Empty Billboard

As I’ve been writing the IMA’s 2010 marketing campaign, I’ve been trying to find ways to communicate the value of the museum experience. The IMA has a tremendous amount to offer the public: educational programs that range from films to horticulture classes, collections and exhibitions that span the scope of art history, 2 historic house museums (Lilly House and Miller House), ArtBabble and a bunch of other cool online initiatives,152 acres of gardens and grounds…The list is long, and well, that’s the blessing and the curse of marketing the IMA. It’s the breadth of offerings that makes it hard to distill the IMA experience into a sound bite or tag line for radio, tv, billboards and various other media channels.

I don’t think this is an IMA problem. In general, museums struggle to define the value of what they do to the average community member. Why would someone who has never been to an art museum before and who has no experience with art suddenly choose to visit? What can the museum provide to them? The benefits of a museum experience are complicated and personal. They depend on a myriad of factors, including expectations of visitor, fulfillment of expectations in previous museum trips, personal history, context, mood, etc. What one person may love about the museum, another may hate. What one visitor thinks or feels in front of a work of art, another may never know.

Often I wish I could put my personal reasons for loving museums on a billboard. I’d love to be able to tell folks about the time I walked into a gallery in the British Museum, saw the Parthenon Sculptures, and was moved to sobbing tears. I would like to tell them about a piece in the Denver Art Museum by an artist named Sean Landers that taught me about becoming an adult. I’d love to tell visitors that I don’t understand a lot of contemporary art, and that it’s ok that I’m confused by it. I’d also like to share that sometimes I go into the IMA’s American Galleries, sit in front of a portrait and make up a story about the life of the person in the painting. All of these things create my personal value of the museum experience.

While I know I’m not alone in some of my feelings, I’m certain that the “Meg-tested, Meg-approved” campaign I often dream about  is  NOT going to work. (Though my mom may think otherwise.) So, as I continue to work on the 2010 marketing campaign, I’d like to throw a bit of the thinking out to the group. Why do you visit museums? What is the value of the IMA? I have my answers, but I’d love to hear yours…

By the way, I just wanted to thank Nina Simon and her recent blog on Museum2.0. I found it helpful as part of this process. You may as well.

Check out this photo on Flickr to see a diagram of my crazy.

This is a super-busy time for the Nugget Factory and it just sort of happened.  For a couple of days last week, Daniel was out of the office with Dan shooting some video in San Francisco for the upcoming show, Power and Glory: Court Arts of China’s Ming Dynasty. I found myself sitting at my desk, working at a normal pace…and bored out of my mind.  Two days later, with the full factory back in action, things sort of erupted, with new tasks flying in at every angle.  I guess I prefer it that way…Check out this selection of stuff we have coming soon:

• A new Flickr project giving you a look at some conservation work done by IMA conservators in conjunction with the exhibition, Preserving a Legacy: Wishard Hospital Murals (coming January 2009)
  
• The website for Power and Glory, which will integrate video in a way we have never tried before (coming October 2008)
• A full length documentary on Maya Lin that is in the home stretch, we hope you can see this late 2008
• The special web presence featuring Type A, in the final stages of editing, getting ready for the Virginia B. Fairbanks Art and Nature Park groundbreaking on September 18th
• A new Flickr group called “Class Picture Day” – submit your own class photo inspired by the exhibition, Class Pictures: Photographs by Dawoud Bey (You should submit your class photo, but even if you don’t you can find mine on there!)
• Two audio tracks recorded by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for you to enjoy, inspired by works of art in the American Galleries

So that is a just a taste for the next couple of months.  We’ll keep you posted as new things come up.  Next year will be bringing some super exciting things that you will definitely hear about here, so stay tuned!!

The American galleries are changing. At least a part of these spaces will look different after July 14. We are always rotating works in the galleries, sometimes reinstalling the entire galleries incorporating different pieces, and even renovating galleries by changing the position of walls and painting them different colors or repainting them the same color when they look like they need it. We are rotating, reinstalling and renovating part of the American galleries on July 14.

A work in the American Modernist section of the galleries is going out on loan and another painting is going up to replace it – this is a rotation.

The American Scene, Urban Realism and Art of the American West are changing places in the galleries, so we are going to reinstall those three galleries to make more room for American Scene and Urban Realism art. Those galleries will also be renovated because the walls will be repositioned and repainted. The repositioning of the walls will allow viewers a more unobstructed view of the American galleries. We are also renovating the Early American Gallery by changing the paint color of the archway and repositioning the wall to again offer a more open view into the space.

We hope that these adjustments will make the experience of viewing the American galleries easier and more enjoyable. We think that enlarging the American Scene and Urban Realism galleries will allow us to bring out of storage some exciting paintings and offer a broader understanding of these important trends in American art.

We are not abandoning our Art of the American West galleries just making them more intimate and placing them more in context with the development of American art.

The IMA website shows a variety of American art that is currently in the galleries, but seeing the art in person will explain why it is difficult to appreciate a work of art by viewing a reproduction. The experience of viewing art in person is so much more satisfying and can even be an awesome encounter.