New: ICA Boston Magazine WinSpr07

winter/spring 2007 Super Vision / What New Is / Mark Morris World Premiere / The James and Audrey Foster Prize / Curators’ Picks

new

the magazine of the i n s t i t u t e o f c o n t e m p o r a ry a r t / b o s to n

from the director Come see for yourself

Dear Members and Friends, Stepping inside the ICA for the first time is a remarkable architectural experience.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro took familiar places—the city, the harbor, the art museum itself—and made them unfamiliar with dynamic spaces and carefully devised views.

That is why Super Vision, our major inaugural exhibition, is such a perfect compliment to the space. You can never quite believe your eyes as these works appear to transform before us, demanding that we not only look closer, but constantly reevaluate what we think we see.

Can the light-filled space of James Turrell’s New Light actually extend as far as it seems to? Does the tangle of images in Jeff Koons’s Olive Oyl really exist on just a single, two-dimensional surface? Why is Mona Hatoum’s video of the body’s interior—something that is common to every one of us—so unsettling? Truly understanding these works requires that you not only look, but move around and through them, and reconsider them from every perspective.

Consider the ICA’s transformation. It goes beyond our breathtaking new building, with expanded and more eclectic exhibitions, the addition of performing arts, and a new permanent collection that lets visitors return to see favorite works again and again. Our staff has grown 118.8% in the last year. Our membership has increased more than six-fold in that time. Our education programs can accommodate more than twice as many young people, and a new ICA Store, Water Café, and new series like What New Is help create a richer, more diverse museum experience.

All of this growth should be evident as you explore the pages of this premiere issue of our redesigned magazine, New. We hope that it provides an overview of all that we have to offer and takes you deeper inside the ICA and the world of contemporary art, where you’ll hear from artists, curators, teens, and more.

Finally, I’d like to thank you for helping us to surpass our $62 million goal for the Campaign for the New ICA. We are deeply grateful to all of the individuals, corporations, foundations, and government agencies who joined with us to build the new museum. Over 770 gifts were received from more than 20 states, including 22 gifts of more than $1 million. It is this kind of leadership, generosity, and vision that made our transformation possible.

Our new museum is like a work from Super Vision, you just have to see it to fully experience its beauty, complexity, challenges, and surprises. Welcome to the new ICA. All the best,

Jill Medvedow Director

Jill Medvedow photo: Mitch Epstein / Jeff Koons, Olive Oyl (detail), 2003. Courtesy of the artist. © Jeff Koons.

2·on view

And you thought the building was something to see

Permanent Collection Ongoing The new permanent collection, the first in our 70-year history, comprises work by artists with a significant connection to the museum. You’ll recognize works from some of the ICA’s best exhibitions, like Cornelia Parker’s Hanging Fire (Suspected Arson) from her 2000 solo show, Paul Chan’s 1st Light, created for his 2005 Momentum exhibition, and Mona Hatoum’s Pom Pom City from Made in Mexico. A record of the ICA’s groundbreaking exhibitions as well as an introduction to today’s art, the collection continues to grow steadily with work by artists who are emerging as today’s most influential creative minds.

One of the most stunning pieces in the Super Vision exhibition will take

up permanent residence at the ICA. Josiah McElheny’s Czech Modernism Mirrored and Reflected Infinitely embodies the double-edged sword of contemporary vision that the exhibition explores. The reflection of glass decanters bounces against mirrored surfaces, and then back again, and again, so that they appear to recede into endless space. Enticing our senses but denying our presence—McElheny uses one-way glass to block the viewer’s reflection—the sculpture hints at the dangers of infinite absolutes.

The only work in the exhibition by a Boston-born artist, the piece represents the culmination of several threads of McElheny’s work. Having apprenticed with master glassblowers in England, Sweden, and the United States, McElheny employs this traditional craft in works that explore Modernism and the idea of the 20th century as the era of self-reflection. Czech Modernism

Mirrored and Reflected Infinitely takes its place among other sculptures in the collection that deftly combine craftsmanship and concept.

Take the permanent collection audio tour, with commentary from artists, curators, and collectors. Download it now at www.icaboston.org.

Josiah McElheny, Czech Modernism Mirrored and Reflected Infinitely, 2005. The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Photo: Tom Van Eynde. Courtesy Donald Young Gallery, Chicago Laylah Ali, Untitled (Greenheads), 1998.

Promised gift of Barbara Lee

Momentum 6: Sergio Vega December 10, 2006 – March 11, 2007 Argentina-born, Florida–based artist Sergio Vega is known for an ongoing mixed-media project entitled Paradise in the New World, exploring the mythologies of paradise underlying the culture and history of Brazil. For Momentum 6, Vega presents Tropicalounge, a room-scale installation inspired by a 17th-century colonial manuscript purporting to map the “New Eden” of South America.

Seeking to discover this place for himself, Vega arrived in Mato Grosso, a region comprised of rainforests, swamps, mountains, archaeological sites, indigenous reservations, rural towns, shanty-towns, and cities. The history, culture, and mythology of this area—or rather, his imagination of them—inspire Tropicalounge, a sort of travel diary exploring the site through installation, sculpture, photography, video, and text.

Vega combines elements of the Tropicalounge that premiered at the 2005 Venice Biennale—brightly colored furniture, potted palms, photographs,

architectural models, and sculpture, including a parrot-shaped payphone— with work made especially for the ICA. While adopting the role of anthropologist or ethnographer, Vega acknowledges the fantasy and mythology that affects our understanding of a foreign place, especially one imagined as “paradise found.”

The 2006–2007 Momentum series is sponsored by Momentum 6: Sergio Vega is supported

by Group Momentum: Nick Adams, Janice and Mickey Cartin, Corinne and Tim Ferguson, Sue and Nat Jeppson, Barbara Lee, Carol and Sol LeWitt, and Marlene and David Persky.

Also on view:

Super Vision (see page 4) The James and Audrey Foster Prize (see page 22)

Sergio Vega, Tropicalounge, installation view.

Courtesy of the artist Chiho Aoshima, The Divine Gas (detail), 2006.

Courtesy Blum & Poe, Los Angeles / Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris and Miami. Installed at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston ©2006 Chiho Aoshima/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall: Chiho Aoshima December 10, 2006 – October 28, 2007 Tokyo-based artist Chiho Aoshima has designed a stunning new mural as the inaugural work for the Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall. Aoshima got her start in the art world by working in Takashi Murakami’s Warhol-inspired art factory, Kaikai Kiki, where she currently supervises his design staff. She has become well known for her mind-bending murals, which she draws on a Macintosh G4 and prints on vinyl.

For the ICA, Aoshima presents The Divine Gas, a mesmerizing picture of a doe-eyed girl with flowing hair whose body runs the length of the wall, dwarfing the trees and flowers around her.

The girl seems awe-struck, gazing with wonder at her lush surroundings, yet she is also physically part of the scenery—her bottom rises as if a foothill, while the flowing strands of her hair suggest waves or seaweed, echoing the watery landscape outside the museum.

With its blend of darkness and light, fantasy and humor, Aoshima’s mural delights visitors from the moment they enter the ICA. Funding for The Divine Gas has been provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation and The Japan Foundation New York Office.

NEW: THE MAGAZINE OF THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART/BOSTON · winter/spring 2007

4·super vision

See the impossible; no X-ray specs required

“Our world is one of non-stop spectacle and special effects.”

—Nicholas Baume, Chief Curator

X-ray vision, telescopic vision, microscopic vision, surveillance—they conjure thoughts of superheroes, comic book plots, and science fiction storylines. But the reality is, what we can see today does approach superhuman levels. New technologies allow us to see almost anything and present the possibility that we too can be observed. Vision has been radically transformed in ways that have profound implications for advanced science, global politics, and everyday life. Super Vision invites you to experience this phenomenon through the work of 27 international artists who are defining the contemporary visual experience. Will what you see exhilarate you, or alarm you?

