Upcoming exhibitions

Charles Atlas: About Time
October 10, 2024–March 16, 2025
Charles Atlas: About Time is the first US museum survey of the pioneering interdisciplinary artist Charles Atlas. Presenting work created over 50 years, the exhibition brings together key components of more than 125 films and videos in monumental and immersive multichannel video installations the artist describes as “walk-through experiences.” Atlas’s early career is defined by his time as filmmaker-in-residence at the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in New York. With Cunningham, Atlas pioneered the film genre of “media-dance”—dance made for the camera, rather than an in-person audience. Since leaving the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 1983, Atlas has been a leading figure in film and video art, and one of the preeminent artists to capture dance and performance for the camera through groundbreaking collaborations with Michael Clark, Yvonne Rainer, Leigh Bowery, Marina Abramović, Rashaun Mitchell, and Silas Riener. The exhibition is accompanied by a generously illustrated catalogue that generates significant new scholarship Atlas’s practice. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Mannion Family Curator, with Max Gruber, Curatorial Assistant.  

Tau Lewis: Spirit Level
August 29, 2024–January 20, 2025
Tau Lewis transforms found materials into intricately detailed figurative sculptures, quilts, masks, and other assemblages through processes such as hand-sewing and carving. She collects objects and materials that carry affective histories and energies—from scraps of leather and previously worn clothing to seashells and driftwood. In Spirit Level, Lewis premieres a new, interrelated body of sculptures and a large, floor-bound quilt about inheritance. Here inheritance may refer to what is alive in the materials she uses, but also to the stories and symbols infused in the work, both deeply personal and collectively experienced, painful and joyful in equal measure. The quilt is surrounded by five sculptures adorned with hand-sewn, cloak-like garments, and holding unique gestural hand poses. For the artist, working with things close at hand is a reparative act aimed at reclaiming agency. The solo exhibition, Lewis’s first in the US, is accompanied by a catalogue, the artist’s first monograph. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Mannion Family Curator, with Max Gruber, Curatorial Assistant. 

The Gun Violence Memorial Project
August 29, 2024–January 20, 2025
The Gun Violence Memorial Project (2019–present) is a tribute to individuals whose lives have been taken due to gun violence in the United States. A collaboration between MASS Design Group and Songha & Company, where artist Hank Willis Thomas is Creative Director, in partnership with Purpose Over Pain, the project was launched at the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennale and is touring the United States. It comprises four glass houses, each built of 700 clear bricks that hold remembrance objects in honor of loved ones whose lives have been taken due to gun violence. This Boston-wide exhibition extends across three locations: the ICA, Boston City Hall, and the MASS Design Group gallery. Organized by Ruth Erickson, Barbara Lee Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, with Max Gruber, Curatorial Assistant.

Portraits from the ICA Collection
January 28, 2025–January 4,2026
This exhibition highlights the rich holdings of portraiture in various media within the ICA Collection, exploring the different ways and reasons artists create imagery of themselves and others, and the importance of portraiture for artists and sitters in conveying personal and lived experiences. Guided by several themes—including representation, homage, breaking the canon, and self-portraiture—the exhibition features recently acquired works by artists such as Rania Matar, Aliza Nisenbaum, and Didier William, as well as works that are cornerstones of the Collection by artists such as Marlene Dumas, Nan Goldin, and Alice Neel. Organized by Erika Umali, Curator of Collections.