Art Group members Peter Abate and Charles Kartsonis recently visited the
Indianapolis Museum of Art. The museum is free and open to the public. Peter, who took all of the photos, reports:
The wonderful thing about this museum was that most of my favorite artists were front and center.... Van Gogh ( If you know anything about me you know how I love Van Gogh )
Gauguin ( Where would he be without Van Gogh, these paintings were side by side, you could feel the tension )
Modigliani ( Just amazing what more could you say )
Marsden Hartley ( Painted and lived in Maine )
John Marin ( Painted and lived in Maine )
Edward Hopper ( The painter most in touch with my love of architecture )
Georgia Okeefe ( This piece was huge, the artist working in these pictures had been coming and spending 2 hours a day working on his drawing )
There was so much more to see, we actually skipped the Asian galleries and the African Galleries. Did I say that the museum had no charge to get in?
I asked Charlie for the title of the book he is holding and he replied: The name of the book was "
Every Way Possible". It detailed the 125 year history of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
The book was interesting because it not only covers their collection but also documents the move to the present site which, as Peter noted, was full of beautiful landscaping. (One interesting landscape specimen was what we've always referred to as "Deadly Night Shade". It was cultivated into a large, graceful and exotic-looking plant with dangling purple berries. ) Another interesting book at the museum shop was " Paper to Paint: Edward Hopper's Hotel Lobby". It followed the artist's work in transforming sketches into a final painting. The painting was "Hotel Lobby" which was on display at the museum.
The museum had several interesting installations. One that impressed both Peter and me was a thick glass floor that the viewer was encouraged to walk on. Once on the floor, the viewer looked down at thousands of little human figures holding up the floor and the viewer. Another inspiring installation was viewed from the third floor window.
Outside the window, with trees as a backdrop, was a large aluminum tube sculpture by Maya Lin called "Above and Below". The tubing looked like the naked framework of a canopy and created a tunnel that, if not for the fact that it was suspended in air, you would have been able to walk through. The inspiration for Lin were some local caverns. She recreated their interior space, the arched tunnels of the caverns, into a floating sculpture. I found it impressive that she took something inherently dark & concealed and transformed it into something light, open & airy. I found
this link to an article about the sculpture.