Super Vision

Super Vision Audio Tour

December 10, 2006 – April 29, 2007

Go deep inside the exhibition with this audio tour featuring an introduction by Chief Curator Nicholas Baume, insights from exhibiting artists Mona Hatoum, Runa Islam, Josiah McElheny, and Tam Van Tran, and commentary from ICA staff. Rent an iPod with the Super Vision audio tour from the ICA admissions desk or download it to your own player from our website.

Chantal Akerman, Ricci Albenda, Tony Cragg, Harold Edgerton, Harun Farocki, Noriko Furunishi, Jack Goldstein, Andreas Gursky, Mona Hatoum, Runa Islam, Anish Kapoor, Jeff Koons, Josiah McElheny, Julie Mehretu, Albert Oehlen, Yoko Ono, Gabriel Orozco, Tony Oursler, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Bridget Riley, Ugo Rondinone, Thomas Ruff, Ed Ruscha, James Turrell, Tam Van Tran, and Jeff Wall

Tony Oursler, Eyes, 2005. Installation at Fundación Salamanca Ciudad de Cultura, Salamanca, Spain, 2005. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York Albert Oehlen, Dose (Can), 2003. Private collection. Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York.

NEW: THE MAGAZINE OF THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART/BOSTON · winter/spring 2007

In the ICA Store Super Vision catalogue

Super Vision is accompanied by a 208-page, full-color catalogue featuring essays by curator Nicholas Baume, art historian David Joselit, and McKenzie Wark, author of A Hacker Manifesto, and an interview with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Co-published with MIT Press; $34.95 ($31.46 members) Music Overheard

An audio response to Super Vision, Music Overheard is an anthology compiled by Boston-based musicians Damon Krukowski, Bhob Rainey, and Kenneth Goldsmith. Musicians and sound artists, like visual artists, are responding to the scientific and cultural changes caused by new technology— find out what are we hearing now that we couldn’t before.

Buy it in the ICA Store for $9.95 or download it as part of the Super Vision audio tour at www.icaboston.org.

Related programs

Talks & Tours p. 15 Family Programs p. 18

Major funding for Super Vision has been provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, with additional support from Etant donnés: The French-American Fund for Contemporary Art, a program of FACE, and The Cultural Services of the French Embassy.

Sigmar Polke, There Is Nothing More Real than Pictures You Can’t Get Out of Your Mind, 1998. Thea Westreich and Ethan Wagner.

Courtesy Michael Werner Gallery, New York and Cologne Jeff Wall, Concrete Ball, 2002. Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris. © Jeff Wall Bridget Riley, Pause, 1964. Private collection.

Courtesy Karsten Schubert, London

8·streb

the evel knievel of dance

“I’m trying to up thE ante” An interview with STREB’s founder and artistic director, Elizabeth Streb

MacArthur “Genius” Award-winning choreographer/daredevil Elizabeth Streb, who has pushed the limits of dance for more than 20 years, brings her heart-stopping action to the ICA’s stage in February (see p. 11). Harnessing the power of the human body and testing the laws of physics, the performances combine athleticism, fearlessness, and precision timing as dancers bounce off trampolines and dodge cement blocks. The ICA’s David Henry interviewed Streb recently about the people, places, and ideas that energize STREB’s “extreme action.”

David Henry: Tell me about

DH: Is it true you don’t like to be

some of your favorite—and maybe more unusual—places that you and your dancers have performed.

referred to as a “dance company” anymore? Why not?

Elizabeth Streb: One of the most amazing places was the Minneapolis Metrodome before a Twins vs. Yankees game, right between the pitcher’s mound and second base.

The dancers were miked, and the fans could hear every grunt. There were 20,000 people with no idea as to what they were seeing. This was a group of baseball fans—what better audience to let me know if I’m barking up the wrong tree? We also did a Seattle Sonics basketball game. At places like this you hear audible gasps at every move, so I know we are connecting.

My job as artistic director is to take a barometric reading of how audiences are responding. I need to constantly refer to a broad general public to get a read on how effective our physical language is.

ES: I think a new genre is emerging that I call “action art.” While folk dance is about being practiced, modern dance is about being watched. Modern dance is fun to do, but what makes it worth watching? Often it isn’t, except to a small group of people. I’m trying to up the ante.

DH: What is the background of your performers? How much training do they go through?

ES: Most of my tribe are trained dancers, but some are athletes. I also have someone from the circus. It is the timing that matters. Most athletes have “felt” timing but don’t have to intersect their timing with others. You never see gymnasts as a quintet!

The key training has to do with lifestyle expectations. Dancers have to understand the artist’s lifestyle. I’m looking for “action lifers,” gypsies—to be an artist, you have to be willing to

lie, steal, cheat, and live between the cracks of society. Our society does not really support the arts, so anyone who wants to do this has to be completely committed.

DH: When I visit STREB Laboratory for Action Mechanics in Brooklyn, I am always struck by the number of kids hanging around. It’s not something you often see at dance concerts. What draws them to STREB?

ES: Kids are drawn to STREB by the nature of our moves. It is organic movement—I don’t decorate or fiddle with the forces. We do what kids know about, and they recognize it. And I don’t request that they behave. Rather, I ask them to be the magnificent physical creatures that they are.

Attention families: get in on the action!

Be a part of “action art” at Extreme Paradise on Saturday, February 24, from 10 am to 4 pm. Watch STREB’s gravity-defying dancers, then attempt your own stunts on our stage. For more about ICA Play Dates, see p. 18.

NEW: THE MAGAZINE OF THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART/BOSTON · winter/spring 2007

10·performing arts

We’ve got more than just great exhibitions to thrill you

Mark Morris premieres new work at the ICA Tuesday, May 15, 7 pm Thursday, May 17, 8 pm Friday, May 18, 8 pm Saturday, May 19, 2 pm and 8 pm Sunday, May 20, 2 pm “Intensely musical, deceptively cerebral, insinuatingly sensual, fabulously funky.”

–Los Angeles Times The ICA’s premiere season of boundary-breaking music, movement, and theater culminates in a landmark performance by one of the world’s leading dance companies. See the world premiere of a new work and three

acclaimed pieces from Mark Morris Dance Group’s repertory in the intimate, stunning setting of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater.

Morris’s new work—like all of his choreography—begins with music. The piece is set to Kyle Gann’s Nude Rolling Down an Escalator, composed for the disklavier, a player piano that is digitally activated. The Argument, set to Robert Schumann’s Fünf Stücke im Volkston (Five Pieces in Folk Style), features three couples whose shifting relationships are expressed through movement.

Six dancers enact the playful geometry of Candleflowerdance as an onstage

pianist plays Stravinsky’s Serenade in A. In the powerful Grand Duo, choreographed to a composition by Lou Harrison, fourteen dancers form unique pairings as the movement builds to a “transcendent moment of power.” (The Times, U.K.)

Classical Mashup Bruce Brubaker, Haydnseek Donal Fox, Mashups in Blue

Friday, February 2, 8 pm New England Conservatory’s Bruce Brubaker and composer/DJ Nico Muhly blend original piano sonatas by Franz Joseph Haydn with live sampling and interactive computer performance.

Donal Fox’s trio performs the genredefying Mashups in Blue, inspired by Haydn, Bach, Monk, Schumann, James Brown and more.

Tickets: $25 general admission; $20 members, students, and seniors.

Thursday, February 22, 7:30 pm Friday, February 23, 8 pm Saturday, February 24, 8 pm Sunday, February 25, 2 pm

Tickets: $60 reserved seating; $50 members, students, and seniors.

