Mo’Joe Coffeehouse on Michigan Street displays works of art for sale by local self-taught artists with advance permission from the shop’s owner. Currently, Angelina Fielding’s art is featured along with her bio and artist statement. According to the barista, “the art adds to the atmosphere” but doesn’t necessarily sell. My Starbucks on Massachusetts Avenue is in the process of establishing a program for local artists. In the meantime, the store encourages partners (employees) to display their work, along with other individuals connected to the store’s management. Nathan Wohlt and Jenny Elikins are a few of the artists with work on view. “A lot of artists work in coffeeshops so it’s a good place to sell your work,” said the barista. But where did the connection between art and coffeehouses originate?

Coffeehouses inspired the origin of countless noteworthy institutions and ideas. In the late 1700s, the auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s began in rooms attached to coffeehouses where sales of art took place. Coffeehouses aided in the business of buying and selling art and were essential to the success of an artist who could promote their work at little or no cost. It makes perfect sense that today’s coffeehouses continue to sell art from their walls.

A bit more history — coffeehouses originated in Middle Eastern countries in the 1400s as places where men gathered to drink Arabic coffee or tea and listen to music, read and play games. Discussions of war and politics also became common. In the 1600s, coffee arrived in Europe and coffeehouses quickly gained popularity. Venice, Oxford, London, Paris and Boston all boasted the first coffeehouses in their regions. They were places of “great social levell[ing], open to all men and indifferent to social status, and as a result associated with equality and republicanism,” according to a Wikipedia article. Business could be conducted and new ideas could spread unobserved by government. It is interesting to know that women were not allowed in coffeehouses in Europe, yet were in Germany.

The coffeehouse was an alternative to the “pub” and precursor to the more elite “club”. In the United States, coffeehouses first popped up in immigrant communities and attracted the free thinking Beat generation, the youth counterculture, solo musicians and today, wireless internet seekers. Coffee anyone?

If you missed last Thursday’s talk by Modern Art Notes blogger Tyler Green at the Central Library, presented by iMOCA, we’ve got you covered. Overall the talk was insightful–intriguing to those outside the arts world and passion-evoking for those intimately involved in the arts. “We all agree too much. Maybe we’re afraid to say the wrong thing,” said Green at the opening of his talk.

The afternoon before speaking, Green spent some time wandering the galleries of the IMA. The following are Tweets from Green’s visit to the IMA. You can “follow” Green on Twitter by clicking here.

• At Indy Museum of Art. Sweet.
• Digging Emile Bernard. Color, composition, his way of eliminating depth.
• Denis’ The Breton Dance from 1891 shows how important he would be to Bonnard and Vuillard and how they showed foliage/landscape.
• Rembrandt 20something self-portrait is fantastic and weird. Light. Diagonal of cap. Open mouth.
• Early Titian (20ish) portrait is creepy and soothing. Something odd about the eyes. And fur trim on coat is more painterly than hair.
• Fine Prints for Five Dollars at IMA is the most fun I’ve had in a prints gallery in eons. I hope the show is on http://imamuseum.org.
• Emile Bernard’s Yellow Christ: fascinating apostles. Mask-like: recalls later Picasso; simple, direct feature that recall very late Matisse.
• IMA Sandback space is haunting. Untitled diagonal going out window into beyond…
  

Green spoke to a crowd about the 10 (or more) things he hates about contemporary art, along with a brief explanation. Here is a short summary of what he had to say:

