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PREVIEWS N e w s an d E v e n t s f o r M e m b e r s o f t h e I M A
F RO M THE D I RE C TOR
C O N TE N TS America’s leading art museums began to take shape in the 1870s, as the end of the Civil War allowed us to turn to examples of cultural stewardship in Europe. Indianapolis joined the movement in 1883, and the IMA can be counted among the 10 oldest general art museums in the United States. This fall we celebrate our 125th Anniversary with fanfare, highlighted by serial commemorations, gifts of funds and of art, and a major publication documenting the Museum’s history.
• Leadership in stimulating and empowering public engagement.
This fall’s compelling exhibition schedule, highlighted by Power and Glory: Court Arts of China’s Ming Dynasty, will forcefully underscore the ingenuity of an apogee of one of the world’s oldest cultures—and serve as a fitting tribute to what sustained support for art-making and art-collecting can produce. Closer to home, Gifts of the Gamboliers will shed light on a brilliant phase of patronage that catapulted our collection forward. And Dawoud Bey: Class Pictures will reveal new ways of making art that eliminate the barrier between observer and observed, and welcome us all into the creative ferment of our time. Also designed to encourage active looking, The Viewing Project will open in October with a series of installations from the IMA’s permanent collection.
GIFTS OF THE GAMBOLIERS
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DAW OUD BE Y: CL ASS P ICTURES
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ON THE COVER: detail from Portrait of the Tianqi Emperor in court costume. Reign of the Tianqi Emperor (1621-1627) Hanging scroll, colors on silk Palace Museum, Beijing
STAT E O F D E SI G N
T E C HNO LO G Y: A R T & N AT U R E PA R K
Behin d th e Sce n es: M U S E U M A P P R E NTI C E P R O G R A M
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IN TH E G A R D E NS
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A F F I L AT E E V E NTS
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Ex hibitions
• Leadership in producing compelling ways of understanding, • interpreting and presenting art, design and nature. • Leadership in exploring the future place of art in nature.
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• Leadership in imaginative acquisitions, collections care, • exhibitions, exchanges and programs.
E V E R Y WAY P O S S I B L E
In furtherance of this mission statement, we are committed to four goals:
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“The Indianapolis Museum of Art serves the creative interests of its communities by fostering exploration of art, design, and the natural environment. The IMA promotes these interests through the collection, presentation, interpretation and conservation of its artistic, historic, and environmental assets.”
P O W E R A N D G LO R Y: CO U R T A R T S O F C H I N A’ S M I N G DY N A S T Y
After all, marking time is more worthwhile if it includes a projection of where we head next. And at the IMA we have no intention of coasting on the achievements of thousands of staff, volunteer leaders, patrons and others across one and a quarter centuries. On the contrary, we feel a special obligation, as a result of all their work and generosity, to continue to improve the experiment that began with a declaration in the Museum’s original mission statement that we would raise the sights of our city through the arts “in every way possible.” In keeping with this obligation, the board and staff have embraced a new mission statement:
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G I V IN G
I M A E V E NTS
V OI C E S : A R TIST D AW O U D B E Y
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IN F O R M ATION
Please join us in raising a glass to all who have brought the IMA to this point, and dive into our offerings with renewed enthusiasm as we embark on a bright new chapter together, “in every way possible.”
Keep an eye out for fun facts from the IMA throughout Previews as we celebrate our 125th Anniversary. REVERSE
Maxwell L. Anderson The Melvin & Bren Simon Director and CEO
The longest-serving director in the Museum’s history was Wilbur Peat, whose tenure extended from 1929 to 1965. REVERSE
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POWER GLORY and
COURT ARTS OF CHINA’S MING DYNASTY
When you hear the word “Ming,” what comes to mind? Probably an exquisite porcelain vase and maybe one of countless film and television gags in which some hapless character bumps, bobbles and usually breaks a lovely vessel that someone has described as “a priceless Ming vase.”
October 26, 2008–January 11, 2009
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Lovely as they are, the famous vases are merely one example of the artistry that flourished during China’s Ming dynasty (1368–1644), an artistry that peaked among the creators of objects for the royal court. Those objects are the focus of Power and Glory: Court Arts of China’s Ming Dynasty, on display in the Allen Whitehill Clowes Special Exhibition Gallery from October 26 through January 11.
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Previous page: Vase with flower and fruit design. Reign of the Xuande emperor (1426–1435). Porcelain with underglaze cobalt decoration Palace Museum, Beijing At right: Attributed to Du Jin Chinese, active ca. 1465-1500 Detail from Court ladies in the inner palace. Handscroll, ink and colors on silk Shanghai Museum Below: One of Pair of incense burners in the shape of mythic beasts. Reign of the Wanli Emperor (1573-1619), copper alloy with gold gildinolychrome enamel inlays (cloisonné) Palace Museum, Beijing
invention, gunpowder. Porcelains and textiles were created through innovative mass-production techniques. And there are artifacts from the shipyards that built the massive ships which carried Chinese sailors and marines on expeditions to places as far away as Africa—during the Ming era, China had the largest naval fleet in the world.
That’s due to the foresight of the late Eli Lilly, who acquired Chinese art and artifacts on behalf of the IMA. His generosity resulted in the Museum having one of the finest collections of its kind in the country. “He believed that fine art objects offer a sense of culture, history, society and philosophy,” said Robinson.
The Museum will be displaying many of the objects in Power and Glory in the United States for the first time. It’s a rare opportunity to see items that ordinarily can be seen only in China, if at all.
That belief is shared by Caroline Pfohl-Ho, president of the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation, the Hong Kong-based philanthropic organization that provided funding for Power and Glory. The exhibition showcases what can be accomplished through international collaboration and cooperation, said Pfohl-Ho. “The Foundation believes that empathy and mutual understanding are key to social harmony and can be cultivated through appreciation of the arts,” she said. “Audiences may find that the robust cultural and economic strength of the Ming dynasty draws analogies with today’s China.”
The exhibition at the IMA, displayed chronologically in three sections, will have paintings exclusive to the Indianapolis location, and will be supplemented by additional pieces from the Museum’s collection. Outside the exhibition, there will be additional Ming pieces from the collection on display in the Asian Gallery. “We have as many Ming pieces in our collection as are coming here,” said Robinson, who arranged for Power and Glory to travel to Indianapolis. Organized by the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, in association with The Palace Museum in Beijing, the Nanjing Municipal Museum and the Shanghai Museum, Power and Glory consists of more than 200 paintings, gold and jade pieces, textiles, jewelry, porcelains, carvings, architectural and funereal pieces, and enamel and metalwork from the collections of those four institutions. The IMA is the first of only two touring venues to host the show, which opened at the Asian Art Museum earlier this year. The second will be the St. Louis Art Museum. The exhibition highlights the standards of excellence prevalent among Chinese artists and craftsmen during the Ming dynasty, a 276-year period marked by political stability, economic strength and cultural vitality. “The Ming dynasty is as important and influential internationally as the Roman Empire was,” said James Robinson, the IMA’s curator of Asian art. “When Europeans were eating
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off of wooden plates and picking lice out of their woolens, the Chinese were eating off of fine porcelain and wearing silks. At the time, China was the most advanced country on the planet.” Nowhere was that advancement more apparent than in the royal court. Rulers during the Ming—Chinese for “bright”— dynasty expected the best from those who served them. The court-based Bureau of Design issued strict guidelines for the production of porcelains, lacquer and metal works, and textiles, ensuring those items would be prized for their quality as well as their beauty. Among the objects featured in Power and Glory is a crown ornament excavated from the tomb of Lady Chen (1589-1647) that consists of a heart-shaped amber pendant gripped by a pair of golden dragons and surrounded by clouds that are inlaid with rubies. There’s an amber cup in the shape
of a lotus leaf with a carved fisherman as its handle. There’s an elaborately decorated court overvest, embellished with 22 dragons and auspicious symbols and dated by an embroidered inscription to 1595, probably sewn for the fiftieth birthday celebration of the Empress Dowager, the mother of the Wanli emperor. And there are exquisite paintings, including a handscroll by Du Jin depicting groups of beautiful court women engaging in recreational activities such as playing a golf-like game, listening to a music recital and posing for a portrait (above). While landscapes, flowers and animals were more common subjects for paintings, works such as this were done for members of the imperial household and did not reveal the tragedy and tears that befell many women leading isolating lives in the inner palace. Then there are such technological marvels as an early firearm that used the Chinese
Robinson agreed. “This exhibition is a wonderful window into a culture from the past that has resonance in today’s world.”
