Becky, I understand this exhibition first opened in 2020. How did this project come about?:
Since 2010, ICI has supported the work of emerging curators through a program called the Curatorial Intensive. This program has taken place in more than 25 cities around the world and served over 500 curators who collectively define what contemporary curatorial practice is today. In 2018, we invited alumni of the Curatorial Intensive to submit exhibition proposals to ICI and selected Never Spoken Again: Rogue Stories of Science and Collections to be the first ICI exhibition curated by an alum of our educational program.
Installation view at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, East Lansing, 2020. Photo: Eat Pomegranate Photography. Courtesy of MSU Broad and ICI.
The exhibition tour launched in January of 2020 at the Eli and Edyth Broad Art Museum in East Lansing, Michigan, and was shut down just 6 weeks later due to Covid-19. While the world was shut down, Never Spoken Again went into Crozier’s storage in Connecticut, unsure of when or if it would open again.
What happened next?:
Though unanticipated, the pandemic brought many institutional questions into focus, resonating deeply with Never Spoken Again, an exhibition that investigates the often contested histories of museum collections and material culture. Once art spaces began opening again, the exhibition continued to travel across the United States: Telfair Museum’s Jepson Center in Savannah, Georgia; Fleming Museum in Burlington, Vermont; Moss Art Center in Blacksburg, Virginia, and now the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
What’s unique about this exhibition tour?:
Traveling exhibitions are unique unto themselves, asking artists and collections to loan artworks for long periods of time, and in this case, for almost six years. Throughout this tour, Crozier has been ICI’s trusted logistics partner to ensure care and safety for the entire exhibition. With Crozier’s support, we are able to keep the entire exhibition assembled for the length of the tour, and reduce the environmental impact associated with shipping as the works are not constantly travelling back to their original destination in between shows.
What’s next for this exhibition and ICI?
The presentation at the Weisman Art Museum marks the last stop on this exhibition’s tour and once it closes, all of the artworks will be returned to the artists and lenders. Although it is bittersweet to say goodbye to an exhibition I have been in dialogue with for so long, I know that its questions, methods, and relationships will continue to unfold in future projects. These concerns extend into ICI’s Mud + Corn + Stone + Blue, which examines intertwined histories of land, agriculture, migration, and power between the United States and Central America.
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