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FOR 11/23

ICA BOSTON SEE RECORD ATTENDANCE AT WATERFRONT VENUE IN DEBUT YEAR

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BOSTON, MASS. — Since opening its new waterfront facility on December 10, last year, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston has enjoyed tremendous success, with attendance increasing to 280,000 visitors — an 11-fold increase from the museum’s former Boylston Street location.

The ICA’s new performance program premiered 20 works by some of the world’s leading performing artists in the glass-enclosed Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater, and the museum announced 22 acquisitions to its first permanent collection.

The ICA will celebrate its first anniversary with a Community Day, sponsored by Target, which will offer free admission, extended hours and screenings of The Making of the New ICA, a documentary about the construction of the ICA’s iconic building. The Community Day will be Sunday, December 9, from 10 am to 7 pm.

“It has been wonderful to see hundreds of thousands of people visit the museum over the past year, so many of them with smiles on their faces,” says Director Jill Medvedow. “The art, artists and architecture all contributed to a rich, diverse and emotionally satisfying artistic experience and sense of civic pride.”

The museum’s attendance (including paid admission, opening events, and theater and education programs) well exceeded the projected attendance of 225,000. More than 10,000 people visited the museum through the group tour program. Membership surpassed 10,000 households in May, an increase of more than 300 percent in 11 months. The ICA’s website has received more than half a million visits since December.

For the first time in its 70-year history, the ICA exhibited a permanent collection of Twenty-First Century art, including painting, sculpture, video, photography and text-based work. The trustees of the ICA voted to accept 22 works of art into the collection over the first year, with acquisitions of work by Laylah Ali, Kai Althoff, Louise Bourgeois, Ambreen Butt, Paul Chan, Taylor Davis, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Rineke Dijkstra, Tara Donovan, Marlene Dumas, Noriko Furunishi, Nan Goldin, Mona Hatoum, Thomas Hirschhorn, Christian Jankowski, Josiah McElheny, Lucy McKenzie, Boris Mikhailov, Julian Opie, Cornelia Parker, Kelly Sherman and Rachel Perry Welty.

The ICA mounted 12 exhibition in its first year.

The museum is at 100 Northern Avenue. For information, www.icaboston.org or 617-478-3100.