The ICA’s presentation of the Mark Morris Dance Group’s new work is made possible by the Poss Family Foundation.

Mark Morris photo: Marc Royce

CRASHarts Presents Alloy Orchestra 15th Anniversary Celebration

The Eagle Thursday, February 15, 7 pm and Saturday, February 17, 8 pm Phantom of the Opera Friday, February 16, 8 pm and Sunday, February 18, 7 pm The General Saturday, February 17, 2 pm and Sunday, February 18, 2 pm Boston’s own internationally acclaimed Alloy Orchestra celebrates 15 years of creating brilliant live scores for classic silent films. The orchestra premieres its newest score for the 1927 masterpiece The Eagle, starring Rudolph Valentino. Two more favorites include Lon Chaney’s horror classic, Phantom of the Opera, and Buster Keaton’s epic comedy, The General, with original scores.

Tickets: $20 evening, $15 matinee, reserved seating

STREB STREB vs. Gravity

Intertwining the disciplines of dance, extreme sports, and Hollywood stunt work, Elizabeth Streb has created a vocabulary that combines strict precision and daring in a display of “pure movement.” Her human movement maestros explore the boundaries of gravity as they fly, fall, and hang in mid-air.

Tickets: $30 reserved seating; $27 members, students, and seniors.

Related event: Elizabeth Streb talks about the physics of dance at Boston’s Museum of Science on Tuesday, February 20, at 7 pm. For more information, call 617-723-2500 or log onto www.mos.org/art.

Special STREB Package: See the lecture, a Thursday daytime rehearsal of STREB vs. Gravity, and the Friday evening or Sunday matinee performance for $40. Call the ICA box office at 617-478-3103 for information.

Funded in part by the Expeditions program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, which receives major support from the National Endowment for the Arts and additional support from the state arts agencies of New England.

CRASHarts Presents Marc Bamuthi Joseph Scourge

Boston premiere!

Friday, March 2, 7:30 pm, postperformance Q&A Saturday, March 3, 8 pm Sunday, March 4, 2 pm Marc Bamuthi Joseph fuses hip-hop, spoken word, and live music in this powerful look at the history of his native Haiti. Scourge is a collaboration with renowned Latin jazz composer John Santos, choreographers Rennie Harris and Adia Whitaker, director Kamilah Forbes, and three young writers.

Tickets: $35 reserved seating Funded in part by the Expeditions program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, which receives major support from the National Endowment for the Arts, and additional support from the state arts agencies of New England.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph photo: Gabriella Marks

World Music/CRASHarts is the performing arts partner of the ICA

Alloy Orchestra photo: Bruce Rogovan

NEW: THE MAGAZINE OF THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART/BOSTON · winter/spring 2007

This Place is a Desert adapted and directed by Jay Scheib

Thursday, March 22, 7:30 pm Friday, March 23, 8 pm Saturday, March 24, 8 pm Sunday, March 25, 2 pm Inspired by the work of filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni, This Place is a Desert is a portrait of human love gone wrong seen in fragments—through windows, reflected in mirrors, and behind half-drawn curtains. The action of the play is projected live onto a screen above the stage as a lone cinematographer moves through the set.

Tickets: $20 reserved seating; $15 members, students, and seniors.

CRASHarts Presents 2 Foot Yard

Boston Debut!

Tuesday, March 27, 7:30 pm

CRASHarts Presents Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal / [bjm_danse] Rhythm

CRASHarts Presents Bebe Miller Company Landing/Place Boston Premiere!

Boston premiere!

Friday, March 30, 7:30 pm, postperformance Q&A Saturday, March 31, 8 pm Sunday, April 1, 2 pm

Friday, April 13, 7:30 pm, postperformance Q&A Saturday, April 14, 8 pm Sunday, April 15, 2 pm

Part ballet, part modern, part street dance, [bjm_danse] defies categorization with its delicious blend of hip, funky moves infused with infectious energy, humor, and imagination.

Rhythm features Mapa, by Brazilian choreographer Rodrigo Pederneiras, and a new work by Aszure Barton, hailed as “extraordinary” by Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Landing/Place is a new multimedia dance work that studies place and human connection within a global landscape. Miller’s hallmark rich and sensuous choreography is seen through a layering of projected images that evoke past and present time.

Digitalized motion-capture, live music, video projection and exquisite dancing explore sensory, spatial and cultural dislocation.

Tickets: $35 reserved seating

Tickets: $35 reserved seating

…but not simpler…

Curated by Tod Machover

CRASHarts Presents Ten’s the Limit

Performed by the Ying String Quartet Friday, April 6, 8 pm

Friday, April 20, 7:30 pm Saturday, April 21, 8 pm

High-tech music guru Machover creates a one-of-a-kind musical journey for the Grammy-winning Ying Quartet—including siblings Timothy and Janet on violin, Phillip on viola, and David on cello—creating a new original work and interludes that weave together music by Beethoven, Bach, Carter, Cage, Byrd, and The Beatles.

This sixth annual showcase of Greater Boston-based choreographers features BoSoma Dance Company, Emily Beattie and Mila Thigpen, Ruth Bronwen, Karl Cronin, Talya Epstein, Hannah Ramsey, Emily Randolph Silva and Dancers, and Zoé Dance. Each will perform all-new contemporary dance pieces for a maximum of ten minutes.

Tickets: $20 general admission; $15 members, seniors and students.

Tickets: $20 reserved seating

Cathy Weis Electronic Haiku: Calm as Custard

CRASHarts Presents Anna Myer and Dancers Penumbra

Friday, April 27, 8 pm Saturday, April 28, 8 pm

World Premiere!

Thursday, May 3, 7:30 pm, postperformance Q&A Friday, May 4, 7:30 pm Saturday, May 5, 7:30 pm

The Bessie Award-winning Electronic Haiku: Calm as Custard is a concoction of dance, video, and sound that asks, when technology and the human body become partners, who leads?

The dances combine high drama, slapstick, live sound collages by Steve Hamilton, and brilliant lighting effects

by Emily Stork.

Tickets: $30 reserved seating; $25 members, seniors, and students.

Penumbra brings together three different artistic disciplines with performers of different ages and races to explore the dynamic interaction that happens when opposites meet, attract, repel and change each other. A set constructed of neon lights moves through the dancers’ space as musicians perform Andy Vores’s score for two violins and cello.

Did you know?

Charter Associate members and above can purchase advance tickets for the summer season of ICAproduced performances, films, and talks—two weeks before they go on sale! Log onto www.icaboston.org for upcoming details.

Official Performing Arts Media Partner

Tickets: $35 reserved seating

2 Foot Yard blurs the boundaries between art song and pop, merging the visceral power of rock with the intimacy and warmth of chamber music. Violinist/singer-songwriter Carla Kihlstedt and her band create audaciously original yet accessible music culled from an off-kilter combination of influences.

Tickets: $25 reserved seating

NEW: THE MAGAZINE OF THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART/BOSTON · winter/spring 2007

14·film

15·talks /tours/courses

Dreams, screams, and never-before-seen

Come for a new point of view. Stay for the views.

What New Is A celebrity speaker series presenting the most creative thinkers, artists, authors, and performers—the pacesetters of contemporary culture.

WHO THE #$&% IS JACKSON POLLOCK?

by Harry Moses

Oscar Shorts

Boston Premiere!

Sunday, February 4, and Sunday, February 11, 2 pm

Log onto www.icaboston.org for upcoming details.

73-year-old former truck driver Teri Horton has bought a painting in a thrift shop for $5 which may be a real Pollock--making it worth upwards of $50 million. Follow Horton’s 15-year war with the art world as this documentary lifts the veil on how art is bought and sold in America.

