Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog

Just in time for the groundbreaking of the Art and Nature Park and the third Team Building session at IMA, Type A give us a peek into their on-going discussion…

Dear Count Blogula,

I’m still trying to figure out what we were trying to say last time.  Something about the Invisible Man and mirrors. Good reading. I figure we should keep going with this.

More new things percolating since we last wrote. At this point we are reevaluating what the sculpture will look like and what it means within the larger context of the project as a whole. The original conception for the piece, a 40ish-foot climbing tower suspended about 12 feet of the ground, has been expanded to include handholds that are cast from our team members’ grips, and indeed the decision to suspend or not suspend the tower has come into question.

We are back to having it in the ground and accessible to those who want to touch and climb it, and then we’re back again to the suspended version with all its visual impact and conceptual tickle. We will be discussing what all this means with the Team and we hope this could influence the direction the sculpture takes. In the end, we might have the sculpture suspended for one year and then renew the piece and give it new meaning by lowering it onto the ground for another year. So the question remains: what does it mean to build the tower and suspend it and what does it mean for it to rest on the ground?
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That sums it up.  You can always tell how stressed out I am by how messy my desk is.  To the untrained eye my desk might look pretty neat.  But only I know that I have stuffed papers that ought to be filed into that little tray and I have five new projects with documents waiting for a file folder.    (So maybe I am a little crazy with the organization…I think it keeps us all together in the long run.)

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: Read the rest of this entry »

A continuation of the conversation between the members of Type A…did you miss the first Type A post?

Hey MC Blogmaster 5000,

Here I am again, getting back in the writing groove. Funny enough, just read a story in the last New York Times Magazine (August 3rd) about a group of internet pranksters that generally call themselves “trolls.” Seems they like to nuke web sites and mess with people very aggressively. One of them is quoted as saying that he “wants everyone off the Internet. Bloggers are filth. They need to be destroyed.” Guy seems like a real party. Too much free time, if you ask me.

But back to the arts.

The project has evolved significantly since we last exchanged thoughts this way. We’ve completed our first two-day workshop with everyone in the Team Building project and have been talking about what it all means ever since. Right after the second day concluded we went out with Lisa (Freiman) to discuss where this was going and exchanged some really interesting ideas.

Type A has always made work that respects the idea first and the medium second. Ultimately the medium we choose for a project must be in response to the concept driving that project, and, in fact, the medium ideally helps to inform and reinforce the concept. Read the rest of this entry »

Some tigers are saber-toothed and stuffed; others are rendered in chrome. Two museums brought me closer to wildness this summer: the Indiana State Museum’s Footprints exhibition and the new Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, WI.

At the ISM, Footprints features taxidermy to die for. In an exploration of the natural history of what is today Indiana, stuffed ice age sabertooths cavort with stuffed otters, owls, fish and badgers, arranged in an unintentionally surreal tableau. This is installation art if I’ve ever seen it: a barrage of lives that were, juxtaposed for maximum emotional impact. Later in the show, there are piercing black-and-white photos of Indiana’s hunting history. The eyes of the hunters and their giddy hounds smolder with pride in front a wall of raccoon skins, circa 1935. Footprints has a high haunt factor.

The Harley-Davidson Museum, on the other hand, is pure exaltation. This cathedral to industrial design and American capitalism opened just this month after a multi-year planning process. Read the rest of this entry »

Full contact rock paper scissors. Passing an ice bucket from person to person with only your feet. Hurling rubber chickens and stuffed monkeys. Primal screams. It’s all in a days work at the IMA.

I will never deny that working in a museum is fun, but nothing has compared to Monday and Tuesday of this week. From playful games to thoughtful discussions, a group of IMA staff led by the artist collective (and former guest bloggers) Type A spent 2 full days participating in team-building exercises focused on the IMA’s forthcoming Virginia B. Fairbanks Art and Nature Park. These games, challenges and discussions were meant to not only help strengthen the bonds between a diverse group of IMA staff, but ultimately to inform the final commissioned work that Type A will create for the Art and Nature Park. Read the rest of this entry »