March 6, 2017

This year’s gala, to be held on April 6, 2018, is a celebration of performance, improvisation, and collectivity inspired by the myriad artists and musicians who have passed through ICA’s doors during this season’s exhibitions The Freedom Principle and Endless Shout.

ICA is proud to honor Hilton Als, Chief Theatre Critic at The New Yorker, who is also a curator, photographer, director and professor. Als’s work gracefully slips between genres with profound cultural and psychological illuminations on what it means to be human. In various forms and with a range of methods, Als navigates the complex terrain of art, music, sexuality, and race with humor as well as rigorous study and engagement; his voice emerges as one of the clearest and most incisive of our time.

Als’s first book, The Women, a meditation on gender, race, and identity, was published in 1996. His most recent book, White Girls, follows similar lines of inquiry, exploring various narratives of race and gender; it was nominated for a 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Als has taught at Wesleyan, Wellesley, Smith, and the Yale School of Drama, and his work has appeared in The Nation, The Believer, and The New York Review of Books. He lives in New York City. Als served as co-curator for ICA’s 2015 exhibition Christopher Knowles: In a Word and as a contributing artist in the group show White Petals Surround Your Yellow Heart in 2013.