From July 13 to Dec. 1, the Institute of Contemporary Art presents dual exhibitions: “Where I Learned to Look: Art from the Yard,” a group exhibition that explores artwork created in or for yards; and “Johanna Piotrowska: unseeing eyes, restless bodies,” the first U.S. solo exhibition of Polish artist and photographer Johanna Piotrowska, evoking questions about care, violence, and the relationship between gender and power inside domestic spaces. The exhibitions will kick off with an opening celebration on Friday, July 12.
“This season at ICA, we present two exhibitions that push boundaries on conventional thinking–one on techniques in photography, the other on notions of ‘yard art,’” says Zoë Ryan, the Daniel W. Dietrich, II director of the ICA. “They each bring to the fore underrecognized artists across nontraditional mediums, featuring bold, exuberant new work that drives ideas of collaboration, experimentation, and learning that are at the heart of all that we do here at the ICA.”
“Where I Learned to Look” is guest curated by artist and art historian Josh T. Franco and organized by ICA curators Hallie Ringle and Denise Ryner. Franco’s interest in yard art began as an academic one while finishing his Ph.D., but also stems from lived experience: His grandfather, though he never called himself a “yard artist,” would salvage objects and create sculptural vignettes in his free time. His grandfather was particularly fond of a cowboys-themed area he created through stencil forms.
“I grew up in that yard and, in hindsight, realized that’s a whole world of art-making that happens all over the country,” Franco says. (Some of Franco’s grandfather’s works are among the 30 included in the show.)
Think: everything from pink flamingos to windmills. Franco says yard art began being studied as early as the 1940s as part of conversations about high and low culture in the U.S. in the postwar period and has endured in the decades since.
“This show benefits from a good 40 or 50 years of shows and scholarship in collecting; it’s a celebration in a year that is otherwise going [to be difficult],” Franco says. “I wanted to do something fun.”
In terms of what he’s adding to the yard-art discourse, he says that he wanted to provoke thought about how art doesn’t need to be placed in the yard to be defined as yard art—instead, he says, it’s a language. This is reflected in the inclusion of Jeff Koons’ Bird Bath Gazing Ball, a piece that Franco says is part of the yard art lexicon even though it was designed for commercial galleries and museums. Beyond that, he says, he wanted to highlight Indigenous and other First Nations artists to call attention to whether a reservation is a yard and “what it means when your yard provides physical sustenance,” he says. Included are two video works by the BUSH Gallery Collective and Brian Jungen and Duane Linklater, about hunting and using territory for food—contrasted with how yards are used as gardens.
Elsewhere in the exhibit, guests will find everything from salvaged—and later bedazzled—cars to painted window screens, as might be found in rowhomes in Baltimore, Maryland. The Painted Screen Society loaned 20 screens for the exhibition, which are painted like a canvas and are highly functional: in practice, a person inside a home can still see outside of the window, even when all that’s visible from outside is the painted image.
The point: A “yard” doesn’t have to be a lawn with a fence. Visitors are invited to consider the significance of bringing yard art out of its popular context and its own functionality as both a space of artmaking and display. They’re also invited to engage with a cornhole set created by Finnegan Shannon for the exhibition, which is designed with intention to be accessible.
“As I’ve been working on the show, I’ve been asking people what yard art means to them, and it’s such a fun range of things,” Franco says. “If I have an intention, it’s just that this helps people value the yard art in their own lives and be more attentive to it when you’re walking around.”
For Piotrowska’s solo show, visitors will immediately notice the intimacy of the upstairs gallery space: the 26 photographs—some of which were made for the show—are displayed in a multiroom layout meant to feel like an apartment. The photographs are typically staged and performative, with many asking viewers to question their assumptions about reality.
“Her work is incredibly nuanced in that it brings to life these sorts of gestures and interactions that you have with family, or anyone you have a sense of intimacy with, and isolates them in a way that makes you question them,” explains Ringle, who curated the show. “Is this violent or loving? Is this a hug or a silencing?”
The sense of scale in the galleries is meant to foster this type of engagement. In some spaces, she says, the artworks will appear outsized—seemingly too big for the small space they’re confined to. Pink carpet also adds to the space’s feeling of domesticity; if it all begins to feel uncomfortable, it’s because it’s meant to be.
“It really lends to the sense of uncanny that you feel in the exhibition,” Ringle says.
She describes Piotrowska’s work as bold and not “pulling any punches.” One piece, for example, will at first appear like a crib, but is positioned to look more like a cage. In another, it seems that a woman is placing her hand over her face—only for it to seem upon further inspection that someone else is touching it. The photographs ask audiences to think about what it means to feel unsettled in a space meant to provide comfort and safety.
Notably, the exhibits are open earlier than usual—partly to accommodate student orientations, but also to provide a space for those who remain on campus during the summer months.
“[It’s for] all the people here in the summer like us who want to have fun and relax—and enjoy the air conditioning,” she says. “We have engaging art; excellent air conditioning too!”