For more information, visit imamuseum.org/powerandglory Organized by the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the Palace Museum, the Nanjing Municipal Museum and the Shanghai Museum. This exhibition was developed by a grant from the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation. Additional support was provided by the Henry Luce Foundation, the Starr Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
To coincide with the special exhibition Power and Glory, Puck’s restaurant at the IMA will offer a selection of exclusive menu items: Appetizer: Crispy Pork Pot Stickers, Chinese mustard Entrée: Crispy Orange Duck Breast, Sweet & Sour Green Beans, Jasmine Rice Dessert: Trio of Brulée (Green Tea, Ginger, Black Tea)
Visit imamuseum.org to make reservations.
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The IMA’s 125th Anniver sary
Every Way Possible The Museum’s original mission included the phrase “…and in every way possible to encourage the study and love of art among the people.” Part of this statement is now the title of a new book called Every Way Possible celebrating the 125 years of IMA history.
Though the Sewalls were never timid about dreaming big, even they would be shocked to see what the small group they helped found 125 years ago has become. Since the Art Association of Indianapolis changed its name to the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 1969—a precursor to its move the following year from its longtime home on the campus of the John Herron Art Institute at 16th and Pennsylvania streets into a new building at 38th Street and Michigan Road—the organization has evolved into the fifth largest general art museum in the country, with active exhibition and education programs that far surpass anything the Art Association’s founders could have imagined.
Along the way, there have been many highlights, including:
• In 1987, the Museum developed and hosted Art of
• The posthumous donation in 1895 of $225,000
• In 1997, the Museum received the largest financial
from local businessman John Herron, whose only stipulation was that the Art Association use it to build an art school and gallery bearing his name. On November 22, 1906, the John Herron Art Institute opened to the public in a building designed by the local firm Vonnegut and Bohn; one of the principals in that firm was Bernard Vonnegut, grandfather of the writer Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
• The first major exhibition held at the Herron Museum was a retrospective of the work of American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in 1910. It attracted some 56,000 visitors over its three-month run, setting an attendance record that stood for more than 80 years before being topped by the 60,000 who came to see the 1992 exhibition William S. Paley Collection.
• The generosity of other individuals have helped
On November 7, 1883, an exhibition of 453 works by 137 artists opened at the English Hotel on the downtown Indianapolis Circle. It was the first exhibition organized by the Art Association of Indianapolis, which well-known suffragette May Wright Sewell, her husband Theodore and a small group of art-minded citizens had formed a few months earlier. In the process, they wrote the mission statement that spelled out their intentions. The success of that exhibition, which attracted sizeable crowds throughout its three-week run, established the Art Association as a viable factor in the local cultural scene and led to more exhibitions, as well as lectures and eventually a campus featuring both a museum and an art school. The English Hotel on the Circle, site of the Art Association’s first exhibition, in November 1883. IMA Archives.
the Museum build some of its most important collections: Eliza Niblack (textiles), Caroline Marmon Fesler (20th-century modernism), Eli Lilly (Chinese art), George and Edith Clowes (Old Masters), Kurt Pantzer (J.M.W. Turner), Samuel Josefowitz (School of PontAven), and Christopher and Ann Stack (contemporary art), to name a few.
• When the Art Association’s board began looking for a new site for the Museum, Ruth and J.K. Lilly III, the children of J.K. Lilly Jr. and his wife Ruth, stepped forward in 1966 and offered Oldfields. The Lilly family had owned the estate for more than 30 years, J.K. Lilly Jr. having bought it from original owner Hugh McKennan Landon, who first developed the property in 1912.
the Fantastic, the first U.S. exhibition in 20 years to focus on contemporary Latin American art.
donation it had ever received: a $40 million bequest from Enid Goodrich, the widow of Pierre Goodrich who had helped finance local publisher Eugene C. Pulliam’s Central Newspapers Inc (CNI), the parent company of The Indianapolis Star and The Indianapolis News.
• In 2001, the IMA collaborated with the Kremlin Museum in Moscow to create the exhibition Gifts to the Tsars. Opening just days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, it went on to become one of the Museum’s most popular shows, attracting more than 70,000 visitors from throughout the Midwest and beyond.
These are just a small selection of the many ways the Museum has lived up to the mission established by its founders 125 years ago. Another comes to light on October 11 when the IMA unveils a new work by internationally renowned sculptor Robert Irwin. “Light and Space III,” a $1 million installation, was made possible through a combination of art purchase funds and a gift from Ann M. and Chris Stack. Measuring 60 feet by 60 feet, the piece, made of neon light tubes behind translucent scrims, extends floor to ceiling along the escalator in Pulliam Great Hall. Following its debut, the Irwin piece will remain on display permanently. To learn more about the IMA’s first 125 years, pick up your copy of Every Way Possible. The book will be available in early October in The IMA Store and at imamuseum.org
• In 1976, the National Endowment for the Humanities programming by providing funding for one of only two NEH Learning Museum Programs in the country. The funding allowed the IMA to develop lectures, performance and film series, and gallery tours aimed at creating an alternative environment for serious learning.
Top right: Visitor in newly renovated Clowes Pavilion. Above: A gallery in Art of the Fantastic: Latin America, 1920–1987. Photograph by Rich Miller, July 1987. Courtesy of The Indianapolis Star. 8
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The Gamboliers had as their primary purpose the purchase of Modern art for the Herron Art Institute, predecessor of the IMA. Opening September 6, a new exhibition, Gifts of the Gamboliers, focuses on the lithographs, screenprints, drawings and etchings they bought. Their acquisitions formed the foundation of the Museum’s Modern art collection.
Gifts of the
Gamboliers
The story of the Gamboliers is, in essence, the story of Mary Quinn Sullivan. In fact, said Annette Schlagenhauff, the IMA’s associate curator of prints, drawings and photographs and curator of the upcoming exhibition, Sullivan was the primary focus of her research. “She was an amazingly behind-the-scenes person,” said Schlagenhauff. “She didn’t seem to want the limelight.”