Tickets: $9 general admission; $7 members, seniors, and students Antonia’s Line (1995)

by Marleen Gorris

Thursday, March 8, 3 pm and 7 pm An unexpected, funny, quirky, and ultimately beautiful tale of four generations of strong, independent women, this film blends everyday realities, magical realism, and an array of memorable characters.

Tickets: $9 general admission; $7 members, seniors, and students

March 11 and 29

2 or 3 Things I Know About Him (2005)

by Malte Ludin

Boston Premiere!

Thursday, April 19, 7 pm In this documentary, Ludin’s family grapples with the legacy of their father, a prominent Nazi executed as a war criminal in 1947. Co-presented by National Center for Jewish Film’s 10th annual film festival, Jewishfilm.2007, and the Goethe-Institut, Boston.

Tickets: $10 general admission; $8 members, students, and seniors

Zidane, a 21st-Century Portrait (2006)

by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno

Boston Premiere!

Sunday, May 6, 11 am Thursday, May 10, 7 pm Seventeen synchronized movie cameras focus on legendary halfback Zinedine Zidane during a 2005 soccer match between Real Madrid and Villarreal. Copresented with the Cultural Services of the French Consulate in Boston.

Tickets: $10 general admission; $8 members, students, and seniors Experimental Film and Video

by Leighton Pierce

Wednesday, May 23, 7 pm A longtime influence in the realm of experimental film and video, Pierce has recently moved into the museum and gallery world, with work at the 2002 Whitney Biennial and the Centre Pompidou. Co-presented with the Department of Film & Television at Boston University.

Patti Smith “On Words” Wednesday, February 21, 6:30 pm Having written songs and poems for over 30 years, Patti Smith is powerfully articulate about her vision of the world.

From her album Horses to her recent book of poetry, Augeries of Innocence, she presents her ideas with searing clarity and unnerving skill. Smith shares her views through spoken word and poetry that is vital, empowering, and independent.

Mark Morris and Richard Dyer “Creativity and Collaboration” Wednesday, March 7, 6:30 pm As a choreographer, founder of his own dance company, and director of opera, Mark Morris has worked with artists, designers, musicians, and dancers throughout his career, creating some of the most thrilling work in recent dance history. Morris and awardwinning music and arts critic Richard Dyer discuss the drive to collaborate and what makes it work.

Photo: Melodie McDaniel © 2005

Photo: Amber Darragh

Sekou Sundiata “the 51st (dream) state in the first person plural” Wednesday, April 18, 6:30 pm “If Homer were a black man born in the projects, he would be this tall, fearsome-looking poet,” writes The Village Voice’s Greg Tate. A poet who writes for print, performance, music and theater, Sundiata shares his ideas about engaging diverse community perspectives through the arts and developing his new work, the 51st (dream) state.

Tickets: $25 general admission; $20 members, seniors and students.

What New Is is sponsored by Fiduciary Trust Company.

Tickets: $9 general admission; $7 members, seniors, and students Photo: Monique Delatour

NEW: THE MAGAZINE OF THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART/BOSTON · winter/spring 2007

Uncover Thursdays Drop in for one of these free programs held in the galleries on selected Target Free Thursday Nights, and let a diverse array of speakers and performers—from artists to poets—help you see things differently.

Admission is free.

Curator’s Talk Thursday, February 1, 6:30 pm Nicholas Baume leads a tour of Super Vision, offering insights into his concept for the exhibition and the selection and installation of works.

Art Loves: Louise Bourgeois Thursday, April 5, 6:30 pm Director Jill Medvedow shares why this exhibition is important to her with a look at some of Bourgeois’s most powerful work over the past 60 years.

Sergio Vega & Marcus Santos Thursday, February 15, 6:30 pm The Momentum artist speaks about Tropicalounge, inspired by his discovery of a 17th-century text. Immerse yourself in this “new world” with AfroBrazilian drumming by Marcus Santos and a Brazilian Rum Punch cocktail in the Water Café.

Meet Misaki Kawai Thursday, April 26, 6:30 pm Discover the intricate world Kawai created for Momentum 7, and hear how the artist researches her work and why she depicts pop culture figures such as Ringo Starr.

Seen/Unseen with Aude Oliva and Dan Buchner Thursday March 1, 6:30 pm Explore the tricks of your brain with animated illusions by MIT’s Aude Oliva and hear how designers like Dan Buchner of Design Continuum go beyond conventional notions of seeing.

Words from the Walk Thursday May 3, 6:30 pm Celebrate the installation of Emily Dickinson’s poem 695 (As if the Sea should part) on the HarborWalk with readings by Gail Mazur, Robert Pinsky, Lloyd Shwartz, and Rosanna Warren.

ICA/AIGA Design Series

Courses

Design critics and practitioners examine new influences in contemporary culture through a series of talks, conversations, and forums.

These engaging, stimulating, and fun classes draw from the ICA’s architecture and exhibitions and are intended for a general adult audience. For more information or to register, call 617-478-3141.

Rick Poynor and Michael Rock “Between Art and Commerce: A Design Paradox” Wednesday, March 28, 6:30 pm Poynor, a writer on design, media, and visual culture, and Rock, founding partner and creative director of 2 x 4, and Professor of Design at Yale, explore how graphic design has questioned and challenged conventional ideas about design’s purposes and possibilities.

Debbie Millman and Antenna Design “Design Download” Wednesday, May 9, 6:30 pm Design Matters radio host Debbie Millman interviews two of design’s hottest names, Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger of Antenna Design, a firm that works with clients like Jet Blue and Nike on user-centered approaches to designing new technology.

Tickets: $12 general admission; $8 members, students, and seniors.

Misaki Kawai, Sun Park, 2003. Installation at Inman Gallery, Houston.

Artists 360: Introduction to Contemporary Art with Karen Kurczynski Thursdays, March 1 – April 5, 6 – 7:30 pm Discover six artists six different ways. Exploring one artwork in the ICA galleries each week, discern the where, what, why, when, who and how of some of today’s best art. Karen Kurczynski teaches contemporary art at Massachussetts College of Art and is a Gallery Lecturer at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Fee: $100 general admission; $80 members, students, and seniors

Free Public Tours

The ICA offers public tours of Super Vision and the ICA’s new museum on Target Free Thursday Nights at 6 pm and each Saturday and Sunday at 2 pm. Tours are free with museum admission and leave from the lobby.

Photo: Iwan Baan

Creative Recording and Mixing with Bhob Rainey Saturday, March 24, 10 am – 4 pm Create a unique musical piece with this hands-on approach to digital music editing. Using portable recorders and a slew of techniques, capture and create sounds around the ICA. With an introduction to digital mixing and effects, you’ll learn how to create sonic narratives, ambient landscapes, even lo-fi dance singles. Bhob Rainey is an acclaimed musician and sound artist who has led sound-making workshops from San Francisco to Glasgow.

Fee: $110 general admission; $90 members, students, and seniors

NEW: THE MAGAZINE OF THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART/BOSTON · winter/spring 2007

18·families

19·teens

My kid could do that?

Play Dates On the last Saturday of each month, museum admission and these fun programs are free for families—up to 2 adults accompanied by a child 12 and under.

Extreme Paradise Saturday, February 24, 10 am – 4 pm Create a vision of paradise with Boston artist Silvina Mizrahi, or watch and participate in a heart-stopping demonstration by STREB Extreme Action at 11 am.

Sightseeing at the ICA Saturday, March 31, 10 am – 4 pm Take an Absolute Vision tour of the ICA, visit Super Vision with Underground Railway Theater, and join in a dance performance by Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal at 11 am.

Taking Shape: Creating 2-D and 3-D Forms Saturday, April 28, 10 am – 4 pm Discover the work of Louise Bourgeois, draw from live models, and see your drawings come to life. Take an architectural tour of the ICA and enjoy a special participatory performance by choreographer Cathy Weis and her dancers at 11 am..

