ICA Boston

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston’s free East Boston gallery, the Watershed, opened its 2024 season last week with a striking — or rather, striding — installation.

“Firelei Báez,” the spellbinding exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston through Sept. 2, is the first U.S. survey of this Dominican American artist, whose works are often described as history paintings for our time.

“Lynloop,” an intricate pink weaving by South African artist Igshaan Adams, is the first thing visitors see at the Institute of Contemporary Art in the Seaport.

The Institute of Contemporary Art, in Boston’s burgeoning Seaport neighborhood, strives to be a place of community engagement rather than a stiff shrine to famous artists. The latest part of that initiative is “Destiny Doorways: Creating the Doors We Walk Through,” an installation by Boston native and local artist Mithsuca Berry.

Forty professional artists and a collection of youth artists reflect on the importance of childhood in “To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood,” running at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston Oct. 6 through Feb. 26

“A Place for Me: Figurative Painting Now,” on view through September 5 at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, presents 40 works by eight contemporary artists, four men and four women. Most are individuals of color or self-described as queer. 

Dynamic sculpture artist Rose B. Simpson opens her first solo show in Boston at the ICA, running Aug. 11 through Jan. 29. Utilizing ceramic sculpture, performance, installation, metalwork, writing and other media, Simpson reflects on the human condition, particularly under colonial rule. 

Combining a delightful shuttle ride across Boston Harbor with a captivating exhibition at its site located in the Boston Harbor Shipyard and Marina in East Boston, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) offers visitors a splendid way to spend a summer day.

For nearly 50 years, artist Napoleon Jones-Henderson has brought his vibrant textile works and a potent artistic manifesto to the Roxbury cultural community. Now, the Chicago native’s work is being honored at the ICA Boston in “Napoleon Jones-Henderson: I Am As I Am—A Man,” a three-room retrospective running through July 24.

Now in its ninth year, the biennial James and Audrey Foster Prize Exhibition of the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) showcases local artists of note. The 2021 Foster Prize Exhibition, organized by ICA assistant curator Jeffrey De Blois and on view at the ICA through January 30, 2022, presents new works by Marlon Forrester, Eben Haines and Dell Marie Hamilton.

On Sept. 1, Raúl de Nieves’ first Boston exhibition, “The Treasure House of Memory” opened at the ICA Boston. Running through July 24, 2022, the solo show features a new body of work by the artist and explores themes of memory and personal transformation.

The ICA Watershed has returned to the reopening art world with a bang, or rather with a bubble. Dominican artist Firelei Báez’s spellbinding 2021 site-specific sculpture pulls the depths of the ocean up through the museum’s industrial concrete floors and into our sightlines.