Tonight I got to meet Clementina Chéry (pictured) who is the visionary founder of the Louis D Brown Peace Institute @peaceinstitute She founded the organization dedicated to peacemaking and supporting survivors of violence in honor of her son Louis who was caught in a fatal crossfire shootout in 1993 near his home. Louis was on his way to a Teens Against Gang Violence meeting, and Clementina committed to carry on his work and dedication to peace. We were brought together in preparation for the Gun Violence Memorial Project to open in Boston August 29th. @massdesigngroup@icaboston Tonight, mothers came in with remembrance objects to honor their sons whose lives had been taken by guns. This is the day after the US surgeon general declared gun violence a public health crisis. To watch Clementina hug a weeping mother was a small and powerful reflection of her 30+ years of advocacy and love. 🧡
So pleased to finally announce publicly a project I’ve been working closely with folks from MASS Design and Hank Willis Thomas’s studio to bring to Boston for a couple years: The Gun Violence Memorial Project. It is a living memorial with remembrance objects donated by families in honor of individuals whose lives have been taken by gun violence. It’s a moving project dedicated to this uniquely American crisis and the potential of memorials to recount textured and personal stories. There are local collecting events June 26-29th at Lewis D Brown Peace Institute and MASS Design. The project opens August 29th at three sites across Boston: the ICA, Boston City Hall, and MASS Design. Check out gunviolencememorialproject.com for more info on participating. Looking forward to sharing more of our collaborative work. @gunviolencememorialproject@icaboston@massdesigngroup@purpose_over_pain@peaceinstitute@artsinboston
People gather and move together to celebrate, worship, protest, mourn, escape, or call for change. These expressions and many more are present in Hew Locke’s “The Procession,” which opens today at ICA Watershed traveling to its only US venue from Tate Britain. Check it out this summer. The Watershed is always free. 📷 by the talented @m.ltaing
The layers, complexities, stories, details…unfolding like an onion and multiplying like the stars with Sir Hew Locke on site for installation these past few days. Thank you for the time and tweaks that made all the difference @hewdjlocke You are all warmly invited to take in his project for ICA Watershed opening next week! The Procession @icaboston traveling from Tate Britain🥁📣
Errands around Cambridge today included three art stops at completely different and compelling exhibitions. First one of most important shows of the moment: Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme’s gorgeous saturated multichannel films and installations drawing, in part, upon submitted and found videos and rhythms from Syria, Iraq, and Palestine. Thank you @basel.abb@abellanatalie@mitlistarts
Second sculptures and drawings inspired by the Greek island of Syros—its architecture and daily life—by @katkaburinova at Anthony Greaney’s space.
Third is the remarkable woodcuts of daily scenes by LaToya M Hobbs @latoyahobbs@harvardartmuseums . I feel really lucky to live within a couple miles of all this great art and kinds of spaces.
All 140 figures are out of the crates after a tremendous first week of installation, and the details are dazzling! Unimaginable intricacy across these sculptures that will stretch the full length of the ICA Watershed @icaboston in a giant procession. Gearing up for Hew Locke’s @hewdjlocke “The Procession” opening to the public May 24 at ICA Watershed for the only stop in the US of this Tate Britain Commission. Thank you as always to the great ICA team and @mikei_hall 💓
1. I rarely sit for more than 5 min in moving-image works at big art shows. But once again in my third encounter with Wael Shawky’s work I was mesmerized and watched the entire 45-min work “Drama 1882” that in 8 scenes narrated through music, movement, actors, and color-saturated sets the Urabi popular uprising and massacre in Egypt. A slice of history performed by hundreds in a theater in Alexandria was one of the most layered reflections on the long threads of colonial relations that continue to weave our existence. The lines were long because everyone was enthralled. My golden 🦁 choice!
2. I remember an equally powerful experience in 2018 in Sharjah. It was my first visit to the UAE, and I arrived at night and made my way to Calligraphy Square, Al Shiokh, where Wael’s performance “The Song of Roland: The Arabic Version” was taking place. I was among the last to leave that night.
I visited Jeffrey Gibson’s US Pavilion three times and each left me more buoyant than the last. There were great beaded and fabric sculptures like this bird with the title “if there is no struggle there is no progress.” The kaleidoscopic video of the jingle dance was 🔥. And I am so grateful to have witnessed 24 dancers and drummers sharing Native dances and songs from all across the US. As they each introduced themselves often in languages I had never heard, I was struck by how many of the tribes I was not familiar with and grateful for the opportunity to learn. 🤟 @jeffrune I am so thrilled to have Jeff and Jenelle Porter @jpo3000 make their book “An Indigenous Present” into an exhibition @icaboston opening fall 2025 🙏🧡
I spent most of my third day immersed in national pavilions in Venice. In between, I relished some of the paintings paired together in the main exhibition, and the stories those pairings told, especially about kinship—blood and chosen.
1. Abel Rodriguez makes collaborative paintings with his son Aycoobo — these are made from memory of plant and animal life in the Colombian Amazon
2 and 3. Seneque and Philome Obin — brothers and part of the Cap-Haitien school of painting depicting daily life in Haiti
4 and 5. Bhupen Khakhar (1934-2003) and Louis Fratino — gorgeous paintings of men, life, and their love. Louis told me when he had his visit for the Biennale, he had a catalogue of Bhupen’s paintings in his studio.
Some art sightings from Venice day 2 in the orbit of the Arsenale and the main exhibition “Strangers Everywhere”
1. Leilah Babirye @babiryesculptor
2. Ana Maria Maolino — an inventory of clay forms
3. Wangshui @wangshui_
4. Sangodare Gbadegesin Ajala — I 💜 batik. And this was one of more than a 100 deceased artists from places outside the US or Europe who drew on local knowledge to produce their work, a real defining aspect of this Biennale curated by @adrianopedrosa that I really appreciated
5. Anna Zemankova — a Czech artist who lived 1908-1986 and made these herbarium with satin ribbons, paper and ballpoint pen.
6. My first encounter in person with Lina Bo Bardi’s glass installation devices. They worked better than I could have imagined, and the backs of the works were enthralling.
7. Dalton Paula
8. Pacita Abad — seeing these made me so excited to finally get to see her major survey organized by @victoriasung now on view at PS1
9. Greta Schodl — poet born in the 1920s, this work from 1980 says “marmo” (marble)
10. Charmaine Poh @psxcharmaine — a captivating essay film about queer parenting, so rich
Scrolling through the arts days/daze. Sharing what is sticking with me from Venice day 1.
1. Yinka Shonibare, “Monument to the Restitution of the Mind and Soul” at Nigerian Pavillion — terracotta replicas of some of the bronze artifacts looted from Benin in 1897 by the British @shonibarestudio
2. Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, “Celestial Gathering” at the Nigerian Pavillion @tunjiaj
3. Allora and Cazadilla, “Graft” in the exhibition “From Ukraine: Dare to Dream” — casts of baobab blossoms
4. Sarah Sze, “Sleepers” at Victoria Miro @sarahszestudio
5. Shazia Sikander’s pitch perfect survey in an incredible site curated by @emilyliebert1@ainsleymcameron
6. Pierre Huyghe’s fishtanks in his over-the-top moody probing of life’s margins and technological futures
10 years old!!! Julian loves reading, beaches, traveling with his family, scratch coding, and eating food from all over the world, especially fruits of the sea. He has an incredible sense of kindness and justice that guides almost everything he does (unless it involves his little brother). I feel so lucky to be his mom. 🎂🧡