Meet. Think. Make. Repeat.

Fantastic Seaside Adventures at the ICA Saturday, May 26, 10 am – 4 pm Make a painting of Boston Harbor, tour the ICA, and create puppets in the Bank of America Art Lab. ICA Family Programs and Play Dates are made possible by support from the Boston Foundation for Architecture, The Fuller Foundation, JPMorgan Chase Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Holiday & Vacation Week Activities for Families

School’s out, so drop in for some creative family fun at the ICA. Explore today’s art with hands-on activities, building tours, performances, and films.

No prior registration necessary. Activities are free with museum admission.

Presidents’ Day, February 19, 11 am – 3 pm Vacation Week of February 20 – 23, 10 am – 3 pm Vacation Week of April 17 – 20, 10 am – 3 pm Seating is limited for performances and films on Play Dates and for Holiday & Vacation Week Activities. Tickets are free and available first-come, firstserved at the admissions desk on the day of the program. For details, please log onto www.icaboston.org.

For more information about ICA Family Programs, call 617-478-3234 or e-mail families@icaboston.org.

What has surprised you the most about the TAC? That they seem to be loose, like regular kids…It’s so much easier to be around people like me. I’m from this school [that’s] kind of small, and we treat each other like a family. That’s how the TAC is.

Free Family Guides

When you visit the ICA, grab one of our new family guides at the admissions desk. Imagine you’re an architect as you explore our new building, and open your eyes to Super Vision to see the world in new ways. The guides offer activities that engage all the senses to experience our unique building and the art inside. Appropriate for children ages 6 – 12 or younger children with adult assistance.

What has been the most fun thing the TAC has done so far?

Teen Nights. It’s a great idea to get other teens involved, for them to go somewhere on a Friday night. If that gets them off the couch and somewhere else, that’s a great idea for teens.

In the ICA Store: for Kids My Little Shaker

Adapted from Chien Tung, an ancient Chinese method of fortune telling, My Little Shaker is a children’s game full of endless surprises. Shake the colorful wooden case and one of 12 sticks pops out with a special message. My Little Shaker comes in five colors and includes a booklet of stickers. Ages 4 and up. $36 ($32.40 members) Chopstick Kids and Dinnersaurs

These colorful utensils make dinner more fun! With Chopstick Kids, available in boy or girl versions, using chopsticks is a breeze. $8 ($7.20 members) Kids will want to devour dinner with the ergonomic Spoonosaurus and Tricerafork. $14 ($12.60 members)

Get to Know Jiovani Robles, ICA Teen Arts Council A member of the TAC since December 2005, Jiovani Robles, 16, wants his fellow teens to get off the couch and start expressing themselves.

A student at the Academy of the Pacific Rim, Jiovani recently took a break from his pursuits in the visual arts, culinary arts, and theater to answer a few questions.

What work of art has made the biggestimpression on you?

When I was in third grade, I remember a painting [that] sparked me. Walking through a museum, I saw a painting of a giant eye. It was a really funky-looking painting, and I thought, ‘you know what, that’s something that I would like to do.’ Just draw and see what comes out. That’s what started it all.

What is your favorite medium?

I like sketching, because I can draw something that’s on my mind, and then afterwards, I can write whatever I feel down on paper. They sort of connect with one another, and it’s like a picture book.

What are you most looking forward to in the ICA’s new building?

The theater, where the screen goes up, and you can see the view of the water.

That is incredible. It seems so 21stcentury, it’s amazing.

What sorts of things would you like to see the TAC do in the future?

When I came to TAC, I realized that they were doing a lot of things for teens to get involved with the arts, and that’s something that I really want other people to experience.

That’s what I’ve been trying to do at my school as well…I think the TAC should get more students from other schools, who know students from other schools, so it branches out and reaches all around Boston.

NEW: THE MAGAZINE OF THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART/BOSTON · winter/spring 2007

21·picks

Get Involved!

Teen Nights February 9, March 16, and May 25, 6 – 9:30 pm Teen Nights are art happenings organized and promoted for teens by teens. Come join your peers for artist talks, karaoke, fashion shows, graffiti art, poetry readings, and more. Young people ages 14 – 18 welcome. Admission is free.

Teen Media Classes Jump into the world of new media with our new classes, held in our state-ofthe-art studio and taught by professional media artists. Log onto www. icaboston.org for details.

Cyber Identity: Web Blogging and Podcasting Thursdays, January 11 – February 15; vacation session February 20 – 23 Digital Photography and the Constructed Image Thursdays, March 8 – April 12; vacation session April 17 – 20 Video Art: The Basics of Video and Sound Design Wednesdays, February 14 – May 2 Fast Forward accelerated media program Fridays, February 23 – June 8 Screening May 25 For more information about teen programs, please contact Rosanna Flouty, Teen Programs Manager, at rflouty@ icaboston.org.

The Teen Arts Council and Teen Nights are part of The John Hancock Teen Education Program, which is made possible by significant support from John Hancock Financial Services.

Additional support is provided by the Boston Foundation for Architecture, The Clowes Fund, The Fuller Foundation, the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, The Ramsey McCluskey Family Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the William E. and Bertha E. Schrafft Charitable Trust, the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, and The Wallace Foundation.

Your source for the not-to-be-missed

What shows will you be checking out this winter?

Nicholas Baume, ICA Chief Curator

Sensorium: Embodied Experience, Technology, and Contemporary Art MIT List Visual Arts Center Part II: February 8 – April 8, 2007 This winter promises to be an exciting time for ambitious contemporary art exhibitions in Boston. With their two-part exhibition Sensorium, MIT curators Jane Farver and Bill Arning and guest curators Yuko Hasegawa and Marjory Jacobson look at how artists respond to technologies that affect the senses. Given that Super Vision is all about that most primary of the senses, I am interested in how the two exhibitions approach their interconnected themes.

Bennett Simpson, ICA Associate Curator

Thomas Chimes: Adventures in ‘Pataphysics Philadelphia Museum of Art February 27 – May 6, 2007 Chimes is one of the most important, yet under recognized artists to come out of Philadelphia since World War II. His paintings, often inspired by his literary heroes Alfred Jarry and Antonin Artaud, are eccentric, mysterious, full of ideas, and often beautiful.

Emily Moore Brouillet, Assistant Curator

Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love Walker Art Center, Minneapolis February 17 – May 13, 2007 I’m hoping to make my first visit to the newly expanded Walker Art Center to see this exhibition, the first full-scale American survey of Kara Walker’s work. Walker, perhaps one of today’s most debated artists, will present a selection of her signature silhouette pieces, as well as animations and drawings. Her work never fails to challenge, inspire, and provoke thought.

Photo: John Kennard NEW: THE MAGAZINE OF THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART/BOSTON · winter/spring 2007

23·support

Here’s to our fearless leaders

Bank of America

The Kresge Challenge— We did it!

Special thanks to a Lead Sponsor and longtime supporter of the ICA

We extend our gratitude to all those who so quickly and generously gave to the Kresge Challenge. Gifts poured in, demonstrating an inspiring display of support for the ICA. We have reported our success to the Kresge Foundation, bringing the Campaign for the New ICA to an exciting completion. We truly could not have achieved such incredible success without you, our members.

Thank you!

The ICA has consistently been on the leading edge of art in the city, thanks in large part to Bank of America, whose long-term support has been critical to our success over the past 30 years. Most recently, Bank of America strengthened its commitment to the arts in Boston by becoming lead cosponsor of the Grand Opening of the ICA and by supporting the creation of the Bank of America Art Lab on the first floor of our education center.

“We are very grateful to Bank of America—their early and consistent generosity was instrumental to our new museum and our ongoing success,” says Director Jill Medvedow. “Bank of America understands that the arts are essential in maintaining a diverse and vibrant community, both from a cultural and economic standpoint.”

