While flipping channels this past weekend, I stopped on a program on the  Indianapolis PBS affiliate WFYI called “From Naptown to Super City.” The documentary outlines Indianapolis’s progress from a city with a dying (if not, dead) downtown to the vibrant Super Bowl host city that it is this week. It’s a great program full of fascinating interviews, anecdotes, and images of this city. If you haven’t had a chance to see it and you live in Indy, the program will re-air on Saturday at 6 p.m.

One image from the documentary, in particular, caught my attention. It was of the National Sports Festival that was hosted in Indianapolis in 1982. I can’t find a copy of the image anywhere online so I’ll try to describe it to you (by the way, I have a VERY unreliable memory, so I might be remembering the details wrong…). Essentially, the image is of a stadium with a track, the stands are filled with fans and the infield is filled with athletes. In the center of the image stands 1, 2, and 3 from Robert Indiana’s Numbers. After doing a little research, (a.k.a. reading Richard McCoy’s blog from April 5), I discovered that they were used as backdrops to the gold, silver, and bronze medal platforms for the games.

The more I’ve thought about the image, the more I appreciate the connection to the current configuration of Numbers. We are currently displaying 4 & 6 in the Museum’s Welcome Center. 1, 2, 3, 4, & 6 now have a place in art history and sports history. Fingers crossed that 5, 7, 8, & 9 will have their chance one day, as well.

Robert Indiana, "Numbers," 1980-1983. Gift of Melvin Simon and Associates; 1988.241. © Morgan Art Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Indianapolis stands at the crossroads of the U.S., but now more than ever, it also stands at the crossroads of sports and art. The balance of the aesthetic and the athletic makes Indianapolis a vibrant host for the Super Bowl, but an even better home for the 1.7 million people that live in our Metro area.

Robert Indiana’s Numbers are just one of the many examples of art and sports intersecting in the Circle City this week. For a full list of all the fun cultural events organized in celebration of the Super Bowl, click here.

Filed under: Art, Local

It’s hard to believe that it has been almost four years since Indianapolis was selected to host the 46^th Super Bowl. For most of us, the Super Bowl has some sort of yearly tradition tied to it. We get together with friends, indulge ourselves, laugh at a few commercials and watch a football game. It’s one day, maybe two with a lingering hangover, and one event.

For a host city, the Super Bowl is much more than this.

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Filed under: Current Events, Local

Howard Carter’s 1922 discovery of the gold-laden tomb of King Tutankhamen not only uncovered the most intact Egyptian tomb ever discovered, it triggered the attention of the world’s press, and a feverish world-wide Egyptomania soon followed.

The IMA acquired numerous Egyptian artifacts in 1928, including this bronze sculpture:

The Goddess Neith, 664BCE - 332BCE; Emma Harter Sweetser Fund; 28.224.

In addition to archeological successes, America’s revitalization and construction boom of the 1920’s was nationwide and Indianapolis was no exception. The economy had mostly recovered after WWI and hadn’t yet fallen into depression. A time of industry, it was a decade of heavy construction in Indianapolis. On Monument Circle alone, the Columbia Club, Guaranty Building, Test Building and Circle Tower still stand today as a tribute to the roaring twenties.

As industry grew, so did the height of the built environment. Skyscrapers were born during this era (the Empire State Building was begun in 1929).  At the time, Indiana’s tallest skyscraper was Merchants National Bank topping out at seventeen stories, and remained the tallest building in Indiana until 1962.  As competition for height soared, so did the demands of decoration.

Art Deco was the most popular decorative art style of the 1920’s, originating in Paris. It is a hybrid art form, combining quotations from empirical civilizations (Egypt) and a hunger for the innovation of the machine industry.  It mainly features linear symmetry and geometric shapes in its design.  Natural and circular forms are limited, or simplified during this time period. Notice the geometric designs of this ancient headdress compared with this purse created in the 1920’s:

Mummy Mask, 332-30 B.C.; Emma Harter Sweetser Fund; 28.243.

Purse, early 1900s. Gift of Stella and Fred Krieger; 2009.312.

Art Deco and traditional Egyptian figural art both feature flat two-dimensional characteristics, as can be seen on Circle Tower. The building is also a nod to Aztec influence – note the stair-stepped design below.

Circle Tower is one of many existing Art Deco building in Indianapolis.  It particularly features intricately designed bronze ornamentation of Egyptian workers. Bronze was similarly popular in the ancient world, as it was a symbol of man’s achievement. (Bronze is an alloy that must be combined through human effort and is not found in nature). The Tower’s main structure is Indiana limestone.