1. Mary Cassatt, American impressionist painter, 1844-1926: Green thinks her babies look unhappy and her children resemble horses. Judge for yourself by viewing Cassatt’s work in the IMA’s collection.
2. Sir Peter Paul Ruben’s “Daniel and the Lions Den”, c.1614/1616: To Green, the image just doesn’t make logical sense. How do the lions get in and out of there?
3. Jackson Pollock, American abstract expressionist painter, 1912-1956: Green feels the artist is more important than his art is great.
4. Political art such as work by Richard Serra: “It’s like a pop song you can’t get out of your head,” said Green.
5. We don’t have ambition for art like we did 100-200 years ago: The biggest thing we do is prevent $20 million from being cut from the National Endowment for the Arts budget. Green thinks we need to start thinking about what our nation’s priorities should be and how art can play a part. Increasing art education funding would be a good place to start.
6. The national/international landscape now: Green showed works that capture the ecological damage we are creating through consumption.
7. Art writing: Green played a game with the audience, asking them to differentiate between “real” published art critic and made-up language created from The Instant Art Critique Phrase Generator. He found himself confused, but the crowd seemed to get the difference.
8. Hypocrisy: Green hates hypocrisy but “love(s) how art can reveal it.” He showed examples that hung in Pastor Ted Haggard’s megachurch.
9. “I hate that big parts of America are left out of the art world.”: Green said that New York is not the be-all, end-all. Other places can be just as important. Green cited the IMA’s new “kick ass” Robert Irwin light installation saying, “It might be the best Irwin installed anywhere in America.” In the Q&A portion of his talk, Green went on to explain that in order for arts to flourish in a city, art schools, available studio space, people who buy art as part of the culture, and tremendous museum collections as visual community are all needed.
10. Letting the art market be a compass for what we think of art: Curators and collectors often follow the art market, placing value on artists and works that are most expensive. Green says to resist it.
11. “Artists statements suck.”

Green became a successful blogger by disagreeing with those around him and breaking news. We encourage open discussion on the IMA Blog and hope you will participate by commenting. And most especially, we thank the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art for giving Indy the opportunity to meet Tyler Green.

AQUALUNG BAKELITES BENADRYL BIRO BRAGGERS BRILLOS BUDDHA CATHOLICS CELOTEX CENOZOIC COLICKIER COLICKIEST CROCKPOT CYCLOPES DACRON DEVONIAN DOBRO DUMPSTER DUMPSTERS EMMY EMMYS ENUF ENURESISES EOCENE EXAHERTZES FORMICAS FORZANDI FRISBEE FRISBEES GRUMMETED GRUMMETING HAFTOROS HERTZES HOLOCENE INIONS JACUZZI JELLO JETWAYS JURASSIC KEWPIE KEWPIES KLEENEX KLEENEXES KURTOSISES LAPIDES LATINA LEFTMOSTS LEVIS LILOS LUCITES LUREXES LYCRA MAILGRAMS MASONITE MERCES MESOZOIC MIOCENE MIPS MYLAR POPSICLES POSTCAVAS PYREX REALTOR SECONALS SILURIAN SORTA SPANSULE SPANSULES SPUTTERY STELLITE STETSON SURPLUSSES TALEYSIM TALLAISIM TALLITHIM TALLITOTH TANNOY TEFLON THERMITS TOFUTTI TORTA TRES TREVALLYS TRIASSIC TROPICALS UPTALKED UPTALKING VASELINE VELCROS VENUS VENUSES WIMMIN WORKABLY ZUZIM ZLOTE ZLOTYCH

Those are just some of the new words added to the most recent edition of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary.

The Indianapolis Museum of Art is hosting a scrabble tournament for the National Scrabble Association of Indiana on Saturday, September 20. Museum visitors are invited to observe the tournament or to play scrabble on extra boards and tables that will be made available.

One of the Scrabble Association’s pre-tournament activities includes a special tour called “Words in Art,” which explores the art of the IMA through the words that are in the art. A few of the works on the tour will be Never Odd or Even (pictured above), Angel of the Resurrection, Robert Indiana’s Love and Holzer’s led sign with red diodes.

You may be surprised to learn that competitive scrabble has a lingo of its own.
Below are some Scrabble terms from the National Scrabble Association:

Bingo: Any word played that uses all seven letters on a player’s rack, earning a bonus of 50 points.

Brailing: Feeling the surface of a tile while your hand is in the bag in order to draw a blank or other specific letters. This is strictly forbidden.

Coffee-housing: To make small talk, crack knuckles or do any of a number of things meant to distract or mislead your opponent. This is unethical and strictly forbidden in clubs and tournaments. It is generally considered impolite to talk during a tournament game unless it is pertinent to the score or the play.

Fishing (aka Dumping): To play only one or two tiles, usually for few points, keeping five or six really good tiles, with the hope of playing a high-scoring word next turn.

Nongo: A bingo on your rack that won’t play on the board.

Phoney: Any unacceptable word. An unacceptable word is one that is not found in the Official Word List (OWL). Or, if the word has more than nine letters and is not found in the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition. If a phoney is not challenged when it’s played, however, it will stay on the board for the remainder of the game.

