In its mission to exhibit and amplify the range of global voices shaping contemporary art today, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami) will debut the first comprehensive museum survey of American artist Chakaia Booker’s works in “The Observance,” on Thursday, April 22.
The exhibition will explore Booker’s signature form, monumental works made of rubber, while showcasing her innovations across mediums. Featuring a range of Booker’s sculptures, including totemic and anthropomorphic assemblages fabricated from cast-off tires, the exhibition highlights Booker’s ongoing expression of ecological and technological concerns, examinations of racial and economic disparities, and her interest in the symbolism of the automobile in American culture.
“The Observance” will include some of Booker’s most topical works, including Chu Ching (2012), which depicts a cross on a wheelbarrow resembling Jesus being dismounted from the cross, as well as two rarely seen series of paintings that explore landscape and language. The artist’s photographic series, Foundling Warrior Quest (2010) and Graveyard Series (1995), are also featured to explore the importance of performance and mythology in her practice. Anchoring the presentation is The Observance (1995), an immersive installation made of deconstructed rubber tires and tubes––Booker’s first work in this signature material, chosen by the artist for its associations with riots. Chakaia Booker: The Observance is curated by ICA Miami Artistic Director Alex Gartenfeld and Curator Stephanie Seidel.
“ICA Miami’s spring program showcases artists whose works advance important and inclusive narratives of contemporary art. Through these exhibitions, we invite audiences to engage with thrilling new works, grapple with some of the most pressing matters of our time, and consider how contemporary art challenges and responds to our current world,” said ICA Miami artistic director Alex Gartenfeld. “This spring, we also celebrate the pioneering artist Robert Grosvenor as the recipient of the annual Ezratti Family Prize for Sculpture. Grosvenor’s contributions to sculpture and influence on his generation merit greater recognition, and we are pleased to collect and preserve an important and monumental work by the artist.”
Follow ICA Miami’s spring 2021 exhibition schedule here.
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