The Big News

The IMA has been selected to represent the United States at the 2011 La Biennale di Venezia (Venice Biennale) and present the work of Puerto Rico-based artist collaborative Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla. Often described as the Olympic games of the contemporary art world, more the 70 nations present the newest and best works from their respective countries every other year at the Venice Biennale. This year marks the 54th International Art Exhibition.

A Few More Details

U.S. Pavilion

The IMA will present the work of Allora & Calzadilla at the U.S. Pavilion in Venice, Italy from June 4 through November 27, 2011. The U.S. pavilion is presented by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, which supports and manages the official United States participation at selected international exhibitions. Lisa Freiman, Chair of the IMA’s Department of Contemporary Art, will serve as Commissioner of the U.S. Pavilion.

More to Come

More details about the Venice Biennale and Allora & Calzadilla’s work will be posted in the coming weeks and months.

Read All About It

The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/arts/design/08arts-ARTTEAMREPRE_BRF.html?ref=todayspaper

Wall Street Journal: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/09/07/artist-pair-from-puerto-rico-to-represent-us-in-venice-biennial/

Indianapolis Star: http://www.indystar.com/article/20100908/LOCAL/9080348/IMA-picked-to-represent-U.S.-at-show-in-Venice

Artinfo: http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/35714/united-states-picks-allora-calzadilla-for-the-54th-venice-biennale/

ArtForum: http://artforum.com/archive/id=26356

1. Ball-Nogues Studio: Gravity’s Loom - Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues have been the guests of the IMA for the last week installing their site-specific work made of multicolored string. This week, don’t miss your opportunity to get up close and personal with the artists and the IMA’s design and installation crew as they install the work in the Efroymson Entrance Pavilion.  The team will be working throughout the day and in open view of visitors, so stop by and check out how this exhibition comes together. The show opens to the public this  Friday, but if you’ve got time, come by Thursday evening for a preview and artist talk.

2. Distance closes this Sunday. Kids and adults alike have been mesmerized all summer by Jeppe Hein’s rollercoaster-like track in the Forefront Galleries. Stop by this week for your final chance to follow a white, plastic ball as it rolls through 3 different rooms on the IMA’s fourth floor. This exhibition is a can’t miss, but hurry…you’ve only got 6 more days to see it!

3. Bring your family and friends to 100 Acres this weekend. I just checked the forecast and the weather looks perfect for a picnic! Bring a frisbee or a football and play around in the Park’s meadow. Interested in a tour? Every Sunday, there is a docent-led walk around the Park from 11 a.m. to noon.

(Don’t forget the Museum is closed on Mondays, but 100 Acres is open 7 days a week, including Labor Day.)

OK, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, but those are 3 good reasons for our friends in and around Indianapolis to come to the IMA this week.

Want more? Visit our calendar to see a full list of programs and exhibitions.

Their massive installation at the IMA, titled Gravity’s Loom, will be composed entirely of colored string draped from an aluminum hanging system affixed to the wall.  Gravity’s pull causes the strings to become an arc shape, and an accumulation of various lengths of string in the Pavilion will converge to form a shape reminiscent of an inverted architectural dome. Ball-Nogues’ installation is an intervention into the expanse of the Pavilion—hanging a mere 3.5 feet from the floor at its lowest point, the form of Gravity’s Loom creates wide pathways through which visitors can navigate the space.

Gravity’s Loom is composed with over 30 miles of string, dyed and cut by a programmable machine called the Insta-llator 2 with the Variable Information Atomizing Module. Designed by Ball-Nogues, the Insta-llator applies paint to each individual string in precise locations and cuts each string to a prescribed length determined by an integrated custom software system. Fabricated in Los Angeles, the strings have arrived in Indianapolis on small spools organized according to the location where the string will hang. Each spool contains one length of string which will span the Pavilion at varying dimensions to create the swooping, inverted dome attached to the walls near the Pavilion’s forty foot ceilings. You can see a similar installation in progress here.

If you come to the museum between now and September 2, you’ll be asked to enter through a temporary alternate entrance due to heavy equipment necessary to construct Gravity’s Loom in the Pavilion. But you’ll be able to see the progress as the installation nears completion from behind stanchions on the 1^st floor or from the 2^nd floor balcony.

To hear the Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues discuss their work, come to the IMA on September 2.

See you there.

They are related to assassin bugs and as that name implies I guess, they eat other insects. The old “inject you with toxins that dissolve your soft tissue then I suck you dry” routine. More or less. Wikipedia has a bit on them here. Here you will find lots of info on assassin and ambush bugs at UK.

They are very well camouflaged as is demonstrated here.

I love their architecture. Kinda looks like a vehicle in a Mad Max movie.

I assume they were having sex. But human sex is complicated enough so I won’t say without a doubt that that was what was happening.

But I did read they mate in the fall, the female lays her eggs, they hatch in spring and the cycle begins anew. The timing would be pretty close.

Here’s some more pics of our pair of freaks. Enjoy.

While previous movies like Sin City have done a great job borrowing static elements of graphic novel design, this is the first film I’ve seen that makes such fine use of dynamic elements. Speed and impact lines are used to convey energy in many of the battle scenes, sound effects are enhanced with fleeting text and graphic representations to give them more impact, and intangible forces are stunningly visualized as they become devastatingly tangible for the characters involved.

And these are all enhancements that pull the audience into the alternate reality of the film when they could have been overdone or done poorly and resulted in the opposite (similar to the uncanny valley effect I wrote about earlier). I’m looking forward to learning how the special effects were thought up and pulled off in the behind-the-scenes goodies.

