An impressive crowd of Miami refuseniks gathered last night, 28 November, to ring in the changes at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and welcome its incoming director Stefan Kalmár. Amongst the throng welcoming the former director of New York’s Artist’s Space, were the artists Wolfgang Tillmans, Oscar Murillo, Jeremy Deller, Michael—soon to become Sir Michael—Craig-Martin and Liam Gillick. Joining them were the Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson; the MoMA curator Stuart Comer; the gallerists Maureen Paley, Cornelia Grassi and Tommaso Corvi-Mora; and the collectors Fatima Maleki and Frances Reynolds. Other attendees were the iconic figure of Doris Saatchi, the cult DJ Princess Julia and the legendary dancer and choreographer Michael Clark (who is also Kalmár’s partner).
Officiating over this diverse and illustrious throng was Donald A Moore, the chair of the Morgan Stanley Group Europe and the ICA’s new chair. Moore has taken over from Alison Myners, who recently stepped down after six years, but was very much present last night. Leading the speeches, Moore revealed that minutes into his interview he—and the selection panel—knew that Kalmár was the man for the job. Moore identified that the factors that made him excited about his new director were his “integrity, energy, vision and leadership”. And despite confessing to being “a little nervous” at Kalmár’s avowed determination to take risks, there was also admiration for his plans for the ICA’s programme. This will now be organised thematically across the institute’s various departments, and aims to address the key issues of “ecology, migration and social justice”.
For his part, Kalmár left everyone in no doubt that he intends to shake things up and to engage with what is currently happening in the real world. His passionate speech threw down the gauntlet for all our art institutions to liberate themselves from the same populism that is currently afflicting politics, and to be “plural, never singular, never one, never alone”. The new director also cited Marc-Camille Chaimowicz’s classic room-filling, multimedia, multi-sensory work Enough Tiranny (1972)—which opened at the Serpentine Gallery in October on the day Kalmár accepted the ICA job—as the leitmotif for his directorship. Much to the pleasure of Mr Chaimowicz, who was sitting directly to his right.
A final salvo providing more proof—if any were needed—of the respect commanded by Mr Kalmar on both sides of the Atlantic, was when the artist and Artists Space board-member Liam Gillick jumped to his feet to make an impromptu tribute to Kalmar, as “a gesture of friendship” at a time when “strange decisions” were being made on both sides of the Atlantic. However, he also ruefully informed the crowd that, back at Artists Space “we are looking for a new director”. Big shoes to fill, it seems.