The MFA’s Contemporary Department unveils two highly visible, community-engaged installations this January and February with support from the Museum Council Artist in Residency Program Fund. “The Fund was formally established in 2008 to provide opportunities at the MFA for interactions with living artists and to showcase their work. Since then a portion of proceeds from the Museum Council’s Summer Party have gone toward the creation of a $500,000 endowment,” explained Julie Crites, Development Officer for the Museum Council. “This season the Fund helps the MFA realize two contemporary projects for all visitors to enjoy. Council members should feel very proud of our important philanthropic contribution to the cultural life of the Museum,” continued Craig Tevolitz, Chair of the Museum Council Steering Committee.

The first funded project was installed January 16 and made its New England debut January 20 for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, during the MFA's Free Open House. On the Huntington Avenue entrance steps through summer 2014 and titled Now, Speak!, Argentinean artist Amalia Pica’s concrete lectern prompts public performances, whether programmed or spontaneous. For example, on MLK Day from 10-2 pm, historical political speeches were delivered by members of the MFA's Teen Arts Council. As Beal Family Senior Curator Jen Mergel notes, Pica’s work is a contemporary “social sculpture” as “both a physical object and a social platform for expression, dialogue, and action.”

The Fund also supports the New England debut and three-year installation of Untitled (Shadows), which artist Liliana Porter will create anew for Boston, decades since it was first realized in her native Buenos Aires in 1969. Working on-site on along the 120-foot wall spanning the first floor of the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art, Porter works with assistant to paint the shadows of people in the Museum community as silhouettes, like imprints on the architecture. As Mergel observes, “In some ways, it is a portrait of the Museum, a hint at the invisible presence of those who make our culture visible—the artists, the audiences, the staff, all together.” If you are in the neighborhood February 3-5, drop by the Linde Wing and watch the artist as she creates this installation during public hours. She may even ask you to pose!

Stay tuned for an upcoming Museum Council event with Amalia Pica on March 19 with curators Jen Mergel and Liz Munzell. And thank you again for your membership, which has underwritten these artists’ travel, materials, programming, community events, and more.