Power Tiles: There are 10 power tiles. They are the two blanks, the four S’s and the J, Q, X and Z.

Scrabble talk aside, what does it mean to combine words with art? What messages do letters and words convey that images can not? What moves an artist to reach for a pen, so to speak, rather than a paintbrush?

Here’s a link to our project description.

Since the Conflux Festival is “The art and technology festival for the creative exploration of urban public space” we thought this would be an ideal place to expand our ideas and methods for documentation as we prepare for a number of upcoming projects in the contemporary department.

So, here’s the plan: we have a bag full of recording equipment that those ever-helpful Nuggets let me use (note to self: don’t get this bag ripped off) and a bunch of interesting projects and artists to investigate.  Rebecca and I have identified three perspectives for “viewing” an artist’s work:

1) Artist Vantage Point
The artist documents his/her perspective of the work.
2) Participant Vantage Point
The participant in a work documents his/her experience.
3) Witness Vantage Point
The witness or observer documents the work.

Of course, there’s some cross over between these three perspectives, but by identifying them this way we’ll be able to pick specific projects that best illustrate them.

Here are some projects that we’ll be working on:

49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs: Grand Finale by John Cage, a realization by Twiceband.

“The piece calls for participants to do a performance of their choice, or make an audio recording, or listen to the environment at any 49 of 147 randomly selected locations in New York City. For Twiceband’s realization, we are using the locales originally selected by Cage (using the I Ching), and will document all of the waltzes with text, audio recordings and photography.”

Here’s a link to a NYT article about this project, and a link to Kurt Gochstalk’s blog that discusses the project.

9/10 by Lucas Murgida

“A cabinet will be constructed and left on a sidewalk. I will be hidden inside and not reveal myself until someone assumes possession and brings the cabinet to their home.”

Here’s a link to Lucas’ Twitter (http://twitter.com/lucasmurgida) and Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucasmurgida/) sites, where you can follow his adventure live this Saturday.  Also, here’s a link to his web page (http://lucasmurgida.com/) , where you can see a picture of him in the cabinet.

Acting Stranger by Andrew Schneider

“I act out and document short, scripted scenes with complete strangers as my scene partners. We set up a date, time, and location. The camera is rolling when they arrive, the only words out of our mouths are scripted, and there are no “thank yous” or “goodbyes”. We interact as dictated by the words. There is no direction. There are no second takes. There is nothing that is not within the context of the scene. We experience each other. The scene ends. We leave.”

I think there’s still time to sign up for a scene , if you’re gonna be in the City.  Here’s a link to Andrew’s blog.

Urban Disorientation Game Led by Calvin Johnson and Scott Knowles

“In this 2-3 hour game, participants are blindfolded and driven to a location several miles away from Conflux Headquarters. The game-players are divided into teams, and each team will be led by a UDG “guide.” The guides will each supervise a team, making certain that all precautions are taken to insure a fun and safe play of the game. Teams will not be allowed to use cell phones, maps, or transportation of any kind other than walking, and will only be provided the most minimal of tools in order to find their way back to the Conflux.”

Here’s an article in yesterday’s AM New York that mentions the UDG, and also that this is the last year for the Conflux Festival.

Clearly, Rebecca and I have enough to do to keep us busy for the next few days.  So busy that I don’t think I’ll even have time to visit any museums, but I’ll certainly have dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in the world: Candle 79.

Tentacles of the Beast, 2008

I just returned from a trip to New York in the height of the August heat with all of the lovely smells and suffocating humidity that comes with it. The goal of this trip? To spend as much time with artists and their work as possible, to slip into the city’s unique rhythms and magic anonymously and deeply. To see again.

My first experience with art on this trip happened unexpectedly and almost immediately. When I got to my Midtown hotel to drop off my bags before rushing down to a Chelsea studio on 26th Street, I pulled back my curtains and opened the windows, letting in the outside air to equalize the freezing air in my room. Set before me was a Hitchcockian scene, a 21st century Rear Window. I looked outside of my room on the eighth floor and saw various people engaged in quiet, disparate activities: in one window a woman busy at her desk, in another two people kissing, and an old man walking out onto the fire escape to grab a secret smoke. There were silent intimate recognitions, an awareness that we were all seeing each other, despite our resistance to acknowledging it, a fierce refusal to allow our eyes to meet directly. Extreme privacy and exposure both at once. I was reminded of the Impressionist era opera paintings where the subject of the work is spectatorship, the reciprocal experience of looking and being looked at. What happens in the space between.