September 6, 2008–June 8, 2009
Imagine this: on a chilly February day in 1913, you amble into the 69th Regiment Armory Building in New York City and come face-toface with Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase. Jumpin’ jehosophat! Over the course of its brief history, nothing had shaken the delicate sensibilities of the American art world like the works on display in the International Exhibition of Modern Art. Better known as “The Armory Show,” it introduced Americans to such revolutionary artists as Duchamp, Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse.
Instead, she cast a spotlight on the art and artists she championed. Radical in her artistic tastes, Sullivan was fiscally conservative, at least when buying art on behalf of the Gamboliers. The group’s members paid dues of $25 annually and allowed the New York-based Sullivan to acquire the artworks. By November 1929, she had purchased and shipped 161 works by such luminaries as Henri Matisse, Raoul Dufy, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Georges Braque, Arthur B. Davies, Walt Kuhn and Reginald Marsh. The following year, she sent along two drawings by Amedeo Modigliani.
While many visitors and critics were shocked, Mary Quinn was smitten with the modernism on display. So smitten, in fact, that the drawing instructor and Indianapolis native, who had recently returned from a year-long stay in Europe where she had encountered the ideas behind some of the art in the show, became one of the country’s earliest advocates for modern art. After marrying wealthy attorney Cornelius Sullivan in 1917, she also became one of New York’s best-known collectors, and eventually one of the founders of the Museum of Modern Art, along with her friends Lizzie P. Bliss and Abby Aldrich (Mrs. John D.) Rockefeller. But Mary Quinn Sullivan didn’t forget her hometown. In 1927, she rallied a few like-minded modernists in Indianapolis and formed the “Gamboliers”, a group dedicated to collecting examples of work by some of the contemporary artists who were revolutionizing (and in the process scandalizing) the art world. The Gamboliers—who counted such prominent names as Lilly, Clowes, Bobbs, Ayres, Griffith, Noble, Fesler and Woollen among their members—took their name from an old, traditional drinking ballad:
Following the death of her husband in 1932, Sullivan opened a gallery in New York and ceased buying art for the Gamboliers. The group disbanded soon afterwards. But over the course of its brief life, it managed to open eyes and minds to the value of Modern art and to inspire some local collectors like Caroline Marmon Fesler who went on to acquire more modern works for the Museum.
REVERSE
Mary Quinn Sullivan (1877–1939) Photo Courtesy of Lisa French.
Ink stamp used to mark purchases made by the Gamboliers.
“At that time, there was a small group of people in this country who were interested in collecting Modern art,” said Schlagenhauff, “and fortunately for us, Mary Quinn Sullivan was one of them. She was a remarkable woman.”
The IMA’s Contemporary Art Society has recently committed more than $175,00 toward the purchase of a contemporary sculpture by the California artist Tim Hawkinson entitled Mobius Ship.
Like every jolly fellow I takes my whiskey clear, For I’m a rambling rake of poverty And the son of a gambolier.
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Sullivan’s specialty was finding bargains: 85% of her purchases cost $10 or less and none exceeded $250. The total price tag for everything she bought was just over $2,000. While the Museum’s agreement with the Gamboliers stipulated it had the right to refuse any of the group’s acquisitions, it accepted more than 150.
Walter Kuhn, American, 1877–1949. Edith, about 1930. edition 38/50, lithograph, 18 3/4 x 12 7/8 in. Gifts of the Gamboliers. 32.152
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EXHIBITIONS Opening
Class Pictures
Bey often creates large scale photos to give the young people a sense of presence and recognition they don’t routinely receive. “Rather than viewing young people through a lens of social problematics that generalizes the individual, I intend 12
N orth H a l l G a l l er y
See page 10.
The 25th annual juried exhibition of paintings by the Watercolor Society of Indiana featuring works in a variety of styles. “Chat with an Artist” Saturday and Sunday afternoons between 2:00–5:00 pm in the exhibition.
M c C ormac k F orefront G a l l erie s
See page 12.
At left: Dawoud Bey, SAHENDY, 2005, chromogenic print. Courtesy of the artist and Aperture Foundation.
Power and Glory: Court Arts of China’s Ming Dynasty October 26, 2008– January 11, 2009 C l o w e s G a l l er y in Woo d P avi l ion
September 26– November 23 McCormack Forefront Galleries
Bey generated the student’s statements by asking the following types of questions: “Tell me something about yourself that you think no one knows,” and “Tell me something about yourself that you’d like someone to know who couldn’t possibly know this if they didn’t know you.”
September 28–October 25
G o l d en G a l l er y
September 26–November 23
Dawoud Bey
For the exhibition, Bey photographed young people from all parts of the economic, racial and ethnic spectrum in both public and private high schools in Lawrence and Andover, Massachusetts; Orlando; Detroit; San Francisco; and New York City. Bey spent two to three weeks in each school, ultimately photographing a total of twenty students.
September 6, 2008–June 8, 2009
Dawoud Bey: Class Pictures
P h otogr a phs by
We have all heard the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. In the case of Dawoud Bey’s photographs, one does not have to guess what those visual expressions might mean. Opening September 26 at the IMA, Dawoud Bey: Class Pictures includes 40 photographic portraits of high school students paired with their own written personal statements, edited by artist Dawoud Bey. Many of the statements are touching, funny or harrowing. The works deepen one’s appreciation for young adults facing 21st-century challenges.
Gifts of the Gamboliers
Watercolor Society of Indiana Annual Juried Show
See page 4. to make a rich and complex description of these subjects,” the artist said. In addition to the Class Pictures photographs, the IMA will be exhibiting a video by Bey called Four Stories. For this work, he took video footage of four students from very close range, focusing on the subjects’ faces, as they related their own stories. Currently a professor of photography at Columbia College Chicago, Bey was born in New York in 1953 and earned his MFA from Yale University School of Art. See page 30 for more from artist Dawoud Bey, in his own words.
Opening Party and Artist Talk Senior Curator of Contemporary Art Lisa Freiman joins artist Dawoud Bey to discuss his work and his exhibition at the IMA on September 25. Supported in part by the IMA Contemporary Art Society. Join us for the opening party to follow! September 25 / 6:30 pm Deer Zink Pavilion
Continuing To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum Through September 7 C l o w e s G a l l er y in the Woo d P avi l ion
The IMA is the first venue to host this touring exhibition, which includes some of the greatest masterworks of the Egyptian artistic tradition from the Brooklyn Museum’s extensive, world-renowned collection. The exhibition explores Egyptian strategies for defeating death
and achieving eternal life and contains more than 100 objects including coffins, statuary, jewelry and vessels. To Live Forever tells the story of mummification, the funeral procession and rituals, the contents of the tomb, the final judgment, and the idealized afterlife. Visit imamuseum.org/ toliveforever to preview the exhibition.
Below left: Jusepe de Ribera, Spanish, 1590–1652. detail of Aristotle, 1637. Oil on canvas, 49 x 39 in. The Clowes Fund Collection, 200.345. Below right: Wu Wei, Chinese, 1459–1508. detail of lady with pipa. Ink on paper, 49 1/4 x 24 1/4 in. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Eli Lilly, 60.36.
The Viewing Project Opening October 2008 T hro u gho u t the M u s e u m
The Viewing Project is a three-year series of small-scale installations designed to offer visitors creative and enjoyable experiences with objects from the IMA’s permanent collection. Although themes will vary, the main goals of all Viewing Project installations remain constant: to encourage active looking, to support visitor creativity and engagement, and to present objects from the permanent collection in new ways. Funded in part by a generous grant from ART MENTOR FOUNDATION LUCERNE and Wayne Zink.
