90 YEARS

90 YEARS is a special anniversary exhibition celebrating the Institute of Contemporary Art’s 90-year history. It revisits nine exhibitions and initiatives that helped define the ICA, tracing the museum’s development alongside major shifts in contemporary art. The exhibition looks back at the institution’s past while considering its future and includes additional artworks installed throughout every floor of the museum.

Founded in 1936 as the Boston Museum of Modern Art, the ICA began as a sister institution to New York’s Museum of Modern Art and adopted its current name in 1948. Across thirteen locations and nine decades, it has supported artistic experimentation, cultural dialogue, and new forms of contemporary expression.

When: October 15, 2026, through March 7, 2027.

Venue: Institute of Contemporary Art, in the Bridgitt and Bruce Evans and Karen and Brian Conway Galleries.

Description: The exhibition is organized around defining moments in the ICA’s history, presenting past projects as a way to imagine the museum’s continuing role in Boston and the wider contemporary-art landscape.

Highlights: Featured historical projects include the 1941 exhibition *Modern Mexican Painters*, which introduced many US audiences to contemporary Mexican painting and artists including José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. The exhibition also revisits Andy Warhol’s 1966 survey, including the premiere of *Exploding Plastic Inevitable*, an experimental combination of live music, dance, and projected video featuring the Velvet Underground.

Additional history: The exhibition covers the ICA’s partnership with WGBH’s New Television Workshop from 1984 to 1991, when the Contemporary Art Television Fund commissioned and co-produced more than twenty video artworks for home broadcast by artists such as Laurie Anderson, Joan Jonas, and Tony Oursler. It also examines the opening of the ICA’s waterfront building, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and the creation of a permanent collection in 2006, including Yayoi Kusama’s *LOVE IS CALLING*. The ICA’s 2022 commission for Simone Leigh’s representation of the United States at the 59th Venice Biennale and the subsequent presentation of her sculptures in Boston are also part of the exhibition’s story.

Artworks: The presentation includes Andy Warhol’s *Facsimile of Silver Clouds* and Yayoi Kusama’s *LOVE IS CALLING*, one of Kusama’s largest infinity mirror rooms. Kusama’s installation uses mirrored glass, lighting, sound, and other materials to create an immersive environment.

Museum-wide installation: Additional artworks connected with the exhibition are installed on every floor, giving visitors an expanded encounter with art throughout the building.

Organizers: The exhibition is collaboratively organized by the ICA curatorial team: Meghan Clare Considine, Jeffrey De Blois, Ruth Erickson, Max Gruber, Tessa Bachi Haas, and Erika Umali, with Brianne Chapelle serving as curatorial department manager.

Support: Funding includes support from Kim Sinatra, the Brizius Family Fund for Artists, the Kristen and Kent Lucken Fund for Photography, and the Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Pilot House Philanthropy, and Alice L. Walton Foundation through the Leadership in Art Museums initiative. The Andy Warhol gallery is supported by Judi Kaufman and Arthur Rubin, and the ICA’s Avant Guardian Society helped make the exhibition possible.

Tickets: Price not available.