2nd and 3rd floors are closed for installation.

Skip to content

Institute of Contemporary Art Miami

Terry Adkins

This course on artist Terry Adkins focuses on the concept of monuments and Black History. Recommended for lessons on Black History and social justice.

About Terry Adkins

Known for his deep engagement with the collective rituals of musical performance and “abstract portraits” of African American luminaries who have often been relegated to the historical margins and erasure, Terry Adkins (b. 1953, Washington, D.C.; d. 2014, New York) was a New York-based artist and musician. His works span across multiple media, including sculpture, drawing, site-specific installation, photography, video, and performance. His often elegiac and always resonant objects, which are the focus of this exhibition, challenge dominant historical narratives, and set us to think of ways of being and moving in the world that rely on deep and long views of displacement and the sociability and community that happen despite it. These objects, deftly assembled, remind us, too, of the immaterial legacies that are passed on through ritual and sound.

Terry Adkins at ICA Miami

Installation view: "Terry Adkins: Infinity Is Always Less Than One" at Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. May 17 – Sept 23, 2018. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen Studio.
Installation view: "Terry Adkins: Infinity Is Always Less Than One" at Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. May 17 – Sept 23, 2018. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen Studio.
Installation view: "Terry Adkins: Infinity Is Always Less Than One" at Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. May 17 – Sept 23, 2018. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen Studio.
Installation view: "Terry Adkins: Infinity Is Always Less Than One" at Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. May 17 – Sept 23, 2018. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen Studio.
Terry Adkins, Audience (from Belted Bronze), installation detail, 2007-2008. 28 framed drawings and peacock. Courtesy Lévy Gorvy, New York. Photo: David Broda, Syracuse University Photo and Imaging Center.
Installation image of Terry Adkins, Flumen Orationis (from The Principalities), 2012 at ICA Miami
Terry Adkins, Flumen Orationis (from The Principalities), 2012. Single channel stereoscopic digital video with sound, 41:38 minutes. © 2020 The Estate of Terry Adkins / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.