Artist talk: Free Opening party: Public $10 / Students $5 / Members Free
Organized by:
Sponsored by:
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exhibitions Auguste Rodin: The Gates of Hell Through August 31
Edward Hopper: Paper to Paint Through January 11, 2009 A l l iance G a l l er y
Edward Hopper: Paper to Paint features the IMA’s Hopper painting Hotel Lobby and ten sketches the artist produced as studies, on loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art. The show also pairs another Hopper painting from the IMA’s collection, New York, New Haven and Hartford, with watercolors related to South Truro, where the piece was painted. Edward Hopper, American, 1882–1967. New York, New Haven and Hartford. Oil on cavas, 32 x 50 in. Emma Harter Sweetser Fund, 32.177
On the Road Again with Jack Kerouac and Robert Frank Through September 21 Schaefer an d G ra y G a l l er y
The IMA reunites two of the iconic members of the American anti-establishment “Beat Generation” of the 1950s, novelist Jack Kerouac and photographer Robert Frank. The centerpiece of the exhibition is the 120-foot-long original typescript for Kerouac’s 1957 cross-country odyssey, On the Road, owned by Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay. The manuscript, 84 feet of which is displayed, is accompanied by 83 photographs taken by Robert Frank during his own two-year cross-country pilgrimage and published first in Europe in 1958 as Les Americains. The IMA has borrowed the almost singular complete set of Frank’s 14
photographs owned by the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts.
Hats of Africa: From Asante to Zulu Through September 28 E ite l j org G a l l er y for Specia l E x hi b ition s
More than 50 traditional head coverings representing 30 ethnic groups from across Africa show the great cultural diversity of the continent. The hats are made for a variety of purposes and are fashioned from a variety of materials, including cloth, leather, feathers, shells and hair.
Lida Abdul Through September 28 C armen & M ar k H o l eman V i d eo G a l l er y
Afghan artist Lida Abdul creates artwork in a variety of media that attempts to understand the destruction and political unrest that has ravaged her country for the past several decades. Born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1973, Abdul was forced to flee her country in the late 1980s. She lived as a refugee in India and Germany before moving to the United States. It was not until 2001 that Abdul returned to Afghanistan, where she has since staged video-based works that explore the interconnection between architecture and identity.
P u l l iam G reat H a l l
Rodin’s massive Gates of Hell project was arguably the most important European sculpture commission of the 19th century. Intended to mark the entrance to a new museum in Paris, the Gates were conceived as monumental doors, adorned with the writhing forms and dramatic gestures of the condemned. This exhibition features nine bronze casts of pieces originally created as preparatory studies or individual elements of the project. Acquired by the world’s leading collectors of sculpture by Rodin, the works are on loan from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation and the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Collection.
Simply Halston Through January 4, 2009 P a u l F a s hion A rt s G a l l er y
Roy Halston Frowick (1932–1990) was born in Iowa and grew up in Indiana. He began his career as a milliner and later designed the hat Jacqueline Kennedy wore at her husband’s inauguration in 1961. A master of cut, he was a favorite of many celebrities and designed clothes for Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minnelli, Anjelica Huston and Lauren Bacall. Most of the approximately 18 designs in this exhibition are drawn from the IMA’s fashion arts collection.
FriendsWith You: Dream Maker Through November 9 E fro y m s on F ami l y E ntrance P avi l ion
FriendsWithYou is an art collective based in Miami, Florida, founded by Sam Borkson and Arturo Sandoval in 2002. The group promotes the two artists’ common message of magic, luck and friendship in popular culture by creating and sharing designer toys, multimedia, paintings, sculptures, performances and art installations. As part of the IMA’s Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion series, FriendsWithYou has fashioned a new blimp mobile entitled Dream Maker, made up of brightly colored vinyl balloons suspended from a rotating metal frame.
Cirrus Editions/ Crown Point Press
Fine Prints for Five Dollars
Through March 15, 2009
Through April 19, 2009
M i l l i k en G a l l er y
C onant G a l l er y
Crown Point Press, founded in San Francisco in 1962, and Cirrus Editions, founded in Los Angeles in 1970, have long been magnets for west coast painterprintmakers. With Crown Point specializing in etching and later woodcuts and Cirrus specializing in lithography, each attracted its own stable of loyal artists. Ed Ruscha, Bruce Nauman, William Wiley, and Vija Celmins produced significant bodies of lithographs at Cirrus in the early 1970s. Richard Diebenkorn, Brice Marden and John Cage were attracted to the intaglio expertise of Crown Point Press at the same time. Twenty prints from these two workshops have been selected from the IMA’s permanent collection.
Five Prints for Five Dollars includes 60 Depression-era American prints published between 1935 and 1950. For economic reasons, Associated American Artists and the American Artists Group were able to attract the leading artists of the era including Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton and John Steuart Curry and offer their original lithographs to the public by mail order for $5 apiece.
Shared Beauty: Eastern Rugs & Western Beaded Purses Through March 8, 2009 P a u l T e x ti l e A rt s G a l l er y
Though beaded purses were fashionable through the 19th and early 20th centuries, they became extremely popular in the 1920s as an integral part of the flapper-era costumes. A wide variety of patterns were depicted on these bags, including flowers, trees, birds, animals, landscapes and other popular motifs. However, some of the most fashionable designs were copied from the patterns of Persian, Turkish, Caucasian and Indian carpets and textiles. In this exhibition, beaded bags are displayed alongside rugs with similar patterns. This juxtaposition explores the motifs common to these objects, provides a closer look at the influences of Eastern patterns on Western art, fashion and culture.
Above: Purse with Caucasian rug design. Knitted, glass beads, drawstring closure. Stella and Frederick Krieger Collection. Left: Caucasus, Rug, late 1800s. Wool, 133 x 100 in. Gift of Walter Milliken, 26.75.
Roman Art from the Louvre was the highest attended show in the IMA’s history with a total attendance of more than 106,000. REVERSE
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Ex h i b i t i o n s
State of Design at the IMA
More Than Four Legs: A Closer Look at Chairs
Near the end of China’s Ming dynasty era, as commercial life and urban trade centers flourished, the people of the era were purchasing massproduced, designed objects for their homes, such as vases, textiles and metal works. Just as the people of this Eastern empire gazed upon and learned about design objects more than 1,100 years ago, IMA visitors will soon be able to do the same in the IMA’s galleries and purchase the objects in a newly opened design retail store.
Through January 19, 2009 Star Studio Chairs: We all sit in them, but how often do we really look at them? This installation by collector Carla Atwood Hartman invites visitors to consider design as an artform by drawing attention to overlooked features of the chairs in which we sit, from the simple to the luxurious, hand-crafted to mass-produced. The exhibition includes chairs from Hartman’s private collection and features chairs designed by Hartman’s grandparents, 20th-century design legends Charles and Ray Eames. Drop into the free art studio to design and build your own model chair to add to the display or take home.
This exciting opportunity comes from several major initiatives of the recently-established IMA Design Department. The Design Arts Gallery, located on the Museum’s third level, will highlight recent acquisitions of modern and contemporary design, including pieces from the Liliane and David M. Stewart Collection in Montreal. Liliane Stewart, with her late husband David, amassed one of the most important international collections of 20th- and 21st-century design in North America. The Museum will debut a number of these works in conjunction with its 125th anniversary in October. In addition to this installation, the Design Department’s first exhibition, European Design Since 1985: Shaping the New Century, curated by R. Craig Miller, the IMA’s Curator of Design Arts and Director of Design Initiatives, will debut at the Museum in March 2009. The exhibition, organized by the IMA in cooperation with the Denver Art Museum and Kingston University in London, will be the first comprehensive survey of contemporary Western European design from 1985 to 2005.
Carla Atwood Hartman. Photograph by Barry Gutierrez.
Coming Soon Collected Thoughts: Works from the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection McCormack Forefront Galleries
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For the lovers of hands-on design, in October the IMA will open a newly created Design Center, which is a retail space offering modern and contemporary design products for everyday life. Robyn Haagsma, Design Center manager, explains the concept behind the store: “Design can be intimidating by nature, so it was important to create a fun and inviting place for customers to browse tableware, textiles, furniture, home accessories and jewelry in a range of prices.” In addition to being a showroom for the purchase of items not widely available in Indiana or the United States, the Design Center will also act as an educational space. Visitors can read and learn about design, as well as find resources for the selection of fabrics, finishes and other special contract orders, for both designers and the general public. While the Design Center will feature mid-century classic pieces by Charles and Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi and others, it will also highlight more recent pieces by designers working today, including Ron Arad, Jurgen Bey, Hella Jongerius, Jasper Morrison and Philippe Starck, as well as a younger generation, including Maarten Baas, Tord Boontje, Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec, and Konstantin Grcic. The Design Center will also carry products from major manufacturers such as Alessi, Cappellini, Droog, Kartell, Magis and Moooi. The Center will serve as a unique complement to IMA exhibitions by offering design products seen in the galleries.
December 12, 2008– April 12, 2009 As part of a national gift program distributing fifty works of contemporary art from the “The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection” to each of the fifty states, the Indianapolis Museum of Art is pleased to present fifty works from the Vogels’ esteemed collection that have recently joined the Museum’s permanent collection. The New York collectors began to collect contemporary artwork in the early 1960s and amassed a rare and insightful collection of works over a period of more than 40 years. Complementing the IMA’s holdings of hard-edge abstract and minimal works from the 1960s, the gifts from the Vogel Collection primarily include works on paper from the late 1960s to 2000, by artists such as Lynda Benglis, James Bishop, Robert Mangold, Elizabeth Murray, Edda Renouf and Richard Tuttle. The works encompass a survey of vanguard art of extraordinary breadth, demonstrating the Vogels’ knowledge, vision and commitment to new and challenging artwork.
DESIGN CENTER
Store opening: October 11 Grand Opening Event: March 2009
Left: Ole Jensen, Danish, Born 1958. Washing up Bowl and Brush, 1996. Rubber, beech and hair. Photo courtesy Normann Copenhagen. Edda Renouf, American, Born 1943. Wing Piece II, 1980. Arcylic on linen, 39 1/2 x 39 1/2 in. Gift of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel.
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Starting this September visitors 1101010001101001100001111101010101010111 010101010011101010001111000110101000110100110000 can watch the progress of these sessions on the IMA Web site 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0(www.imamuseum.org/typea). 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 The 0 0 site 1 1 1will 1 1 0offer 1 0 1unique 0 1 0 1insights 010111 01010 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 into 0 1 0the 1 0creative 1 0 1 0 process 1 0 1 1 1 by0 featuring 1 0 1 0 1 0images, 1 0 0 1video 1 1 0 1and 0100011110001 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0discussion 0 1 1 1 0 1from 0 1 0the 0 0group 1 1 1 1participating 0 0 0 1 1 0 1in0 the 1 0 project. 00110100110000111 01010101010111 0101010100111010100011110001101010001101001100001111101010101010111 0101010 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0• 1 In 0 the 1 0 1initial 0 1 0planning 1 0 1 1 1 stages 0 1 0 1of0the 1 0 Park, 1 0 0several 1 1 1 0 1studies 0 1 0 0were 01111000110 Art1 1&0Nature 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1commissioned 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0to0 assess 1 1 1 1 0the 00 1 0 1 0Park’s 0 0 1environmental 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0and 00011111 geological status. The studies provide information on the depth 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1of0the 101010 that flows through the Park and the latest 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 section 0 1 0 1 0of1the 0 1White 1 1 0 River 1010 101001110101000111100011010 U.S. Geological Survey stream gage reading from the Art & Nature 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 Park, 0 1 0relative 1 0 0 0to1flood 1 1 1 0stage. 0 0 Architect 1 1 0 1 0 1Marlon 0 0 0Blackwell 110100 1100001111101 and landscape 10101010111 010101010011101010001111000110101000 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 acre 0 1 0section 10101001 architect Edward L. Blake used this information to find a one Adam Ames of Type A leads teambuilding activities with IMA staff. 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 of 0 the 1 0 site 1 0 1least 1 1 likely 0 1 0to1 0flood 1 0 to 1 0place 0 1 1the 1 0Park’s 1 0 1 0Visitor 0 0 Center. 1 1 1 1 0These 001101010 are1 available on1the Web 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 statistics 01000 111000 1 0Dashboard 1 0 1 0 0 0feature 1 1 0 1on 0 0the1 1IMA’s 000 0 1site. 11110101 1 0 1 0 1 0181 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 10100011110001101010001101001100001111101010101010111 01010101001110101000111100011010100
Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park
B e h in d t h e s c e n e s
Museum Apprentice Program Six talented high school students accepted their “golden tickets” to go behind the scenes at the Indianapolis Museum of Art this summer . The Museum Apprentice Program (MAP) opened its doors this year to mentor high school juniors through paid spring training and summer employment. Working alongside museum professionals, the students have the opportunity to explore an array of museum careers while gaining real-world job skills in areas such as communication, teamwork and leadership. Two students from Herron High School, a new downtown charter high school, and four students from Broad Ripple High School were chosen as IMA apprentices through teacher recommendations and an interview process. “We intentionally kept this year’s pilot group small. While we anticipate having more interest, we will be evaluating our capacity to add more students next year. Either way, we look forward to the excitement and fresh perspectives that young people bring to the IMA,” said Tariq Robinson, coordinator of multi-age programs at the Museum. Over the course of nine days during the spring, the students underwent training in which they met IMA staff, toured behind the scenes, practiced working as a team and became familiar with the IMA mission and how it guides activities throughout the organization. They also learned to lead tours of the collection using a technique called Visual Thinking Strategies, which uses visual art to stimulate thoughtful looking. Once summer arrived, the pace picked up as apprentices began to work 25 hours a week. In their new roles as part-time staff members, they collaborated directly with Museum staff in order to gain valuable professional lessons about daily museum operations. Some apprentices were asked to identify objects in the galleries that relate to immortality for use in the “Immortality in Art” tour created
for the special exhibition To Live Forever, while others helped write wall texts for use in the galleries. The MAP students also assisted with summer art camps and Star Studio, and represented the IMA at special events around the city. Working with the New Media and Communications departments, the MAP students designed, created and managed a special site on MySpace.com that records their experiences at the IMA and may serve as an information resource for fellow teens. Written by the students, the site will be used as a peer-to-peer communications hub for others interested in the IMA. You can learn more about apprentices at www.myspace.com/imamapsquad. According to Robinson, the students were sometimes wide-eyed with amazement exploring the galleries and collections like kids in a chocolate factory. “To be able to talk about art history with a Columbia graduate, picnic outside on the grounds during lunch break and in the meantime, have great art hanging just a few floors away is something I can’t do anywhere else in Indy,” said Herron High apprentice Rebekah Taft. They are also overcoming stereotypes and becoming aware of new career opportunities. “The Museum isn’t all about art,” Broad Ripple student Shalaya Minor observed. “It’s much more complicated and organized than I thought.” They are learning to look at objects, like text on the wall, more critically and are considering the array of future professional options offered by museums. The Museum will open up its doors again next summer to a new group of MAP participants. MAP seeks to impact a mix of students who exhibit the capacity to excel beyond the classroom. The program is an opportunity for aspiring artists and students interested in museum careers, and also for those who may not yet have a career path in mind. In the end, students walk away with paychecks and experiences few other high school students will glean. “The kids know that the experience is the actual jackpot, the paycheck is just part of what motivates them to commit to the program,” Robinson said. Supported in part by the Summer Youth Program Fund.