The old man turned out to be a performance artist of sorts. Standing on the balcony he pulled open a new pack of cigarettes, removing the small bit of rectangular foil and carefully and intentionally released it in midair. My first reaction to his gesture was anger, but this soon yielded to embarrassment at witnessing his private transgression, an acknowledgment that we all have these moments but never want to admit to them. And then something happened: the small piece of foil wafted through the air, catching the glints of sunlight like some precious, weightless gem released from outer space. Watching it descend and flutter eight floors to the ground, I found myself smiling completely, awed by the simple beauty that such a common object could bring to this very particular context and moment. And then I realized that the old man had dropped the foil just for me, enacting a private performance pointing to the Beautiful, an experience of the Sublime.

Type A and Lisa

Then on to Chelsea to meet up with collective Type A (Adam Ames and Andrew Bordwin), two artists with whom I’m working on a major Team Building project for the much anticipated Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park which will open in September 2009. The streets of Chelsea were mostly abandoned, the dealers secreted away in the Hamptons for the last gasp of summer before the frenzy of season openers in September. Adam and Andrew and I were about to head to South Street Seaport to take the Circle Line around the Harbor to see Olafur Eliasson’s Waterfalls project.  When I got to their studio, they were excited to show me a new body of work, a series of photogravures that they had been developing over the past year.

Untitled, Type A, 2008. Courtesy of the artists and Goff & Rosenthal, New York.

They laid them out before me and talked about their menacing quality and I disagreed with them immediately, saying that the series was emphatically intimate, beautiful, vulnerable, romantic, mysterious, nostalgic, and poetic. The velvety, luscious images depict the artists’ bodies posed in extreme shadow to reveal only a fragment of the whole. Each picture presents one body separate and alone, but inevitably in dialogical relation to the other. The best ones verge on abstraction, where the forms become almost unrecognizable, but forcefully organic and referential. Because Adam and Andrew each took the complementary picture of the other, there is a fascinating duality to the works that encapsulates Adam and Andrew’s unorthodox artistic relationship, a kind of unified portrait of the maker and the sitter, a self and other, a presence and a lack. In most photographic situations the photographer and the sitter usually are unrelated, but these images take on more significance because of Adam and Andrew’s collaborative practices over the past ten years. There is an interesting in-betweenness in these photos, a tension between the two of them that is an unspoken but visual and physical form of intimacy.

Adam, Andrew and I had a lively, rambunctious cab ride downtown to experience Olafur Eliasson’s Waterfalls from a boat. Approaching the Pier on a hot New York summer night, I was blanketed by the smell of saltwater and sea air along with the accompanying odor of diesel fumes. It reminded me of my youth at the New Jersey shore (and of another incredible project that Adam and Andrew are developing. . . more to come on that in a future post, perhaps). Now the art was coming to me in the form of a smell, showing me the way an odor can evoke memories and physical sensations, creating an elusive mental picture that fades immediately upon experiencing it, leaving a satisfying sense of longing and desire for a past that can never be completely reconstructed. Standing in line, Andrew had me turn around to see an old ship and the skyline of downtown New York through its masts. More magic in everyday things.

South Street Seaport near the Circle Line

The waterfalls are remarkable and ordinary at the same time. Our favorite one sat beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, itself a work of art. The majestic bridge juxtaposed with the immense scaffolding of Eliasson’s waterfall’s armature was strikingly beautiful and perfectly sited; the scale of hundreds of feet of rushing water against the backdrop of the bridge and cityscape utterly breathtaking and pleasurable. The irrationality of a manmade waterfall made from hundreds of feet of steel and pumps, sitting in an absurd location, pointed to the unlikely relationship between art, nature, urban infrastructure, and the postindustrial present.

So much more happened on the trip, including a wonderful studio visit with sculptor Petah Coyne who is finishing up a new body of work that will premiere at Galerie Lelong on October 24, 2008. I’ve been watching the work develop over the last few years and have been lucky enough to engage with Petah in an intense dialogue about its relationship to art history, literature (particularly Dante’s renowned epic poem The Divine Comedy), film, and personal memory. I think it is some of the best work that she has produced to date. There are two objects that stand out the most for me, one based on the medieval poet Dante’s idealized, beloved Beatrice and the other on the Roman poet Virgil. I would welcome either of these objects into the IMA’s permanent collection with gusto, just in case there’s anyone out there reading with the will and means to help us grow the collection with a single gesture.