And speaking of graphic effects, we’ll be showing a variety of animated films at an event called Generations of Animation this weekend in The Toby. The techniques used in the films varies from traditional cell drawing and stop-motion to computer generated imagery. We’ll also have hands-on activities in the art labs and three experts in the field demonstrating their skills.

Comment below to let us know what other movie effects you’ve been impressed by lately.

As with every year, the program takes on a slightly different feel. This summer, the MAP students’ objective was to welcome and encourage 100 Acres visitors to interact with the Park’s natural environments, and its installations through games and activities which they facilitated.

Adam Ames and Andrew Bordwin of the art collective Type A helped kick off spring training by talking with the MAP teens about their work and teaching them some of the team building initiatives used with Museum staff during the development of their piece Team Building (Align).

These games set the tone for a summer that was largely about helping people lower self-erected barriers to art and nature, while allowing them to connect with their surroundings and the people around them in fun and sometimes unexpected ways. I’d have to say, if visitors’ smiles and laughter were indicators of success, then the MAP teens did a nice job!

Thanks again to all the IMA staff who shared their time and passion for what they do to make this place so “tight!” …that’s a little MAP teen imprint oozing out.

Today (yes, Friday the 13th) a couple dozen Andy Warhol look-a-likes dashed around Monument Circle to the rockin’ sounds of The Velvet Underground’s ‘Run Run Run’ for a little thing we like to call a flash mob.

That leaves two kinds of people in this town: those who saw it, and those who didnt.

You were there? Awesome! You can upload your pics and vids to using your Flickr account. Missed the action? Don’t get your wig in a twist. Stay tuned for great footage and images here.

Security Guards.

Okay, so security guards might seem ubiquitous, keeping guard over every gallery room from sea to shining sea. How could I consider them overlooked? I’ll even admit; I’ve never seen a security guard leap a tall building in a single bound.

Yet, if you’ve ever been lost in a maze of galleries in a huge museum, searching in desperation for the loo, I think you’ll agree that those ever present staffers can be life savers.

We can all appreciate their role in preventing little hyper Johnny from drawing mustaches on the poor Serruys Sisters

.

While I was visiting the Tara Donovan exhibit a couple of weeks ago I saw a security guard swoop in just in time to stop a man from touching Donovan’s mammoth mylar sculpture.

Look beyond their abilities to guide lost souls (to the loo) and their blind willingness to throw themselves in front of a barreling train (sic 5 year old) heading straight for a collision with a priceless piece of history, and you’ll see friendly security guards have knowledge to lend. On many an occasion I’ve been given a gem of knowledge from a passing guard about a piece I’m pondering.

I’ll never forget a nice uniformed gentleman who told me that one of the large paintings in the European Gallery at the IMA was once cut in half and sold as two separate paintings. Luckily the two halves were restored to one, and most viewers are none the wiser.

On another occasion, while visiting a museum in D.C., a young guard shared with me that she had seen a grown man cry upon seeing the Mark Rothko that hung before me. She went on to say that the museum gift shop had a print of the very painting that I was so obviously enthralled by. When she added that it was on sale and I had to restrain myself from running over and hugging her.

That man’s dogs were probably barking from standing around in the IMA’s European Galleries all day, and that young woman probably endured more than her share of odd vibes from people who felt awkward under her watchful gaze.

Despite that, they, and many others, go above and beyond the call of duty by making the experience of visiting a museum brighter and more enlightening for those who are open to it.

Superheroes are just the stuff of fiction- to qualify as one, you’ve got to catch Lois Lane mid-free-fall, thus saving her from certain death. But, if you’ve had a great visit and learned a little something to boot, thanks to one of the awesome museum staffers (not just the guards!), maybe you’ll think superheroes are real, too.

You’re invited to bring a flashlight and blanket, to make your way out to 100 Acres, and settle in for a free light show.

The shower is called the Perseids because it appears that it emanates from the constellation Perseus, the original tough guy of Greek mythology.  What you’ll see, barring clouds or rain, is a trail of cosmic boogers left by the streaking Comet Swift-Tuttle.  This comet is the largest object known to make repeated passes near the Earth.

The gang at NASA is pretty excited about this year’s show.

To complement your viewing pleasure, the Sea Krowns will be making some spacey sounds with the theremin, the instrument that provided the wavy music toward the end of The Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations, as well as the haunted tracks from many a Scooby Doo cartoon and B movie.  Take a listen.

100 Acres begs for programs that showcase the aesthetics of nature.  Dis is it!  Want more season-specific programs out in 100 Acres?  Like a poetry reading in the snow?  Leave your suggestions here.

P.S. Don’t forget the IMA’s Summer Nights film series, also Friday.  Stand By Me will be playing at around 9:45 pm, then you can come out to the Park to be showered with meteors…

What’s coming to take it’s place? Architecture and design fans, rejoice! Los Angeles-based design team Ball-Nogues Studio will create an immersive, site-specific installation called Gravity’s Loom.

Ball-Nogues Studio, Feathered Edge, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

The space will be filled with multicolored strings configured in catenary curves, arcs naturally assumed by the strings as they respond to the force of gravity. Trained as architects, Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues are working with the pavilion’s architecture to develop an installation related to the function of the space as a thoroughfare and meeting point for visitors.

Check out this wicked installation video from The Arts Council for Long Beach: