superhuman vision, once the stuff of comic books and cartoons, is no longer a fantasy. New technologies have pushed the limits of the visible world, allowing us to see almost anything—from the elemental particles of matter to the far reaches...More

The 2006 James and Audrey Foster Prize

Dec 10, 2006 – Mar 11, 2007
Established in 1999 as the ICA Artist Prize, The James and Audrey Foster Prize recognizes Boston artists whose work demonstrates adventurousness, conceptual strength, and skillful execution. Sheila Gallagher, Jane D. Marsching, Kelly Sherman, and...More

Momentum 6: Sergio Vega

Dec 10, 2006 – Mar 11, 2007
Tropicalounge tells a complex tale layered with history, fantasy, philosophy, and the experience of everyday life in Brazil. Sergio Vega is the sixth artist to be featured in Momentum, an exhibition devoted to new developments in contemporary art...More

OLDER

ICA/Vita Brevis Project: Julian Opie

Oct 6, 2005 – Oct 31, 2006
Opie’s figures appear to walk endlessly 24 hours a day with mesmerizing ease. October 6, 2005 — October 31, 2006 For the 8th Annual ICA/Vita Brevis Project, Julian Opie, a world-renowned artist based in Great Britain, has created...More

Living in Motion: Design and Architecture for Flexible Dwelling

Feb 1 – May 7, 2006
Featuring work by such noted designers as Isamu Noguchi, Marcel Breuer, Charles and Ray Eames, and Philippe Starck, among many others, Living in Motion: Design and Architecture for Flexible Dwelling brings together over 150 objects, as well as films...More

Thomas Hirschhorn: Utopia, Utopia = One World, One War, One Army, One Dress

Sep 21, 2005 – Jan 16, 2006
In the past decade Thomas Hirschhorn has emerged as one of the most provocative, ambitious, and inventive figures in contemporary art. He is known for energetic sculptural installations that reference philosophy, politics, globalization, and pop...More

Momentum 5: Paul Chan

Sep 21, 2005 – Jan 16, 2006
Trained in film and video, Chan has achieved much recent acclaim for a series of projected digital animations that blend a cartoon style similar to South Park or The Simpsons with deep moral reflections on politics and the war in Iraq. The critic...More

ICA/Vita Brevis, Jerry Beck: The Secret Ark of Icon Park

Jul 2 – Oct 10, 2005
Jerry Beck, the fifth artist-in-residence at Boston National Park, is creating a new outdoor exhibition at the Charlestown Navy Yard entitled The Secret Ark of Icon Park. Situated among historic ships like the USS Constitution, Beck’s work...More

Getting Emotional

May 18 – Sep 5, 2005
Getting Emotional used the exhibition format to ask a series of timely, provocative, conceptual and cross-cutting questions about emotion in contemporary art. In Getting Emotional , these exhibition strategies included offering new interpretations...More

Momentum 4: Roe Etheridge

May 18 – Sep 5, 2005
New York-based photographer Roe Ethridge is the fourth artist featured in the Momentum series. Ethridge’s work brings a contemporary sensibility informed by fashion and advertising to traditional genres of photography such as landscape,...More

Momentum 3: Kanishka Raja

Jan 1 – May 1, 2005
Raja paints dizzying interior landscapes that blend a hard-edge illustrational style with Op art patterning, Indian miniaturist detail, and American pop references. He is the 2004 Digitas/ICA Artist Prize winner.More

Momentum 2: Lucy McKenzie

Sep 22, 2004 – Jan 2, 2005
Scottish artist Lucy McKenzie is the second artist featured in the ICA’s Momentum series. McKenzie’s sophisticated and diverse body of work—which includes paintings, performances, drawings, photographs, and muralst—has...More

Boris Mikhailov: A Retrospective

Sep 22, 2004 – Jan 2, 2005
Boris Mikhailov’s images, captured over more than 35 years, brought to life one of the most tumultuous chapters of the 20th century: the height, decline, and fall of the Soviet Union and its disturbing aftermath. Yet as they charted this...More

Kai Althoff: Kai kein Respekt (Kai no respect)

May 26 – Sep 6, 2004
Kai Althoff has emerged as one of the most compelling figures in contemporary art. Through a multi-faceted practice, Althoff has created imaginative worlds of thematic complexity and emotional resonance. This exhibition, the first museum survey of...More

Momentum 1: Carol Bove

May 26 – Sep 6, 2004
Momentum, a new series of exhibitions at the ICA focusing on significant new work by emerging artists form the United States and around the world, launches with the solo U.S. museum debut of New York-based artist Carol Bove. Bove’s portraits...More

ICA/Vita Brevis Project: Ellen Band: Portal of Prayer

Mar 2 – Jun 5, 2004
Portal of Prayer investigated the sonic properties of prayer in the first completely audio-based work commissioned by ICA/Vita Brevis. It was a transporting blend of prayer and sacred music culled from many traditions. Band visited and worked with...More

Made in Mexico

Jan 21 – May 9, 2004
Made in Mexico drew together a disparate group of artists under the umbrella of a national framework at a moment when larger, socio-political, and economic powers are breaking down borders between countries and cultures. While the exhibition drew...More

Splat Boom Pow! Influence of Cartoons in Contemporary Art

Sep 17, 2003 – Jan 4, 2004
Splat Boom Pow! traced the influence of cartoon drawings and animation in the mass media—comic books, cartoons, newspapers, movies, television—on the fine arts. The exhibition examined the roots of fascination with these works, which...More

