10 Exhibitions Not to Miss this Fall
This Fall, Greater Boston museums are stepping up their contemporary game with a host of exhibitions focused on prominent groundbreaking artists – many of whom are women, plus a survey of modernist masters, and a collaborative effort showcasing the beauty of medieval illuminated manuscripts.
First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA
2016 marks the 10th anniversary of The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston’s move to the waterfront and the start of its permanent collection. To celebrate the occasion, Chief Curator Eva Respini brings together new acquisitions and permanent-collection favorites in a series of interrelated and stand-alone exhibitions, which feature monumental works by Kara Walker, Cornelia Parker, and Paul Chan.
Now – January 16, The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston
UH-OH: Frances Stark 1991–2015
The most comprehensive survey to date of Los Angeles-based artist and writer Frances Stark, UH-OH tracks her 25-year career. Featuring more than 100 works, UH-OH provides an in-depth exploration of Stark’s singular artistic practice and voice, as she shares her knowledge of cultural topics high and low, including dissections of art history, the Internet, and her creative contemporaries.
September 17 – January 29, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Making It Modern: The Folk Art Collection of Elie and Viola Nadelman
Making It Modern is the first major examination of sculptor Elie Nadelman’s seminal role in folk art collecting. This exhibition explores the intersection of folk art and modernism, presenting approximately 100 objects from the Nadelmans’ collection with examples of Elie Nadelman’s own modern sculpture.
September 24 – December 31, Addison Gallery of American Art
Fans of the Bauhaus will want to make their way out to Wellesley this fall for a retrospective on accomplished print marker Anni Albers. Focused around the Davis’s acquisition of her exquisite portfolio Connections – a set of nine silk screens – and accompanied by other works, the exhibition traces her development as an artist and highlights pivotal moments in her prolific career.
September 28 – December 18, The Davis Museum at Wellesley College
Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections
In this unique city-wide collaborative project entitled Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College, and the Houghton Library at Harvard University – with help from the Boston Public Library – present the largest exhibition of medieval and Renaissance books ever held in North America.
September 22 – January 16, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, September 12 – December 11, McMullen Museum of Art, September 12 – December 10, Houghton Library
In this solo exhibition at the List Center, Los Angeles-based artist Edgar Arceneaux presents three major, interlocking projects that reflect on history and remembrance, and consider how specific national, cultural narratives change over time. One of the featured works included is the new installation Until, Until, Until (2016), premiering at the List, which examines Broadway legend Ben Vereen’s controversial performance at the 1981 presidential inaugural celebration.
October 14 – January 8, MIT List Visual Art Center
This contemporary masterpiece is comprised of thousands of fragments from television and film history — creating a 24-hour video shown in real time. From Big Ben to Jack Nicholson, viewers can recognize iconic movies, actors, and clips from a century of films.
September 17 – January 29, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Featuring Impressionist heavyweights Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Mary Cassatt, this exhibition explores the innovative working methods and unconventional subject matter that made the Impressionists the radicals of the late 19th century art world.
October 21 – June 11, RISD Museum of Art
This dazzling exhibition – a join effort between the Peabody Essex Museum and the Victoria Museum – explores the creativity of footwear from around the globe through more than 200 pairs of shoes, ranging from elaborate vintage designs to those by contemporary makers.
November 19 – March 12, Peabody Essex Museum
Doris Salcedo: The Materiality of Mourning
Evoking themes such as the lasting grief of war, Doris Salcedo: The Materiality of Mourning brings together a deeply evocative constellation of recent works by the Colombian born artist. The pieces, on display at Harvard Art Museums, also address 20th-century preoccupation with materiality and the object, while still displaying the artist’s distinctive way of fusing painstaking research with works fastidiously made by hand.
November 4 – March 9, Harvard Art Museums
