Kara Walker, The Nigger Huck Finn Pursues Happiness Beyond the Narrow Constraints of Your Overdetermined Thesis on Freedom–Drawn and Quartered by Mister Kara Walkerberry, with Condolences to the Authors, 2010. Cut paper and paint on wall; gouache and ink on paper, approximately 57 feet (1737.8 cm) long overall. Sixteen cut paper elements, dimensions variable; seven framed works on paper, each 11 1/2 x 15 inches (29.2 x 38.1 cm). The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women. Installation view, First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA, The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, 2016-17. Photo by Charles Mayer Photography. © 2016 Kara Walker
First Light brings together new acquisitions and permanent-collection favorites in a series of interrelated and stand-alone exhibitions.
#ICAFirstLight
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, artist-specific, and historical sections, the exhibition will bring together both new acquisitions and favorites from the permanent collection. Conceived as a series of interrelated and rotating stand-alone exhibitions, this presentation will highlight major singular works from the collection, such as a newly acquired monumental cut-paper silhouette tableau by Kara Walker, as well as the Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women, groupings of work by artists held in depth such as Louise Bourgeois and Nan Goldin, and thematic and art-historical groupings. A new multimedia web platform will be created to mark the occasion.