2003 ICA Artist Prize: Douglas Weathersby/Environmental Services

Sep 17, 2003 – Jan 4, 2004
In recognition of the extraordinary development in his work over the last year, the ICA awarded its annual Artist Prize to this Boston-area artist. Weathersby has embarked on a creative enterprise that combines site-specific installation art with a...More

Pulse: Art, Healing, and Transformation

May 14 – Aug 31, 2003
Current intellectual debates in science, philosophy, politics, and culture are grappling with new approaches to healing and their social and moral implications as well as their practical application. Medical advances in understanding the mind-body...More

ICA/Vita Brevis Projects

May 1 – May 31, 2003

Carsten Holler: Half Fiction

Jan 22 – Apr 27, 2003
For the exhibition Half Fiction at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Carsten Holler developed his investigation of doubts, uncertainty, and perplexity in what was first solo exhibition in a U.S. museum. Holler has been shaking the foundations of...More

2002 ICA Artist Prize: Alice Swinden Carter

Sep 18, 2002 – Jan 1, 2003
Alice Swinden Carter, known for her sculptures made out of industrially manufactured materials, was the 2002 recipient of the ICA Artist Prize. Made from steel, glass, aluminum, acrylic and wood, Swinden Carter’s work references chairs,...More

Artists Imagine Architecture

May 22 – Sep 2, 2002
Artists Imagine Architecture asked the question of why so many artists are fascinated by the architectural model. As (former) Chief Curator Jessica Morgan pointed out in her essay, at a time when architects were increasingly moving away from the...More

2001 ICA Artist Prize: Taylor Davis

May 22 – Sep 2, 2002
Taylor Davis, known for her minimalist plywood sculptures and installations, was the 2001 recipient of the ICA Artist’s Prize. Davis work draws on a unique combination of a minimalist tradition of American sculpture, represented by artists...More

Chic Clicks: Creativity and Commerce in Contemporary Fashion Photography

Jan 23 – May 5, 2002

Ellen Gallagher – Watery Ecstatic

Oct 17 – Dec 31, 2001

ICA/ Vita Brevis: Michael Dowling and Laura Baring Gould, Conspire

Jun 1 – Oct 14, 2001
A series of meeting houses in the Charlestown Navy Yard, African Meeting House, Old South Meeting House, Paul Revere House, and Copp’s Hill Burying Ground honoring the role these sites played during the American Revolution and Abolition.More

Nikki S. Lee: Projects

Jul 18 – Sep 30, 2001

The Social Scene: The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Photography Collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Jul 18 – Sep 10, 2001

Rineke Dijkstra: Portraits

Apr 18 – Jul 2, 2001
For the first time, U.S. audiences had the opportunity to view a representative body of Dijkstra’s work and experience the stark isolation of the artist’s subjects and familiar awkwardness of their poses. Dijkstra’s photographs are...More

ICA Artist: Laylah Ali

Apr 18 – Jul 2, 2001
Ali’s uniquely interrogative drawings address issues of race and power within contemporary culture but do so through the apparently simple form of cartoon-style gouache and ink drawings. She constructs narratives that at first seem to be in...More

Marlene Dumas: One Hundred Models and Endless Rejects

Apr 18 – Jul 1, 2001
The exhibition brought together two series of drawings, One Hundred Modelsand Endless Rejects, along with several of Dumas’s newest drawings. Confronting the viewer with questions of beauty, representation, discrimination and modes of artistic...More

Olafur Eliasson: Your only real thing is time

Jan 24 – Apr 1, 2001
By isolating organic, ephemeral materials such as water, ice, sunlight, and wind within the spatial and architectural parameters of an exhibition space, Olafur Eliasson creates sublime installation that explore the human perception of natural...More

Customized: Art Inspired by Hot Rods, Low Riders and American Car Culture

Oct 24 – Dec 31, 2000
The hot rod and custom car are symbols of America’s love affair with the automobile, and for decades they have provided a creative outlet for those fascinated with the speed, noise and beauty of these machines. Contemporary artists of the past...More

From a Distance: Approaching Landscape

Jul 19 – Oct 8, 2000

ICA/Vita Brevis: Sheila Gallagher, Genealogy of a Champagne Burst

Apr 17 – Sep 24, 2000

ICA/Vita Brevis: Christopher Frost, Pumphouse

Apr 17 – Sep 24, 2000

ICA/Vita Brevis: Art on the Emerald Necklace

Jul 1 – Aug 20, 2000
This exhibition was the third project of ICA/Vita Brevis, the ICA’s program of temporary public art. Artists’ works were installed and performed throughout The Emerald Necklace, Boston’s system of nine parks and green-ways designed...More

Marijke van Warmerdam: 7 Thoughts

Apr 26 – Jul 2, 2000
7 Thoughts , the first U.S. museum exhibition of work by the Dutch artist, Marijke van Warmerdam, included four projected film works from the five years prior and a group of installation, sculpture, and printed works. Van Warmerdam’s...More

Video via Venice: Highlights from the Biennale

Apr 26 – Jul 2, 2000
Reflecting the predominance and strength of video in the 1999 Venice Biennale, the ICA brought together four of the most poignant, innovative and striking works from this international event. Included in the exhibition were Finnish film and video...More

Cornelia Parker

Feb 3 – Apr 9, 2000
Cornelia Parker’s installations, slide projections, sculptures and photograms consist of “loaded” found objects with a conceptual twist, broaching such topics as destruction and creation, science and religion, gravity and...More