The Medium is the Massage is a new commission by the Cuban American artist Rafael Domenech for a year-long pavilion for self-publishing, collective reading, and programs at the ICA. With a nod to the eponymous book by Marshall McLuhan and graphic designer Quentin Fiore, this project considers the forms, standards, conventions and errors that are part of exhibition making. Interested in publishing as a methodology for making exhibitions, The Medium is the Massage is a publication that the public can inhabit as a book-in-space. In keeping with the artist’s philosophy on waste, optimization, and challenging mechanisms of value, at the end of the show the public will be invited to take what remains of the show home.
Rafael Domenech (b. 1989, Havana) lives and works in New York. He is interested in artist books, the afterlives of material, how we read, how things circulate, and how we produce art and exhibition.
The exhibit will be on display from 9/09/2022 to 1/08/2023.