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Reviews: Art & Architecture
The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston.12.26.06. I was going to tell you about how I thought that the much-trumpeted new ICA building by Diller Scofidio & Renfro of New York had some serious flaws. (Particularly the entrance, both outside and in. The side of the building facing land—how most people arrive—does not “invite visitors to leave behind the city” as the New York Times suggested in a story on Dec. 8, 2006.)
I was going to tell you how I thought that the current show and permanent collection on exhibit were less than exciting for a museum positioning itself as representing “the leading edge of art.” (Is Boston really so unadventurous?)
And I was going to tell you, that despite my feelings about the work on display, that there really are some pieces that make vital statements in unique and essential ways. (Okay, so some of them are not so contemporary, but they fit in with the theme of the main exhibition.)
I realized, however, that one piece in “Super Vison”, the first exhibition in the new space, puts it all in focus: Sky TV by Yoko Ono. A camera, placed on the roof, is aimed at the sky, delivering a live image to a 2-dimensional screen in one of the galleries. Not only does it invite one to seek out ever-changing details, it is a peek into the infinite. And with its framing of a particular patch of sky, it delivers a path to get there.
I am guessing that there were not dissimilar intentions behind the design of a room within the building that literally hangs from the roof. Stepped rows that provide seating deliver a view of the water below that is as specific and detached from all that surrounds it as our view of the sky in Yoko Ono’s piece. However, the architects are not content with this set-up—there are computer monitors in front of every seat, literally challenging one to ignore the scene below. It’s as if the architects were embarrassed that the room itself might actually become a work of art. (I will admit that on the day that I visited, the computers weren't functioning. However, that seemed all the more to dramatize the contrast between the unbroken, organic pulse of our sea view and the technology that roots us so firmly in an imperfect world.)
Despite my misgivings, I am very happy that Boston finally has a sizable dedicated space that, at least in name, declares that contemporary artists have an important contribution to make. (How much they tap into work that hasn't already been blessed by the marketplace remains to be seen.) And, despite its seeming ambivalence about its physical relationship to the city and the sea, the building is the most daring public space to have been constructed in Boston in a long time. Both are good news. [12.28.06]
Copyright 2008 Robert B. Levers
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