BOSTON, MASS.- Jill Medvedow, the Ellen Matilda Poss Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, announced today that the museum will reopen to the public on Thursday, July 16 with new health and safety protocols in place for the safety of both visitors and staff. The ICA will host member appreciation days on July 14 and 15, and members will be able to bring an additional guest for free through September 7, 2020 (Labor Day). The museum will also offer free admission to the public from July 16 through July 19. Advance timed tickets required at icaboston.org/tickets.

“I am very eager to welcome people back to the ICA, to share the extraordinary craft and insights of amazing artists, and to put exhibitions, educational materials, outdoor space, and more in service to communities. I’m equally eager to simply see our audiences—to be alone together at the museum—as we navigate our way together, invest in the common good, and recognize the power of the arts to help us understand the promise and the pain of our moment,” said Medvedow.

The museum will open with exhibitions of work by Sterling Ruby, Tschabalala Self, Carolina Caycedo, Nina Chanel Abney, and our collection show Beyond Infinity: Contemporary Art After Kusama. These exhibitions were on view when the museum closed in March, and have now been extended. In the fall, the ICA will open several new exhibitions, including a major collection show titled i’m yours: Encounters with Art in Our Times featuring works by Kader Attia, Firelei Báez, Louise Bourgeois, Ndijeka Akuniyli Crosby, Nan Goldin, Simone Leigh, Doris Salcedo, Henry Taylor, and more; the U.S. museum premiere of William Kentridge’s KABOOM! (2018), a recent major acquisition and room-filling multimedia installation; and Ragnar Kjartansson’s The Visitors (2012). Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING will remain closed for further safety assessments. Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech,” slated to open this July, will now open in July 2021.

Advance timed tickets are required to allow for contactless entry, and we ask that visitors arrive to the museum no more than five minutes ahead of their designated time slot. Timed tickets can be reserved online starting July 8 for ICA members and July 15 for general admission at icaboston.org/tickets.

When the ICA reopens, the museum will implement new procedures and policies for the safety of visitors and staff, following the health and safety requirements and recommendations of the City of Boston, State of Massachusetts, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These procedures and policies include:

• Online ticketing and contactless entry.

• Limited visitor capacity.




• Face coverings required for all staff and visitors.

• Increased safety measures and equipment available to visitors, including hand sanitizer stations placed throughout the museum.

• New signage outlining safety protocols and delineating physical distance.

• New cleaning protocols.

• Contactless, digital resources available for visitors via URL/QR code.

• Reconfiguration of and capacity limits in spaces throughout the museum to ensure physical distancing.

• Implementation of new procedures and safety guidelines for ICA staff, including the requirement to wear face coverings and maintain physical distancing at all times on site, and a daily health self-assessment.

In addition to the changes outlined above, the ICA has postponed all theater productions and performances until 2021. Public programming and events are also currently postponed. On-site group tours have been suspended and the ICA will provide additional options for self-guided visits. The ICA plans to continue many different kinds of virtual programs during the first phase of reopening, including family programs, teen programs, virtual tours, and social programs like First Fridays.