MAP students Teryn Green, Shalaya Minor, Rebekah Taft, Abigail (Abby) Braughton, Gregory (Greg) Smith Jr. and Ashley Jenkins.
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I n t h e Ga r d e n s
Oldfields’ Orchard
Restoration IMA Horticulturist Geoff VonBurg Shares Plans for Oldfields’ Orchard at the IMA In 1920, Hugh Landon and his wife, Jessie Walker Landon, began to develop Oldfields’ landscape and gardens, which is now part of the IMA campus. Inspired by a garden they visited in Maine designed by Percival Gallagher, an associate of the famed landscape architecture firm Olmsted Brothers, the Landons hired the firm to refine their property. It was Gallagher’s vision that transformed Oldfields into a fully developed American country estate, anchoring the house firmly in the landscape and providing dramatic views and pleasant garden walks. Today, country place estate houses and display gardens are generally well-maintained or restored, but frequently nothing remains visible to the public to provide interpretation of the landscape’s utilitarian or “working” model. The estate was not devoted solely to pleasure gardens, strolling paths, tennis courts and flower borders. Fresh fruit and vegetable production were equally important to the ideal and function of an estate before refrigerated cross-country transport. Thanks to the generosity of longtime supporters of the IMA, Gene and Rosemary Tanner, horticulturists will be able to restore a utility garden at Oldfields for everyone to appreciate. The garden will complement the cutting garden to illustrate the important working components of the estate, as well as allow for interpretation about food production and the historic role of the estate’s horticultural staff.
Aerial view of Oldfields, 1927. Photo courtesy of The Indianapolis Star.
Apple trees will frame a wallkway in the restored orchard.
Because few records of a combined vegetable garden and orchard survived from the families who called Oldfields home—the Landons and Lillys—IMA horticulturists had to turn elsewhere to determine the design of the 26-acre Oldfields estate. The Olmsted Research Guide Online, the Olmsted Archives of the National Park Service in Boston, as well as additional books and historical periodicals were among the resources researched. IMA staff examined a dozen Olmsted projects, including planting lists, plan documents, historic aerial photographs and more than 200 period photographs to understand design conventions of the time and the Olmsted/Gallagher style. Research for the site will be ongoing, while site preparation begins this fall and planting will take place in spring 2009.
Based on the research, including a 1933 drawing of Oldfields and a recently discovered 1927 aerial photograph, IMA horticulturists have developed a plan to plant ten to twelve apple trees framing a walkway. Under the trees and on both sides of this turf path will be 8-10 foot deep perennial beds. At the one end of the garden will be a narrower crossing path hedged with currants, gooseberry or blueberry. Finally, there will be a 3,000-plus square feet vegetable garden. One quarter will be devoted to semi-perennial plants such as rhubarb, asparagus and strawberry. The remainder will be a changing mix of annual vegetable plantings. Celery, peas, cauliflower, beans, sweet corn and radishes led the lists of most popular crops in the 1920s. Quality gardeners were judged by the blanching of their cauliflower or bounteousness of their peas. To see the progress of the orchard restoration, visit the IMA grounds.
The IMA’s Oldfields was designated a National Historic Landmark in May 2004.
Top and right: Site for orchard restoration as it appears today. 20
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A ffilia t e E v e n t s
Penrod Arts Fair Talk: Preserving America’s Exceptional Gardens Great gardens reflect the influence of centuries of human involvement with nature, our perceptions of beauty, and the desire to create a personal environment that expresses who we are. In America, the potential range of gardens is also shaped by climate, regional history and tradition. Antonia Adezio, founding executive director of the Garden Conservancy, will offer a tour of today’s great American gardens and an understanding of the challenges and opportunities in garden preservation for the 21st century in her talk.
Horticultural Society Talk: Shady Characters Shady yards are often met with dismay. “There are no plants made for shade” is a sentiment echoed all too often by gardeners. In fact, there are many wonderful “shady characters” for the gardens. Meet a few of them in a humorous and informative talk on shade gardening by Laura Deeter, assistant professor of Horticultural Technologies at the Ohio State University’s Agricultural Technical Institute. By the end of the evening you’ll be saying “Hosta la vista” to the garden blues and looking forward to gardening in the shade. Deeter is an award-winning teacher of woody and herbaceous plants, landscape design and construction, and perennial production. Supported by the IMA Horticultural Society.
Organized and presented by The Penrod Society, the 42nd Annual Penrod Arts Fair will be held on the beautiful grounds of the IMA. This year’s Fair will feature works of art by more than 320 artists from all over the country, live entertainment, children’s activities and food from more than 15 of Indianapolis’ finest restaurants and food vendors. Advance-sale tickets will be available at the IMA information desk and at Marsh, Borders, National Bank of Indianapolis and Hubbard & Cravens. Parking will be available at Crown Hill Cemetery, Bertha Ross Park, the Major Taylor Velodrome and the International School of Indiana. For more information, please visit The Penrod Society’s website at www.penrod.org. Please note that on Friday, September 5, the Michigan Road gate to the IMA will be closed. Visitors can access the IMA grounds through the 38th Street entrance where parking will be available.
The Garden Conservancy, founded in 1989 by Frank Cabot to save exceptional American gardens, works to preserve these important expressions of our cultural heritage and to share the joy and value of gardens with a growing public. Adezio has participated in the preservation of nearly 20 significant American gardens and is a member of the board of directors of the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, California; Peckerwood Garden Foundation in Hempstead, Texas; Stonecrop Gardens in Cold Spring, New York; and Greenwood Gardens in Short Hills, New Jersey. Supported by the IMA Horticultural Society.
Saturday, September 6 9:00 am-5:00 pm IMA Members $11 advance at the IM A Public $12 advance, $15 at the gate
Right: Visitors line up for the Annual Penrod Arts Fair.
Thursday, October 23 / 7:30 pm Deer Zink Events Pavilion Free
IMA Alliance Artist Studio Tours Join Alliance members and guests for art lectures and studio tours. Space is limited, and reservations are required. For pricing and more information, please call Leah Leifer at 317-253-6319 or Carol Edgar at 317-889-8129.