Petah Coyne, Untitled #1180 (Beatrice), 2003-08. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Lelong, New York.

I have fallen in love with Coyne’s Beatrice, once described by Dante as “La gloriosa donna della mia mente” (the glorious lady of my mind). Long the subject of Pre-Raphaelite artists and poets, Beatrice has been transformed anew into a peculiar abstract vision comprised of roughly 20,000 silk flowers, wax cast statuary, taxidermy animals and birds, thread, silk/rayon velvet, felt, tree branches, tree bark, driftwood, specially formulated wax, pearl-headed hat pins, black spray paint, pigment, plywood, wood, metal hardware, chicken wire fencing, wire, cable and cable bolts. With all of these components, one would be hard pressed to believe that the final object could be specific, cohesive, and staggering. But it is.

Petah Coyne, Detail, Untitled #1180 (Beatrice), 2003-08. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Lelong, New York.

Petah’s irresistible blue and purple Beatrice, which contrasts with previous depictions of her in red and white, towers over the spectator at just over eleven feet tall; she is the whirling embodiment of Divine Love, virtue, and grace, a force of good, a personification of Beauty. This condensed representation of essential love simultaneously encapsulates the geography of paradise and its most famous guide.

Petah Coyne makes the viewer want to believe in Heaven, even if s/he has her doubts.

And then an amazing dinner conversation with Orly Genger who is in the midst of developing a powerful commissioned project for our Efroymson Entry Pavilion which will open on November 21, 2008. Orly once told me that she sees her work perched at the intersection of Anni Albers and Richard Serra. This colossal hand-knotted, organic installation is going to be amazing. Be prepared to be moved in lots of ways!

Then back to Indianapolis to escort a Chicago-based blogger around the Art & Nature Park. Walking out of the rear loading dock, heading over towards the Park, I ran into two IMA employees, Brad Dilger, our masterful installation tech who handles all of our intermedia art projects with great innovation and commitment, and Brose Partington, a fabulous artist in his own right who helps build mounts and other things for our exhibitions. Walking over to me with impish grins, they asked me to take a look at two shiny, ribbed aluminum venting pipes that were spilling out of a dark mechanical doorway on the side of our limestone building. Tied together and suspended on the side of the building, the functional pipes looked like part of a Tim Hawkinson installation (perhaps I was thinking this because on Monday I just installed a new addition to our collection, Hawkinson’s Mobius Ship, up on the third floor in the contemporary galleries). Upon closer inspection, I saw an object label (perfectly scaled and formatted) haphazardly affixed to one of the exhaust pipes.  On it someone had typed the following words:

Tentacles of the Beast, 2008
Aluminum on Limestone
Building Services
2008.1

I marveled at this installation of shiny pipes and the gesture invoked by our Building Services employees through naming it. Although I knew it was meant as a spoof, the effort that they made to name this everyday functional form moved me; the fact that they named it was a way of seeing in it its artistry and humor. It brought the Beautiful back to me again in another guise. It is always a good sign for a creative institution when things like this start popping up around the building where people work. And I thought how great it was that so many people sitting at the smoking shack – custodians, electricians, curators, preparators – were talking about the question of what made something art. Could a set of aluminum exhaust pipes transform into a sculpture in situ? The very real act of seeing was happening in the IMA’s back yard, people were talking about art and the everyday. It was exceptionally cool.

Tentacles of the Beast, 2008

So I asked Bert Reader, our facilities engineer, a.k.a., the artist, to share a little bit more about the work. Here’s what he said:

“This whole contraption came about in an effort to eliminate the need for the temporary emergency generator which cost the IMA about $1000 per day just to sit there.  Part of the reason for the recent generator failure was that the room air temperature became too hot when the generator ran. Adapters where purchased from Caterpillar and mounted on the combustion air intake manifolds.  12″ aluminum flexible pipes were connected and they were run outside allowing combustion air to be drawn in at ambient conditions. We are currently working with BDMD and Circle Design group to find a permanent solution.  Hester DeLoach [our typesetter] remarked that the pipes look like tentacles, David Lingeman [from Buildings] noted that it was aluminum on limestone, and the generator has been a beast, a problem child, since it was placed there, hence the title.  Someone mentioned that it looked like it was trying to get out, and interestingly enough had we placed the generator outside to begin with, we wouldn’t have had any issues.”

