Join Ruth Erickson for the signing of To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood, the fully illustrated catalogue and companion piece to the exhibition, now on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) through February 2023. This catalogue features the voices and perspectives of a variety of artists, scholars, and writers who take inspiration from the wonders, imaginations, and curiosities of childhood. The exhibition, To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood, has been a project of Erickson’s in her role as the Mannion Family Senior Curator at the ICA. Visit Praise Shadows Art Gallery on December 17 at 5 pm for the book signing and light refreshments. 25 signed copies of the catalogue will be onsite. Additional signed copies will be available for pre-order.
Registration is not required for this event.
Pre-order a signed copy of To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood here.
More about the catalogue and exhibition
Artists have long been inspired by children―by their imagination, creativity and unique ways of seeing and being in the world―and have made work that depicts and involves children as collaborators, that represents or mimics their ways of drawing or telling stories, that highlights their unique cultures, and that addresses ideas of innocence and spontaneity closely associated with children. To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood surveys how artists have reflected on and contributed to notions of childhood from the early 20th century to the present. The works in To Begin Again offer distinctive viewpoints and experiences, revealing how time and place, economics and race, and representation and aesthetics fundamentally shape how we experience and understand early development. The catalog underscores that while there is no single, uniform idea of childhood, it is nevertheless the ground upon which so much of society is built, negotiated and imagined.
Artists include: Ann Agee, John Ahearn, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Francis Alÿs, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Brian Belott, Jordan Casteel, Lenka Clayton, Allan Rohan Crite, Henry Darger, Karon Davis, Robert Gober, Jay Lynn Gomez, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Duane Hanson, Mona Hatoum, Sharon Hayes, Ekua Holmes, Mary Kelly, Paul Klee, Justine Kurland, Helen Levitt, Tau Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Oscar Murillo, Rivane Neuenschwander, Berenice Olmedo, Charles Ray, Faith Ringgold, Deborah Roberts, Tim Rollins and K.O.S., Rachel Rose, Heji Shin, Sable Elyse Smith, Becky Suss, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Cathy Wilkes and Carmen Winant.
More about Ruth Erickson
Ruth Erickson is the Mannion Family Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, where she has curated solo exhibitions with artists Kevin Beasley, Mark Dion, Wangechi Mutu, Tschabalala Self, and Vivian Suter, as well as traveling group exhibitions on Black Mountain College and another on contemporary art and migration. Her forthcoming projects include a group exhibition titled “A Place for Me: Figurative Painting Now” that registers the current wave of portraiture among artists of her generation as well as “To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood” an international and intergenerational survey of artists who have derived inspiration from childhood. At the ICA/Boston, she oversees the permanent collection and had led a comprehensive review of acquisitions through the lens of diversity and equity. She has edited and contributed to multiple exhibition catalogues, including Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957, and presented and published her work widely, in venues from Jeu de Paume, Paris, the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH, and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, to Art in America and Framework. She received a BA in Art History from Carleton College and an MA and PhD in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania, and regularly serves as a visiting critic, most recently at Maine College of Art and Massachusetts College of Art and Design