Bank of America pledged its support of the new ICA well before a shovel went into the ground. The result is the Bank of America Art Lab, providing workshop and studio space for an array of programs for families and school groups. This dedicated education space provides the community with the opportunity to access and experience art in new ways and enables the ICA to deliver new programs that build bridges between the museum and the diverse communities it serves, helping people of all ages discover the power of creativity.

“Bank of America is pleased to have played a part in the ICA’s past success and to join them as they embark on an exciting future,” says Anne M. Finucane, Chief Marketing Officer and Northeast President for Bank of America. “Making art and culture accessible to the widest possible audience has been one of the most important goals of the ICA’s campaign, and we are proud to share in their commitment.”

Bank of America is intently focused on higher standards in meeting the needs of its customers, shareholders, and local communities. As part of this commitment, they sponsor numerous sports teams as well as community and cultural events in the neighborhoods where they do business from coast to coast. The ICA has benefited from a range of contributions over the years, including substantial operating support; funding for programs such as free admission on Thursday evenings, Museums On Us, Family Programming, and ICA Artists-in-Residence at Boston National Historic Park; and sponsorship of exhibitions including Inside the Visible and Building a Vision: Diller + Scofidio in Boston.

NEW: THE MAGAZINE OF THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART/BOSTON · winter/spring 2007

24·members

Member Benefits

Unlimited free admission is just the beginning…

Attention Family Members

“It charter blew my member socks off, and parties I wasn’t even preview wearing socks!”

Save the date for the ICA’s Annual Family Event on April 28. Enjoy brunch at the ICA and take part in the “Taking Shape” Play Date, with family-oriented activities and a special performance by Cathy Weis (see p. 13).

New Member Orientation February 12 or April 23, 6 – 8 pm Charter Associate members and above are invited to preview the many offerings available to them throughout our inaugural year, take guided exhibitions tours, shop at the ICA store, and dine at the Water Café.

— Amy Marcus q. public, DeGruttola, charter charter member member

Advance Tickets Charter Associate members and above can purchase advance tickets for ICA-produced public programs, performances, and films. Buy tickets for the summer program season two weeks before the general public. Log onto www.icaboston.org for the most up-to-date information.

Reciprocal Membership Program Charter Friend members and above receive reciprocal membership at 35 of the country’s modern and contemporary art museums including the ICA, Philadelphia; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Phillips Collection; and the Walker Art Center.

New Group

The Director’s Circle

Go further in your experience of contemporary art. Attend special events like VIP opening receptions for the Momentum series, New Group-exclusive events, and the 7th Annual New Group Benefit. Any member at the Individual level and above can join by paying annual program dues. Log onto www.icaboston.org or contact Membership at 617-478-3102 or membership@icaboston.org.

Our premier patron member level provides invaluable support for our programs and offers members even greater access to groundbreaking art, thrilling performance, and trailblazing thinkers. Exclusive events include the Annual Director’s Circle Brunch, After Hours with the Curator, and private collection tours. For information, please call Blair Evans at 617-478-3176.

The Director’s Circle is sponsored by

charter member preview parties

We put our brand new building to the test, welcoming more than 3700 people at two charter members-only bashes that celebrated your pioneering support. Atlas Soul rocked the tent, while the theater pulsed with an eclectic performance by SOSO Limited.

Thank you to all our members who turned out on these cold December nights, making ours the hottest parties in Boston.

Photo: John Kennard NEW: THE MAGAZINE OF THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART/BOSTON · winter/spring 2007

26·looking forward Upcoming and up-and-coming

Momentum 7: Misaki Kawai

Philip-Lorca diCorcia

March 28 – July 8, 2007

June 1 – September 3, 2007

Japanese artist Misaki Kawai will create a new, site-specific installation for the Momentum series. Kawai’s whimsical installations are created from papier-mâché, wood, fabric, and other low-tech, “crafty” materials like felt, stickers, and yarn.

With a quirky artistic style growing out of her earliest influences—her father was an architect and amateur painter and her mother made clothing and puppets—Kawai takes this interest in handicraft, adds her fascination with Western pop culture, and mixes it with an intuitive and architectural sense of space. What results is her mischievous vision of the world, one in which childhood dreams of doll houses and tree forts are realized through the eyes of a sophisticated artist.

DiCorcia is considered among the most innovative photographers working today. Marrying human drama with technical experiment, his photographs are carefully-prepared enigmas full of cinematic affect. This mid-career survey includes 125 prints from the late 1970s to today—touching on all of diCorcia’s acclaimed bodies of work, including Hustlers, Streetwork, and A Storybook Life—and the premiere of a new group of portraits. The largest museum survey of diCorcia’s work to date, the exhibition will be accompanied by a fullyillustrated publication.

The 2006-2007 Momentum series is sponsored by

Momentum 7: Misaki Kawai is supported by Group Momentum: Nick Adams, Janice and Mickey Cartin, Corinne and Tim Ferguson, Sue and Nat Jeppson, Barbara Lee, Carol and Sol LeWitt, and Marlene and David Persky.

Join Us!

Philip-Lorca diCorcia Members’ Opening Saturday, June 2, 6 – 9 pm Members-Only Viewing Hours Thursday, May 31, 10 am – 9 pm

9th Annual ICA/Vita Brevis Project Art on the Harbor Islands

Summer 2007 Bourgeois in Boston

March 28, 2007 – March 2, 2008 Bringing together works from area collections both public and private, this exhibition is a uniquely-located portrait of Louise Bourgeois. Sixty years after her first solo exhibition in New York, Bourgeois continues to produce new work and break artistic ground. Drawn from childhood memories and present-day dreams, her works are highly symbolic objects of desire, sexuality, beauty, and anxiety. The work in Bourgeois in Boston spans her entire career, presenting the artist’s varied styles and powerful themes in sculptures, prints, and drawings.

To mark the ICA’s first summer at the water’s edge, Vita Brevis presents a new multi-artist project in the Boston Harbor Islands National Park Area. The park holds rich vestiges of Boston’s geological, military, and cultural past throughout its thirty-four islands. Three artists—Ernesto Pujol, Teri Rueb, Anna Schuleit—and one architectural team—Office dA—are developing new projects for Georges, Lovells, and Spectacle islands. Using sculptural installation, performance, and audio narration, the works will evoke the park’s complex past while celebrating its natural and cultural importance in the 21st century.

Art on the Harbor Islands is supported in part by the Nimoy Foundation and the LEF Foundation.

Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Eddie Anderson; 21 years old; Houston, Texas; $20, 1990-92.

Copyright Philip-Lorca diCorcia. Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York Misaki Kawai, Sun Park, 2003. Installation at Inman Gallery, Houston Louise Bourgeois, Cell (Hands and Mirror), 1995. Collection of Barbara Lee. Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York. Photo: Peter Bellamy

28·the james and audrey foster prize The leading edge of art in Boston

meet the meet the meet the artists artists artists Kelly Sherman, Chairs (video still), 2006.

Courtesy Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston Sheila Gallagher, Cumulonimbus, detail, 2006.

Courtesy Judi Rotenberg Gallery, Boston

These four artists from Greater Boston share a multi-disciplinary, often collaborative approach to creating their work—conceptual, yet personal responses to the world around us. They are the finalists for the James and Audrey Foster Prize, a biennial award of $25,000 given to a Boston artist who demonstrates exceptional promise. Selected by a distinguished jury who will also decide the winner, the finalists present their work as one of the inaugural exhibitions at the new ICA, on view through March 11, 2007. Here the finalists answer some of our burning questions, allowing us a brief glimpse into their artistic practice.

Sheila Gallagher Born in 1967 in Morristown, NJ. Lives and works in Boston.

