Institute of Contemporary Art – Boston
By Fran Folsom
Andy Warhol was a frontrunner of American contemporary/pop
artists in the 20th century. This type of art is not on everyone’s radar screen,
but Boston’s gorgeous new Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) building, a 65,000
square foot multi-level glass structure featuring 19,600 square feet of exhibit
space, does a fabulous job of putting contemporary art upfront and in your face.
This $66 million dollar building triples the size of the
ICA’s previous home on Boylston Street, where it shared a brownstone building
with the oldest working fire house in Boston. It’s the first new museum built in
Boston in 100 years, a grand addition to the city’s evolving Seaport District.
All 1,360,000,640 cubic feet of it, built with 700 tons of
steel, lends itself seamlessly to a natural back ground, the Atlantic ocean and
Boston harbor. The ICA is the mid-way point of the soon to be completed 40-mile
Harbor Walk.
Curator Bennett Simpson says “The ICA has finally entered
into a new universe and is keeping company with the Tate Modern in London and
the Whitney in New York.”
 The
cantilever (overhang) is
where the ICA goes beyond state-of-the-art with a media center, the Mediatheque,
an amphitheater with the harbor as the wide screen. Each seat has a computer
station; visitors can go online to learn about contemporary art and the ICA’s
exhibits.
Musical and dance performances will be held in the Barbara
Lee Family Foundation Theater. Its 325 seats face
a wall of glass affording unobstructed views of the stage, Boston’s skyline and
harbor.
 On the fourth floor is the dramatic glass enclosed Founders
Gallery hanging twenty-five feet over the harbor, the connection between the
institute’s two main galleries. Along with the art, on exhibit here is the view,
even the elevator is made of glass, affording water views ascending and
descending.
In the East Gallery are the ICA’s permanent exhibits; works
by photographers Nan Goldin and Philip-Lorca di Corcia, and artists Laylah Ali,
Kai Althoff and English installation artist Cornelia Parker to name a few.
The West Gallery’s futuristic exhibit, Super Vision, is the
work of twenty-seven artists who push the outside of the envelope showing new
technologies of vision. Bridget Riley’s Pause, is a classic example of 1960’s
pop art with three dimensional round circles. Fine Eyes by Tony Oursler shows
hanging round spheres with blinking eyeballs projected onto them.
Yoko Ono’s (think John Lennon) 1966 Sky View brings the
airspace above the harbor indoors onto a flat screen TV via a closed circuit
camera strategically positioned in the Founders Gallery.
 In Momentum 6: Sergio Vega, the Argentine born Vega has
brought to visualization an entire room, Tropicalounge, with lime green and
yellow walls, outlandishly shaped furniture, sculpture and photography telling
the history of Brazil.
Andy Warhol would love this building and the art displayed
here.
If You Go
Institute of Contemporary Art www.icaboston.org
Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau
www.bostonusa.com
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