Review: Institute of Contemporary Art

As with my previous posts, ideally I would have liked to come back immediately after class and type of my thoughts without the degradation of time, but here we are.

When at the Institute of Contemporary Art, I spent the initial 5-10 minutes walking around the exhibits. I've always been on the edge of my opinions on the genre. Most of the times, I look at something and see what the artist is trying to do but don't see what the point is of capturing it like they do. I get what they are trying to do, what they're trying to show, but I just never had a liking of the medium. I've even given the ICA a chance before, going with my girlfriend, but it didn't really make much difference for me. That being said, having to spend time in the museum made me see another side. It didn't change my liking of the medium, but it did show me that I didn't give it the time that it deserved. Contemporary art demands more time than others for me, having to see through the initial impression. The meaning behind the pieces and how the artist captures it is what gives contemporary art the beauty that it holds. There isn't the initial wow factor for me as would come with a beautiful tapestry or an ice sculpture, but there is still art to be found.

I spent the remainder of my time focusing on the new Cecilia Vicuña exhibit. In particular, I looked at the Precarios. They were small sculptures made from found objects throughout her career, representing the political and physical environment around her. There were quite a number present as seen in the picture on the right. My initial impressions were pretty neutral. I walked around and then moved on to look at other exhibits. However, as I moved on, I began thinking about some of the pieces I saw and decided to double back. It was then that I spent the remainder of my time focusing on the pieces all together and then focused on some individually.



 The first part that really stuck out to me were these two complementary sculptures placed on either end of the exhibit. They seemed to mark the start and end, showing a vague sense of linearity and time progression as you moved through the pieces. There was even a dimensionallity to the arrangement, where these plants held the bottom while there were sculptures like two crossing feathers that looked like a bird in flight at the top. You can see how the smaller twigs and plants 'grew' at the end of the exhibit, showing that life goes on. This is very important part of the exhibit because a large portion of the sculptures seemed to show captivity and lack of freedom for me.

As mentioned prior, the captivity is made quite evident if you look at the sculptures like this one. On the left we see a feather on a branch, somewhat resembling a bird resting. However, this resides withing a mesh of wire, showing how trapped it is. There were many other small pieces with similar arrangements. The image on the right at first glance looked like a cross with blood at the bottom. I got a sense of the author might being religious from this, showing the sacrifice of Jesus. However, as I stared at it longer, it also felt like it could have been a blood sword, resting against a rock. It made me feel as if there was a time of fighting that just ended.

 I spent the most time on this sculpture. I felt that it had the most going on. My initial impression was that there was a clear depiction of fear and hiding. The triangles in the middle that were on their own and exposed had picks in them, representing death. The remainder of the triangles were hiding in groups or behind tall structures. The structure in the far back had one large triangle in the bottom with the structure being built on top of it. I felt like this showed how you can build off the death and sacrifice of those that come before you. The structure on the right had three varying sizes of triangles with different colors. I thought that this showed how working together can ensure survival, no matter the age (sizes of the triangles) or race (color).