Thursday, September 4 / 7:30 pm Deer Zink Events Pavilion Free
Above: Hosta plants on the IMA Grounds relish shade. Right: Chase Garden in Orting, Washington
Studio of Nancy Lamport When Nancy Lamport retired from the faculty of the Occupational Therapy Department at Indiana University, she wanted to continue her lifelong interest in ceramics. To foster this
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activity, she chose to study the hand-building methods of tile construction used by the tilers of the 12th-15th century England. Lamport and her husband visited old abbeys, churches and museums throughout England where they learned the history and methods of early tile making. At home, she experimented and developed techniques for making tiles inspired by the old English designs and methods, later adapting her techniques to include American quilt designs and glimpses of nature. Tuesday, September 9 1:00–3:00 pm
Studio of Martha Nahrwold A Louisiana native with a zoology degree, Martha Nahrwold came to Indiana to practice environmental research at Eli Lilly and Butler University. Her interests range from science to art. At her Five Seasons Studio, which she has occupied for 15 years, Nahrwold has created hand marbled paper taken to a unique level by manipulating the floating inks into impressionistic landscapes and florals. She utilizes her marbled paper in mixed media paintings, watercolor and acrylic. A demonstration of marbling will be presented. You may already be familiar with some
of Nahrwold’s work at the IMA: artificial foods in the Lilly House and dried wreaths sold at the Greenhouse Shop. Thursday, October 9 1:00–3:00 pm
The Alliance was founded in 1958 to support the Museum, and the group celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. REVERSE
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g i v in g Over the years you have generously given Asian pieces to the IMA, adding to both the Museum’s Chinese and Japanese collections. What appeals to you about Asian art?
125th Anniversary Fundraising Gala
R: While we collect a broad range of art, we concentrate on Asian art since Francine has a great enthusiasm for it and has served as an IMA docent for 35 years. We also travel frequently to those parts of the world and are not afraid to buy pieces we like. Asian art offers the added benefit of having to rotate pieces, to avoid over exposure to light, so we practice what we like to call “rehanging rituals”. When we temporarily moved for a few years, we took some scrolls just as the Chinese did and used them to decorate the place in which we lived to make it feel like home.
With the ambitious goal of raising $1 million in one evening to support IMA annual programming, the Museum will begin a yearly tradition on October 11 of holding a spectacular white tie optional fundraising gala. This year, in celebration of the IMA’s 125th anniversary, guests will include prominent contemporary artists from all over the United States. The evening will include a Christie’s auction, an intimate dinner, entertainment by three bands, and a stunning surprise event, all taking place in an outdoor-clear-topped tent, complete with red carpet.
What was your first major gift to the Museum? We gave the Museum two Japanese screens in 1994 called Spring and Autumn Landscapes by artist Tsuruzawa Tansaku. Our most recent gift to the Museum is a hand scroll called Fighting Peasants by a Ming dynasty artist, given this year in honor of the IMA’s 125th Anniversary.
Funds raised from the event will go to the IMA’s general operating fund, which supports programs that include education, conservation and horticulture. The event is chaired by IMA board member and president of Endangered Species Chocolate, Wayne Zink. For those wishing to attend, tickets are $2,000 each. Please contact Jane Shull at jshull@imamuseum.org or 317-923-1331, ext. 212.
As longtime donors to the IMA, you both seem to express a great joy for giving? F: Charity has always been a part of our lives. R: We’ve grown through collecting art. The pieces are meaningful to us and remind us of our time traveling together. F: We always buy our art together. Only twice have I bought a piece on my own, with my fingers crossed that Roger would like it! The IMA has given much to us too. We like it here. It is a home away from home—a beautiful forest to get lost in. When I’m having a bad day, I just go up and sit in the galleries, and I always feel better.
Will you visit the exhibition Power and Glory: Court Arts of China’s Ming Dynasty when it opens in October? F: Yes, many times! I was shown the catalogue for the exhibition by curator Jim Robinson and think it will be very special.
M e e t …F r a n c i n e and Roger Hurwitz
As we celebrate our anniversary, what do you feel is the most significant contribution of the IMA to Indianapolis over the last 125 years? R: The Museum is the centerpiece of culture to this city. It is always available to the public, where as performances may not be. The IMA is also a selling point for the job market, attracting a great number of talented individuals to the city.
What does the future hold for the Museum? F: I couldn’t have pictured how far the Museum has come in just the last few years! R: With the Art & Nature Park opening next year, I think the IMA will be a major destination for inside/outside art experiences. I’m hopeful for this because art is so much more than just a piece on the wall that can’t be touched. It’s a personal experience. 24
Every Way Possible, a new book celebrating 125 years of IMA history
Other ways to Celebrate with the IMA Board of Governors
• Catch sight of a new work of art by internationally renowned
artist Robert Irwin that will be unveiled in October.
Myrta J. Pulliam, Chairman
N. Michelle Griffith
John L. Krauss, Vice Chairman
Rick Johnson
• Every Way Possible 125th Anniversary Book Launch Party
Lawrence A. O’Connor Jr., Treasurer
Christina Kite
Save the Date: Saturday, November 8 / 10:30 am–12:30 pm
June McCormack, Secretary
Deborah Lilly
Daniel C. Appel, Immediate
Michael K. McCrory
Past Chair
Kathleen D. Postlethwait
Maxwell Anderson, The Melvin
John G. Rapp, D.D.S.
& Bren Simon Director and CEO
Derica Rice
Lynne Maguire, At Large
Stephen Russell
Sergio Aguilera
Myra C. Selby
Daniel Cantor
Susanne E. Sogard
Jane Fortune
Charles Sutphin
David W. Goodrich
Wayne Zink
• Attend Conversation Series: Museums in a Global Community. Maxwell Anderson, The Melvin & Bren Simon Director and CEO, will host public conversations with leaders from the global museum community. Check imamuseum.org for conversation dates and times. • Save 25% for the 125th! This member-only offer is redeemable for a 25% discount on any one item in the IMA Store, Design Center or Gallery Store from October 11 through November 30, 2008. Look for your coupon in October’s IMA eNews.
In 1883, you could join the Museum for $10 ($200 in today’s economy). For nonmembers admission was 10 cents ($2 today). REVERSE
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IMA Events
On Procession The air of Fountain Square was filled with excitement as hundreds of participants, spectators, merry makers, trail blazers, protesters and performers watched art in the streets of Indianapolis at the On Procession parade on April 26. On Procession marched on with a thematic exhibition of public parades in the IMA galleries through August 10. Top left: Spectators enjoy robot masks handed out by Cincinnati artist collective Arthole. Bottom left: East meets West in the On Procession parade route along Virginia Avenue in Fountain Square. Below: Merry makers enjoy cotton candy at the IMA after the parade.
Opening Concert with David Amram Local musicians and visitors joined in celebrating the Beat generation and the opening of On the Road Again with Jack Kerouac and Robert Frank at the IMA on June 26 with a concert from David Amram. Writer Jack Kerouac and musician/composer David Amram helped usher in the Beat Generation with jazz and poetry readings in Greenwich Village in 1957’s New York. The two collaborated for the rest of Kerouac’s life. Top right: David Amram and band Left: An 84 foot section of the original On the Road typescript, on display at the IMA through September 21
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IMA
To Live Forever On July 11, the afterlife never looked so good at the IMA. Guests previewed the exhibition To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum and enjoyed Egyptian-inspired cuisine, such as bite-sized falafel, hummus and tabouli and couscous-stuffed cherry tomatoes. All partied down with special performances by “Here Come the Mummies: Terrifying Funk from Beyond the Grave.” Top left: Larry and Jeryl Mitsch Top Right: Jim Warner and Beth Cisco Left: XXX, Tom Kuebler and Jane During Below: “Here Come the Mummies”
To
Live
Forever EGYPTIAN TREASURES FROM THE BROOK LYN MUSEUM
Summer Nights: The Rocky Horror Picture Show A special midnight showing of this wildly popular movie on July 11 brought followers from near and far. The RHPS (as fans call it) features the adventures of a pair of young lovers who stumble onto a castle full of cross-dressing scientists, hunchback butlers and a murderous biker. A sold-out crowd watched as devoted fans dressed in character acted out scenes from the movie in front of the big screen.
