ICA Boston

[From the grandstand behind the ICA; 5/19/07; click to view larger]

Yesterday I met Lorianne and another friend at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Boston. The museum relocated to its new home on the waterfront in December and I hadn't been there yet. The weather was misty and gray, but not the raging nor'easter I'd feared. It created an interesting reflective atmosphere, especially out back where the ICA overlooks the harbor.

[Founder's Gallery]

I liked many of the pieces in the galleries, particularly the photographs by Nan Goldin and Cornelia Parker's Hanging Fire installation made from the charred remains of a woodworking shop. We also all loved Misaki Kawai's fun Space House installation (see the slideshow). In the gallery with the Space House, a little girl dressed in the same colors as the installation was in the corner curled up as if in the yoga child's pose, apparently having a meltdown, albeit a silent one. (Lorianne's comment: "I sometimes have that reaction to contemporary art, too.") Being contemporary art, I had to think for a second about whether she was part of the piece.

I also kinda liked the piece presently on the Art Wall in the foyer of the ICA, Chiho Aoshima's hallucinatory The Divine Gas. It reminded me a bit of Hayao Miyazaki's animated films.

[The Divine Gas, on the Art Wall at the ICA]

You can see these and a few more photos that I took at the museum yesterday on Flickr.

Comments

[Teju]

Oh, lovely.

I've been wanting to give this building a visit.

[zhoen]

I doubt we will make it before we leave. Thanks for the tour.

[Tall Girl]

Love the hazy reflections and shining decking, and the way I melted into confusion about 'real' and reflected.

[marja-leena]

As TG said. Great photos, like works of art in themselves, Leslee!

[Dave]

Looking at these pictures last night and again today, it makes me wonder how and why we came to associate modernity with walls of glass. Is it the transparency, the reflectivity, the smooth surface, the lack of adornment? Maybe, as Le Corbusier suggested, it's all about making buildings that resemble machines, or our idea of them. But then where did that idea come from?

Well, sorry for going off-topic. Thanks for the stimulating photos!

[Leslee]

Thanks, Teju. Yes, you should go whenever you're up in the area again. I know your scholarly focus is not on contemporary art - do you like it?

Zhoen: You're welcome! If you do get a chance, you can go through it pretty quickly. Just one floor of galleries.

TG: It appears that the architects had blurring of boundaries in mind (see comment below to Dave).

Marja-Leena: Thanks! Glad you like them.

Dave: Here's what the ICA's site says, for what it's worth: "The façade consists of identically sized vertical planks that alternate between transparent glass, translucent glass, and opaque metal. The system provides a taught seamless skin that blurs the distinction between walls, windows and doors while responding to the requirements of the interior program." A friend is dating an architecture prof - I'll see if I can get her to ask him to provide some context. It'd be interesting to hear what he has to say about it.

[Leslee]

The entire issue of today's NY Times Magazine is on green architecture. I haven't had much time to read it, but there is something about emphasizing the fluidity between humans and nature that's part of the eco-friendly architecture movement. Not sure what the ICA designers had in mind, though, nor whether green architecture follows existant trends or vice versa.

I did post a few years back about the building some clients of mine were in that is a green building - all glass, and there are automatic shades that open or close depending on the light and heat, to make the most of the sun in cold weather and for cooling in winter.

[Lorianne]

You know, I didn't notice (duh) when we were standing in front of the big wall that the prone woman is farting the big, swirly cloud. How could I mistake flatulence for a mere meteorological phenomenon?

[Leslee]

Wow, I didn't notice that either! I only skimmed the ICA's website account. But yeah, that would explain its title, "The Divine Gas." (Hmm, I'll have to remember to use that... ;-) So she isn't, after all, one of the ones falling from the sky.

[Sara]

Wow, thanks, Leslee. I never even made it to the old one, though I meant to.

Yes, the fartress definitely has some aspects in common with anime. Though far less traditionally rendered in some ways, she also reminds me of early work by Masami Teraoka, which work -- as well as modern anime and this piece -- owes an obvious debt to the ukiyo-e printmaking traditions of Japan. Though I'd rather have something from Teraoka's Thirty-One Flavors Over Japan series hanging in my living room, I appreciate The Divine Gas, too, and love how it demonstrates another example of how very many things can be seen as beautiful. I also see the "beautiful but deadly" joke all over it, and wonder if her almost serpentine position as she aims and fires has anything to do with it.

I'm going to have to drag my own ass over there and check out the ICA one of these days. Your pictures definitely make that a more urgent desire.

Answering Dave, sort of, the glass-as-modern thing is modern precisely because of modern technology which has allowed us to make use of it. It has long been the dream of many people to bring more of the outside -- esp. more light -- into living and work spaces, but to do so without the inconvenience and danger of actually living outside all the time. Modern glassmaking and transport, modern fasteners, modern heating and cooling technology -- green and not so green -- have allowed us to use much more glass than our forebears of even a hundred years ago. None of this was possible until after the Second World War. The specific aesthetic which made people dream of clean glass needles piercing the sky in lieu of ornamented stone palaces of commerce was the post-Victorian, post WWI backlash of the '20s. Ironically, as intricate as some of its own buildings proved to be Art Deco paved the way for this trend. However, it was technology of WWII and the Cold War that allowed it become a reality.

That's what I think, anyway, but I'm no architectural scholar, just an observer, and a person who would never want to live in an entirely glass house, no matter how green or safe or private.

[Dave]

Leslee, thanks for the additional context. "Taught [taut?] seamless skin" is a suggestive phrase. And I'm sure the sheer logistics that Sara discusses must've played a role in its adoption. But fashion plays a big role too, I think. Let's face it, there are a lot of other technically possible things that we *aren't* doing, such as driving cars that get 60 MPG or living in passive-solar, earth-sheltered houses, where the need for air conditioning and heating could be virtually eliminated at our latitude.

Geez, how could y'all NOT notice the farting? Maybe it's a guy thing.

[leslee]

Dave: I suspect the fart oversight has more to do with trying to take in the entire wall at once when you're there in person - it's two stories high. So you tend to see bits of it at first and try to connect the parts. It's only obvious when reduced to photo size!

[Leslee]

And thanks, Sara. Very interesting. Yes, a lot of it seems to be the technology allows for it. Have you been to the Gropius House? Must be fairly near you...

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