Education: B.A., Connecticut College, 1989; M.F.A, School of the Museum of Fine Arts/ Tufts University, 1996. Gallagher is Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at Boston College.

What inspires you most about Boston? The Boston Flower Exchange, the community in Jamaica Plain, and the possibilities for an ongoing intellectual life that come from living in a city with so many colleges, universities, and great free lectures.

What are some of your key artistic influences?

James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, American landscape painting, Fra Angelico, images produced of subatomic particles in bubble chambers, the Catholic Mass, and the spectacle of competitive figure skating.

Does today’s plugged-in world have an impact on your work? Yes. Like everyone else, I am constantly gathering and filtering ideas and information. I alternate between casting nets—using the internet as both research library and ouija board—and cutting lines—trying to block out unwanted noise, so that I can actually make the work. The challenge is to transform so much readily accessible data in flux into some beautiful form of knowledge or experience.

What do you see as the role of the artist today?

There are as many roles for artists as there are artists. In the current cultural climate, I believe that one of the most important roles is to be an independent thinker who takes risks to promote wonder, raise skepticism, and quicken responses.

What’s next for you? Having been at it awhile, I recognize 4 or 5 recurrent themes that keep getting regurgitated in different forms and media. My immediate goal is just to keep working, see where the work needs to go, and be open to pushing it in new directions.

NEW: THE MAGAZINE OF THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART/BOSTON · winter/spring 2007

rtists

Kelly Sherman

Rachel Perry Welty

Born 1978 in Worcester, MA. Lives and works in Cambridge, MA. Education: B.F.A., Massachusetts College of Art, 2002

Born 1962 in Tokyo, Japan. Lives in Needham, MA, and works in Boston. Education: Fifth Year Certificate, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, 2001; B.A. Connecticut College, 1984, La Sorbonne, Paris, 1983

What inspires you most about Boston? Bostonians themselves, with their no-nonsense attitude of tough love and hard work, and the Peabody/Natural History Museum at Harvard, which is like a museum of a museum.

Jane D. Marsching Born in 1968 in New York, NY. Lives and works in Boston.

Education: B.A., Hampshire College, 1989; M.F.A., School of Visual Arts, New York, 1995. Teaches at Massachusetts College of Art. What inspires you most about Boston?

I like the parades.

What are some of your key artistic influences?

The Hubble Space Telescope, the North Pole web cam, Fra Angelico, circus and street performers, Arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen, Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, and UFOlogists.

Does today’s plugged-in world have an impact on your work? I grapple with technology’s mediation of our experiences of the world, particularly extensions of perception, both concretely and conceptually, whether of advanced scientific research like the Hubble or everyday communication, such as webcams or blogs.

What do you see as the role of the artist today?

To be filled with wonder, engaged with the immediate social fabric of our lives, and charged with activism.

What’s next for you? More work about the Arctic and climate change: a trip on a scientific research vessel frozen in ice and drifting around the tip of the world, and then a journey to one of the northernmost tips of land, Svalbard, Norway, to perform and photograph interventions in the glacial landscape.

What are some of your key artistic influences?

Chris Marker’s short film La Jette, which is about memory and time-travel, Robert Rauschenburg’s conceptual artwork Erased de Kooning Drawing, the novels Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald and The Waves by Virginia Woolf, and the collection of short stories entitled Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. Oh, and Billie Holiday, whose heartbreaking music can somehow still feel hopeful.

Does today’s plugged-in world have an impact on your work? Absolutely. I’m completely captivated by the Internet. It’s the supreme reference tool: constantly updated and capturing our culture and the many individuals—both prominent and anonymous—who constitute it from one minute to the next. I think all reference media can be viewed as culturally accepted tools for interacting voyeuristically with one’s subject. Since very little escapes the Internet, it seems to supply a limitless number of reference subjects, including ones that were once less accessible or acceptable.

What inspires you most about Boston? I grew up in a college town in the Midwest, where I had full run of the campus as the daughter of a professor. I think of Greater Boston as one large college campus with its incredible institutional resources. Open lectures, music and theatre, and a general intellectual hum make this city a desirable place to live and work.

What are some of your key artistic influences? When I was six, my family lived in a temple in Kyoto, Japan, with two monks and many spacious, empty rooms covered in tatami mats. I remember hearing the monks chanting each day, and playing with my siblings in those vast spaces. I think those experiences, plus being in the middle of a large family, attuned me to the beauty of the minimal and of seeking quiet!

Also, my mother, who is an artist, worked in Cambridge with a visionary inventor who became a family friend. Even though I was a child, I observed closely how it was possible to think deeply, to examine things from different angles, and to continue to approach a question in order to solve a problem.

Does today’s plugged-in world have an impact on your work? Much of my work is about paying attention to our daily lives and how we make our way through the world. I recently showed a video, Karaoke Wrong Number, in which I lip-synch to the wrong number messages left on my answering service. Currently I’m working on a video performance that uses computer spam as source material. In this case, not only is my material directly from the “plugged-in world,” but so are my means, with the possibility of video editing on my laptop.

What do you see as the artist’s role today? My role is to offer people another way to see things, by presenting ideas in ways that are humorous, beautiful, dramatic, or “fill in the blank.”

The idea in the work is very important to me, and I feel I have done my job if, for a moment, my audience sees how I see.

The art world just gives me a shape in which to work, a form in which to pursue my ideas and process my surroundings.

What’s next for you? I will continue to thoroughly—some might say obsessively—examine all the aspects of my life and try to make some sense of them. With a dozen or so projects in various stages at any time, it’s hard to predict where they will take me.

Visit the Poss Family Mediatheque

What do you see as the role of the artist today?

To engage. Not to produce, administer, consume or entertain, but to actually engage. I found a long list of verbs online that were compiled to help with resume writing: achieve, advise, advocate, analyze, appraise, and so on. Many actions are valued and rewarded by our culture, but to engage just isn’t one of them. Sure, we need our society to function smoothly, but we also need to engage with our surroundings, with other people, and with ourselves. I think active engagement is actually at the very core of being and feeling alive, and artists have always been among those who value this as a life-long practice.

What’s next for you? Working on all my quirky projects, with topics ranging from the brief communications of text messages to the hidden wonders of the computer “paste” function.

Learn more about the Foster Prize and the finalists.

While the jury will decide this year’s winner, you can register your choice in our poll.

Jane D. Marching, Deb Tod Wheeler questing, McCall Glacier DEM 1956; Glaciologist: Dr. Matt Nolan, from the series Arctic Then, 2006.

Courtesy Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston Rachel Perry Welty, Two page spread, detail, 2006. Courtesy Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston

meet the

NEW: THE MAGAZINE OF THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART/BOSTON · winter/spring 2007

32·calendar

fearless art, manageable chunks

february

march

april

may

how to buy tickets

Thursday 2/1

Monday 2/19

Thursday 3/1

Friday 3/23

Sunday 4/1

Thursday 4/19

Thursday 5/3

Thursday 5/17

Uncover Thursdays

Presidents’ Day

Course

Theater

CRASHarts Presents

Vacation Family Activities

Uncover Thursdays

Dance

Curator’s Talk: Nicholas Baume

The ICA is open

Artists 360: Introduction to Contemporary Art

This Place is a Desert

by Jay Scheib

Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal/bjm_danse

10 am – 3 pm

Words from the Walk

Through April 5, 6 – 7:30 pm

8 pm

2 pm

Mark Morris Dance Group The Argument, Candleflowerdance, and Grand Duo, and a new work

Uncover Thursdays

Saturday 3/24

Thursday 4/5

Seen/Unseen Aude Oliva and Dan Buchner

Course

Uncover Thursdays

Creative Recording and Mixing

Art Loves: Louise Bourgeois with Jill Medvedow

6:30 pm

Friday 2/2 Music Classical Mashup

8 pm

Sunday 2/4 Film Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock?

