MANY FORMS OF CARE: AN EXHIBITION AT THE MFA BOSTON
Tender Loving Care: Contemporary Art from the Collection at the Museum of fine Arts in Boston invites visitors to explore how contemporary artists trace and address concepts of care through their materials, subjects, ideas, and processes.
This exhibition brings together more than 100 works from the MFA’s collection—including recent acquisitions and objects that have never been on view before—that define, depict, and demonstrate many forms of care through five thematic groupings: threads, thresholds, rest, vibrant matter, and adoration.
At their core, creating and looking at works of art are acts of care, from the artist’s labor to the viewer’s contemplation and appreciation. Storage, conservation, and display are also ways of tending to art. Throughout the galleries, visitors are invited to take time for rest and contemplation on benches and chairs that were commissioned as part of Please be Seated, a program that has invited artists to make seating for the MFA since 1975.
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Gisela Charfauros McDaniel, Tiningo’ si Sirena, 2021. Oil on canvas, clothing, objects from subject-collaborator, shells, pearls, sound. Irving W. and Charlotte F. Rabb Acquisition Fund for the Department of Contemporary Art. © Gisela McDaniel; Courtesy of the artist and Pilar Corrias, London.
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Betye Saar, The Differences Between, 1989. Cotton velvet on pressboard with found objects: embossed laminated paper board, wood fan, photograph, partial glove, nylon netting, feather, watchface, hair ornaments. Curator’s Grant Program of the Peter Norton Family Foundation. Reproduced with permission.
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Kurt Reynolds, Blessed Art Thou Among Women? 1990. Multimedia assemblage. The Living New England Artist Purchase Fund, created by the Stephen and Sybil Stone Foundation. Reproduced with permission.
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Page Hazlegrove, Branching Bowl, 1996. Cast glass. Gift of Lola Dunn and Thomas Middleton Levis. Reproduced with permission.
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Sheila Hicks, Kneeling Stones, about 1990. Polychrome, yarns, wrapping. Gift of Edward Merrin and Vivian Merrin. © Sheila Hicks.
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Howardena Pindell, Memory: Future, 1980–81. Mixed media on canvas. Museum purchase with funds donated by Barbara L. and Theodore B. Alfond through the Acorn Foundation in honor of Ann and Graham Gund Director Matthew D. Teitelbaum. Courtesy the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York.
Gisela Charfauros McDaniel’s portrait of her mother, Tiningo’ si Sirena (2021), moves between intimacy and an attentiveness to larger concepts that are meaningful to the artist, like cultural inheritances and ecological interconnectivity. The intensive time and labor that goes into creating textiles and fiber art is evident in examples by Sheila Hicks, Howardena Pindell, and Jane Sauer. Through these works and many others visitors can consider how different forms of care may inspire new models for living and feeling—now and in the future.
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Jess T. Dugan, Herb, from the series Every Breath We Drew, 2013. Photograph, inkjet print. Gift of Jess T. Dugan and Catherine Edelman Gallery. © Jess T. Dugan.
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Clementine Hunter, The Annunciation and the Adoration of the Wise Men, 1957
Oil on board. The Hayden Collection—Charles Henry Hayden Fund. Reproduced with permission.
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Anna Zemánková, Untitled, second half of the 1970s. Crayon, pastel, ballpoint pen, and metallic paint with embroidery (crochet). Sophie M. Friedman Fund. Reproduced with permission.
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Miriam Schapiro, Welcome to Our Home, 1983. Oil on fabric and canvas. Anonymous gift. Reproduced with permission.
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Finnegan Shannon, Do you want us here or not, 2020. Baltic birch, poplar wood, Formica laminate. The Wornick Fund for Contemporary Craft. © Finnegan Shannon.
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Yvette Mayorga, Surveillance Locket 2, 2021. Acrylic piping and collage on panel. Henry and Lois Foster Contemporary Purchase Fund. © Yvette Mayorga.
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