Circle Tower is fourteen stories with a two story tower. It was the first building on the circle to feature “set back” construction in order to comply with the controversial 1905 height restriction ordinance. This ordinance stated that no building could be higher than 86 feet, so as to obstruct the Soldiers and Sailor’s Monument from sight.  So the main part of Circle Tower is 86 feet, but the additional tower is set back, in order to achieve height and carefully comply with the rules.

These bronze elements on Circle Tower show Egyptian iconography through representing figures at work.  Also, on the elevator doors in the interior lobby are similar figures, except they are portrayed as helping pull the elevator ropes and cranks to move the elevator from floor to floor.

So next time you stop at Starbucks on Monument Circle, (a current occupant of Circle Tower) make sure you check out the many unique details of the building (and some not covered in this blog) and next time you are at the IMA , be sure to catch the  Egyptian artifacts on the third floor!

Filed under: Local, The Collection

Our newest installation in 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks art and Nature Park, Mary Miss’ FLOW: Can You See the River?, is all about community engagement. What better way to talk about community efforts than by asking one of our partners to highlight some of the ways that they will be reaching out to people. The EcoLab at Marian University is just one of many partnerships brought about by Miss’ work and we are happy to have them share some opportunities that they will host over the next couple of days.

The Marian University Ecolab is 55 acres of wetlands, forest and prairie in the heart of Indianapolis. Besides being an incredibly diverse and beautiful area, the EcoLab is committed to environmental education through interaction with the environment.  We were very excited when Mary Miss approached us with an art-in-nature collaboration and knew it was a creative fit to our mission.  An art exhibition like this is another ingenious way to help connect the community to nature.  During FLOW week we are offering a number of FREE events, all of which will engage the visitor in his/her surroundings and help them see how “all property is riverfront property.”

FLOW-focused field trips: The EcoLab will be offering free FLOW-focused programs to school groups throughout festival week and will continue to offer similar programming through the duration of the installation. These programs will include a short presentation on the importance of the White River in our daily lives, a nature hike highlighting the several installation points on the EcoLab grounds, and a hands-on restoration project that will benefit our watershed.  For more information about how to schedule a FLOW program for your class during the week of the festival or anytime following, please contact Shannon Unger, Environmental Education Coordinator, at 317-524-7700 or sbigham-unger@marian.edu.

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Filed under: Art and Nature Park, Local, Public Programs

Mary Miss has decidedly sparked many Indianapolis residents’ curiosities with the installation with her newest citywide project, FLOW: Can You See the River? with her unmistakable markers. Miss’s project hopes to make the local community aware of the White River’s functions, history and most notably, what we can do as area residents to be more aware and environmentally friendly. This project showcases the river, its watershed and how it sustains us. Mary Miss, who hails from New York, has done many projects of this scope that focus on the environment, history and sustainability.

The red fiberglass balls, juxtaposed against nature, serve as markers for points of ecological importance. The balls and mirrors (on certain markers) are complete audio descriptions that are accessible by cell phone, and links to the the project’s very own mobile app, Raindrop.  The descriptions inform and encourage visitors to recognize how their daily lives affect the White River, and conversely, how the White River and its history affects us.  (Coincidental note, the red balls were fabricated locally by artist Brian McCutcheon’s studio.  An exhibition of his work just opened at the IMA entitled, Out of this World featuring himself and his adorable son and muse, Angus).

This project extends beyond the markers with talks from Mary Miss herself and other local environmental groups. Through these collaborations, this exhibition moves beyond the museum for a truly citywide effect.

This project came upon me, an intern, in a very ambiguous form and in bits and pieces at the beginning of the summer –I did not know how these complex pieces would fall together.  Very quickly did my small part in the project become clearer as the spreadsheets and countless Word documents that I stored on my desktop had a course of action. The Mary Miss team had detailed the exact latitude and longitude of each of their markers.  Through the course of a few weeks, I input each individual marker into FLOW’s website, learning a lot a lot about a city I had recently become a new resident of. The end result is a map of Indianapolis covered in these red dots, these ecological points of importance. You may find one very close to your home or your workplace.

Come and mark the opening of Indianapolis’ very own ecological scavenger hunt (in a way) by participating in the Flow: Can You See the River? festival beginning today, along with the launch of the interactive map (and be sure to visit the website!).

Come to the IMA this evening for a talk by Mary Miss at 7pm in celebration of the opening. Join us earlier at 6pm for a reception in the lobby.

Filed under: Art, Art and Nature Park, Contemporary, Local