2 pm

Holiday Family Activities

10 am – 3 pm

Tuesday 2/20 Vacation Family Activities

10 am – 3 pm

6:30 pm

10 am – 4 pm

Wednesday 2/21

Friday 3/2

Vacation Family Activities

CRASHarts Presents

10 am – 3 pm What New Is Patti Smith

Marc Bamuthi Joseph Scourge

Saturday 3/3

Film

Thursday 2/22

Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock?

Vacation Family Activities

2 pm

Thursday 2/15 Uncover Thursdays Sergio Vega & Marcus Santos

6:30 pm CRASHarts Presents Alloy Orchestra The Eagle

7 pm

Friday 2/16 CRASHarts Presents Alloy Orchestra Phantom of the Opera

8 pm

Saturday 2/17 CRASHarts Presents Alloy Orchestra The General

2 pm The Eagle

10 am – 3 pm Dance STREB STREB vs. Gravity

7:30 pm

Friday 2/23 Vacation Family Activities

10 am – 3 pm Dance STREB STREB vs. Gravity

8 pm

Saturday 2/24 Play Date Extreme Paradise

10 am – 4 pm

CRASHarts Presents Marc Bamuthi Joseph Scourge

8 pm

Sunday 2/25

8 pm

Dance

Sunday 2/18

2 pm

STREB STREB vs. Gravity

7 pm

Friday, 10 am – 3 pm

CRASHarts Presents

CRASHarts Presents

Anna Myer and Dancers Penumbra

Music

Sunday 3/25

…but not simpler…

Tod Machover and the Ying Quartet

Saturday 4/21

8 pm

Ten’s the Limit

2 pm

Ten’s the Limit

7:30 pm

CRASHarts Presents 8 pm

Friday 4/13 CRASHarts Presents

Thursday 4/26 Uncover Thursdays

Sunday 3/4

Bebe Miller Company Landing/Place

7:30 pm

6:30 pm

Tuesday 3/27 CRASHarts Presents

CRASHarts Presents

2 Foot Yard

Marc Bamuthi Joseph Scourge

7:30 pm

2 pm

Wednesday 3/28

Wednesday 3/7 What New Is

ICA/AIGA Design Series Rick Poynor and Michael Rock

Mark Morris and Richard Dyer

6:30 pm

6:30 pm

Friday 3/30

Thursday 3/8

CRASHarts Presents

Film

Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal/bjm_danse

Antonia’s Line

7:30 pm

3 pm and 7 pm

Thursday 3/22

Saturday 3/31 Play Date

Saturday 4/28

CRASHarts Presents

Play Date

Bebe Miller Company Landing/Place

Taking Shape

Sunday 4/15 CRASHarts Presents

Cathy Weis Electronic Haiku: Calm as Custard

CRASHarts Presents Anna Myer and Dancers Penumbra

7:30 pm

Sunday 5/6

8 pm

Wheelchair seating and assistive listening devices are available; please call the box office in advance to make a request. If you need further assistance, including sign language interpretation, please contact the ICA box office at least two weeks in advance of program.

Saturday 5/19

Free Public Tours

Dance

2 pm and 8 pm

The ICA offers public exhibition and museum tours on Target Free Thursday Nights at 6 pm and each Saturday and Sunday at 2 pm. Tours are free with museum admission and leave from the lobby.

Sunday 5/20

Teen Programs

Dance

See p. 19

Dance Mark Morris Dance Group The Argument, Candleflowerdance, and Grand Duo, and a new work

Mark Morris Dance Group, The Argument, Candleflowerdance, and Grand Duo, and a new work

Film Zidane, a 21st-Century Portrait

11 am

Wednesday 5/9 ICA/AIGA Design Series

Mark Morris Dance Group The Argument, Candleflowerdance, and Grand Duo, and a new work

Debbie Millman and Antenna Design

2 pm

6:30 pm

Wednesday 5/23

Friday 5/10

Film

Sunday 4/29

Zidane, a 21st-Century Portrait

7 pm

Dance

7 pm

Cathy Weis Electronic Haiku: Calm as Custard

Saturday 5/26

Tuesday 5/15

Tuesday 4/17 Vacation Family Activities

10 am – 3 pm

10 am – 4 pm

Wednesday 4/18

CRASHarts Presents

Vacation Family Activities

10 am – 3 pm What New Is

2 pm

Film

Dance Mark Morris Dance Group The Argument, Candleflowerdance, and Grand Duo, and a new work

Member Events

See p. 24 The ICA’s public programs are supported in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Experimental Film and Video by Leighton Pierce

2 pm

Sightseeing at the ICA

8 pm

Dance

Saturday 5/5

Friday 5/18

8 pm

This Place is a Desert

by Jay Scheib

Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal/bjm_danse

10 am – 4 pm

7:30 pm

8 pm

Bebe Miller Company Landing/Place

Theater 7:30 pm

Meet Misaki Kawai

Saturday 4/14

8 pm

Anna Myer and Dancers Penumbra

Friday 5/4

Friday 4/6

This Place is a Desert

by Jay Scheib

CRASHarts Presents

Vacation Family Activities

8 pm

Theater

6:30 pm

7:30 pm

Friday 4/20

8 pm

Dance STREB STREB vs. Gravity

6:30 pm

2 or 3 Things I Know About Him

This Place is a Desert

by Jay Scheib

7:30 pm

6:30 pm

Sunday 2/11

Theater

Film

To purchase tickets, log onto www.icaboston.org. Tickets can also be purchased at the ICA box office during regular museum hours or one hour before the program, or by phone at 617-478-3103 (during regular museum hours). A $3 processing fee per ticket will be added to phone and online orders for non-members.

Play Date Fantastic Seaside Adventures at the ICA

10 am – 4 pm

7 pm

Sekou Sundiata

6:30 pm

CRASHarts Presents Alloy Orchestra The General

2 pm Phantom of the Opera

7 pm

Photo: Peter Vanderwarker

general information When, where, and how much

A vision fulfilled at harbor’s edge

Admission

$12 general admission $10 students and seniors FREE members and children 17 and under FREE after 5 pm on Target Free Thursday Nights FREE families (two adults accompanied by children 12 and under) on the last Saturday of each month Target Free Thursday Nights are sponsored by Target.

Accessibility The ICA is fully wheelchair and stroller accessible.

Directions SE The ICA located at 100 Northern Avenue in Boston. It is a short Ais PO RT walk from downtown and easily accessible by public transportation.

BO UL E V affordable parking in the area.

There is also ample, A RD

Via public transportation: From South Station, take the MBTA Silver Line to Courthouse Station. Exit the station onto Seaport Boulevard and follow it (walking away from downtown) to the first intersection. Take a left onto Northern Avenue. The ICA is located at 100 Northern Avenue.

By car: The ICA is easily accessible from both I-90 and I-93.

Please visit www.icaboston.org for detailed driving directions.

Water Café by Wolfgang Puck

contact

General Information 617-478-3100 Membership 617-478-3102 Box Office 617-478-3103 ICA Store 617-478-3104 Web www.icaboston.org E-mail info@icaboston.org Official Media Partners

Official Performing Arts Media Partner

Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner ICA Members receive a 10% discount Museum, Store, & Cafe Hours

Official Hotel Sponsor

Tuesday and Wednesday 10 am – 5 pm Thursday and Friday 10 am – 9 pm Saturday and Sunday 10 am – 5 pm Closed Monday, except on the following national holidays: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, and Veterans’ Day.

— the Boston globe

T he Institute of C ontemporary A rt/ B oston

100 Northern Avenue Boston, MA 02210

Photo: Peter Vanderwarker

Non-profit Org. U.S. Postage Paid Permit No. 56786 Boston, MA