View more photos of IMA events at flickr.com/photos/imaitsmyart 28
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VO I C ES
I N F OR M A T I O N
In t erv i ew w ith A R TIST D aw oud Bey Can you tell us when you became interested in portraiture?
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Puck’s Wolfgangpuck.com/rsvp or call 317-955-2315 for reservations
General admission is free. Admission charges for special exhibitions in the Clowes Gallery in Wood Pavilion are:
Dawoud Bey, 2006. Photo by Bart Harris.
My relationship with the students actually begins while photographing them. I make photographs as a way to find out something about someone. I don’t attempt to develop a relationship and then translate that relationship into a picture; I do my finding out through the camera. All of the pictures in Class Pictures were made by spending two or three weeks in each school. Usually I have only 45 minutes in which to take a student’s photograph, since the student has been released from class in order for me to photograph them.
Restaurants
For questions concerning membership, call 317-920-2651. To renew or join IMA, call 317-920-2651, or join online at imamuseum.org.
Admission
How did you begin to focus on photographing teenage students?
Can you talk about how you develop your relationship with the students you work with?
Membership
Indianapolis Museum of Art & Lilly House Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, 11:00 am–5:00 pm Thursday and Friday, 11:00 am–9:00 pm Sunday, noon–5:00 pm Closed Mondays, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Gardens & Grounds Open daily from dawn until dusk.
As I began to figure out what I wanted to do as an artist, I was spending a lot of time going to museums and galleries looking at work by other photographers. The pictures that resonated for me most strongly were those that were of human subjects. There seemed to me something quite powerful about a person confronting the camera, returning the attention of the photographer. Early on I was most struck by the photographs by Mike Disfarmer that I saw at the Museum of Modern Art in the mid-70s. I also was struck by Richard Avedon’s show of portraits at Marlboro Gallery around that same time. James Van Der Zee’s photographs had impressed me in the Harlem On My Mind exhibition. I wanted to make photographs that resonated for me the way those photographs had.
Young people became the primary subject of my work in 1992, when I was invited to do a residency at the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Andover. During the eight weeks I was there, I photographed both students at Phillips and students from Lawrence High School, a town a few minutes away. I also worked with the teachers to extend the idea of the portrait into the classroom in other forms, including writings produced by the students. I began to realize how much young people were excluded from the fabric of “the art world” as I knew it and how much their images had been stereotyped in the larger culture over the years. I decided then that I wanted to construct a more complex representation of these young people while also engaging in my own ideas about the photographic object.
IMA Hours
Before making the photograph I ask the student to sit quietly for a few minutes and write something about themselves. Once they are done I make the pictures without reading what they have written. I think if a portrait is well done the viewer is left with a feeling that they have connected to the life of another human being, even though they may be a stranger. The photographs are posed and highly staged, but with an eye towards creating an appearance of informality.
What advice would you give to a young Indianapolis student looking to discover his or her own voice through art? I would say look at as much art as you can, and make as much art as you can. Never stop looking, and never stop learning. The whole history of art is available to you; it is up to you to know that history and to figure out what you want to contribute to it. Then seek out the training and education that will allow you to accomplish that. And have fun too!
IMA members Free Adults (18–64) $12 Children (7–17) $6 College students with valid I.D. $6 Seniors (65+) $10 Groups of 10 or more, each person $10 Children 6 and under Free School groups Free (must book through IMA Education Division) IMA members, depending on membership level, receive one or more complimentary tickets for guests for ticketed exhibitions.
Phone MAIn:
317-923-1331
24-Hour Information Line:
317-920-2660
Free Parking
Visitors may park in the garage and designated outdoor lots at no charge. Wheelchairaccessible spaces are marked.
Accessibility The Museum building and Lilly House are accessible for wheelchair users.
Lunch: Tuesday–Saturday, 11:00 am–2:00 pm Dinner: Thursday–Saturday, 5:00–9:00 pm Brunch: Sunday, 11:00 am–2:00 pm
Gallery Shop Located on the north end of the first gallery level, this shop offers merchandise related to special exhibitions and IMA collections. Greenhouse Shop Perennials, annuals, herbs and gardening gifts for sale. Open all Museum hours, except Thursday and Friday, when it closes at 8:00 pm.
Public Tours Public tours are offered each day at 1:00 pm and also on Thursdays and Fridays at 7:00 pm. Tour size is limited. Meet on the first gallery level at top of escalator.
Edi to r :
Noelle Pulliam co n t r i b u t e r :
IMA Cafe Tuesday–Saturday, 11:00 am–5:00 pm Sunday, noon–5:00 pm Happy Hour Thursday, 5:00–9:00 pm
Shopping The IMA Store Unique selection of books, crafts, gifts and more. Open all Museum hours.
Previews is published by IMA, 4000 Michigan Road, Indianapolis, IN 46208-3326, as a benefit for IMA members. Questions or comments may be directed to the Previews staff at 317-923-1331.
AMP: art, music, people Friday 5:00–9:00 pm
S.L. Berry G r a phi c D e sig n :
Matt Taylor pR O D UCT I O N A S S I S TANT:
Hester DeLoach photog r a ph e r s :
Tad Fruits Mike Rippy
IMA Libraries
R I G H T S & RE P R O D UCT I O N S :
Stout Reference Library Noncirculating collection of more than 90,000 items 317-920-2647
Ruth Roberts
Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, 2:00–5:00 pm Thursday, 2:00–8:00 pm and by appointment Jane S. Dutton Educational Resource Center The Dutton Center is making changes in how it serves educators and is no longer loaning resources to the public. Questions: 317-920-2675
im a g e p r o c e ssi n g sp e c i a lis t:
Laurie Gilbert
All reproduction rights are reserved by the IMA, and permission to sell or use commercially any photographs, slides or videotapes must be obtained in writing from the Rights and Reproductions office, 317-923-1331, ext. 171. Copyright ©2008 Indianapolis Museum of Art
Horticultural Society Library Books on gardening and related topics. Located at Newfield. 317-923-1331, ext. 429 Wednesday and Saturday, noon–3:00 pm
Internet imamuseum.org previews@imamuseum.org
WEB SITE: E-MAIL:
This activity made possible, in part, with support from the Indiana Arts Commission, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency
General support of the IMA is provided by the Arts Council of Indianapolis and the City of Indianapolis; and by the Indiana Arts Commission, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
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Robert Yassin cuts the cake commemorating the Museum’s centennial on June 25, 1983, with (from left) Marilyn Glick,
1883-2008
4000 Michigan Road Indianapolis, IN 46208-3326
4000 Michigan Road Indianapolis, IN 46208-3326
William Carter, Nikki Cederquist and opera singer Bernice Fraction. IMA Archives.
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