A love of Black art and history was the bedrock of the friendship between Dell Marie Hamilton and Susan Denker, who had markedly different racial, economic, and generational subject positions.
ICA Boston
Posted inArt
Identity and Transformation in the Art of Raúl de Nieves
De Nieves suggests that we are not just one thing or another, but an amalgamation, transforming, always in a state of becoming.
Posted inNews
“Slumlord of the Board”: Tenants Protest ICA Boston Donor Gerald Fineberg
The Fineberg Tenant Union gathered at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston with a pop-up exhibit documenting squalid conditions and evictions at Fineberg properties.
Posted inNews
Nearly 80 National Academy Members Sign Letter in Support of Dana Schutz and ICA Boston
The signatories, a mix of members and members-elect, include Kara Walker, Dread Scott, Ed Ruscha, Jack Whitten, Judith Bernstein, and Peter Saul.
Posted inNews
Protesters Call on ICA Boston to Cancel Dana Schutz Show
A group of local artists, activists, and community members is demanding that the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston “pull the show.”
Posted inBooks
Weaving a Bridge Back to Fiber Sculpture’s Unraveling History
Despite being a craft dating back over 30,000 years, fiber work only started to get sculpturally experimental in a serious way in the 1960s and 70s.
Posted inNews
In Wake of Tragedy, Boston’s Art Museums Free Today
This morning, as Boston mourned yesterday’s tragedy, its major art institutions announced free admission to the public, “a place of respite for our community” in the words of the Museum of Fine Arts.
Posted inArt
Ragnar Kjartansson: The Artist as Clown
The fool, or jester, or clown is a well-established archetype in Western culture. We are taught that jesters provided entertainment for monarchs, prattling around in brightly colored costumes, poking fun at the court milieu while criticizing their masters and mistresses through their satire. The art world is pretty much like a royal court, right? It’s a self-serious, self-reinforcing community built around a central hierarchy. So who is our most perceptive clown?
Posted inNews
Museum Troubles in Boston, City Wants More $$$
In the latest news in the battle for arts funding in the US, The Art Newspaper reported yesterday that the Boston Mayor has greatly increased payments under his Payment in Lieu of Taxes scheme that asks nonprofits, including museums to make “voluntary” contributions to city services such as the fire and police department.
Posted inOpinion
Is the Boston ICA Already Dead on the Water?
The Boston art media are getting into a tiff, arguing if the newly redesigned ICA Boston is irrelevant-on-arrival. The Diller Scofidio+Renfro-designed home has actually heralded a new high point for a museum that is becoming one of the Northeast’s most dynamic, interesting contemporary art institutions.
Posted inArt
A Better Boston: Artists’ Perspectives
Boston artists understand that the city’s contemporary art community lacks punch. After all, they’re the ones in the middle of it, surrounded on all sides by curators, galleries and critics. As artists have responded to the problems set out in my series on the Boston contemporary art scene, their comments point towards a working answer for one question: how could the Boston art community be made better for the city’s artists?
Posted inArt
Rebooting Boston’s Art Inferiority Complex
Is it possible for an entire city to have an inferiority complex over its own art and artists? At times it certainly seems like Boston does. Between ignoring traveling retrospectives of local artists, devoting gallery space to art world circuit card-holders, and hemorrhaging curators, this city’s scene sometimes looks a lot like a branch office of New York: understaffed and passing on its best to the mothership.
In my previous article on Hyperallergic, I discussed Greg Cook’s view that Boston’s contemporary art scene lacks ambition and a drive to push itself further. I believe that what we need to overcome in this city is not just this inferiority complex but a specific Boston identity.