Art is found in the places in between. It is the responsibility of each of us to open ourselves up to seeing it.

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. Different media can do different things well, and we would never choose video to do what a photograph can do, nor would we choose to make photographs when the weight and authority of a sculpture is what’s called for. In the end, then, the medium is simply a conduit and is chosen for its ability to channel the idea properly. Reveling in the medium makes sense only when it’s functioning as a good conduit. Once that purpose has been fulfilled, we can roll around in the formal glory of whatever medium we happen to be working in. In the end, the medium should practically disappear.

This is a way of working which has been liberating for us because it means we are free to use whatever path is best suited to the concept and can focus completely on developing that concept. Although we’ve always loved the OBJECT in art, whatever that object may be, in the end it is disposable and is in fact not the art itself. This is where the Team Building project comes in.

When challenged with developing a piece for the Art and Nature Park, we realized early on in the process that an object-oriented piece would never be able to achieve what we wanted. We are too concerned these days with the shortcomings of art-as-commodity and the dangers of institutionalized mediation and intimidation messing with the experiencing of art by the public at large. Object-oriented art reinforces this, with the aura of the object being preserved and augmented through access control, provenance, market fluctuations and an accretion of expertise that a very small community of people continues to guard as their own. In short, it is often intimidating for people to go into a museum and restrictions on how one can understand art are inferred at every turn. This can be reinforced by an institution or it can be challenged. There are now significant discussions at the IMA to lead things towards a more open way which encourages a sense of entitlement in how the community can access and experience art, and we are privileged to be a part of that.

You and I decided that we wanted to create a gesture as well as an object and that the gesture is the primary component of the project. The medium we chose is Experiential Education, one which has no physical result (other than minor injuries) and which is direct and unfiltered by the history or art or any other discipline other than its own. The Team Building project can’t be touched or held or bought or sold. It can be experienced, either as a participant or as a viewer. It has an presence beyond what happens within the core team of participants, but defining that is as elusive as defining an invisible man. You can only see his shape when something is draped on him, when some piece of fabric or a mattress or a bathtub full of water betrays his outline and weight and movement. In a sense we have done away with the object and the medium altogether and instead have started a relationship with a cross section of people at the institution which has invited us to make work. What happens within that group is the piece itself, the draped fabric that gives this invisible man shape. The work we do is based on a set of principles and ideas that’s constantly changing, but has a foundation in trust, respect, inquiry, playfulness and honesty.

The project does have an object-oriented component as well, and how. It’s going to be a huge sculpture (we think) and, as such, will function as a counterpoint to the experiences we are sharing as a group. At this point we are feeling an increasing need for the group to have a hand in the design and fabrication of the piece and that will play out in the weeks to come. Having a huge sculpture is arguably the complete flip side of the principles that inform the intangible, performative heart of the project. But is it incompatible? Are we having our cake and eating it too? Seems pretty clear that the answer is yes, but is that so bad? Don’t these two components complement each other and in doing so set the issues in relief?

There’s a lot to consider. This has been an amazing experience so far and we’ve got a long way to go.

Yours in rubber chickens,
Blogwin

Dear B-Lo (again with a new name, this one with a trendy feel),

“Trolls” going onto the Internets to get everyone off the Internets? Hmmm, irony can be pretty ironic.

Anyhoo, it has been a while since our last blog-fession. What’s the penance for that? I’m guessing it has something to do with getting on Facebook.

So, in the last three weeks, much has happened, as you mentioned, with the Team Building project. The blog has the potential to be a place to expand our conversations, to continue to leave residue. I say “potential” mainly because we haven’t exactly… written. Instead, the ideas stayed where, I guess, they are more comfortable: in the ether just above our head waiting to be referenced. Holding the concept to be primary and leaving it formally undefined is a way to avoid losing it. Trying to contain ideas by writing them down, for example, can be a foolproof way of having the concept become slippery, more evasive. At the same time, I want to get some of this stuff down on paper (or, at least, on The Internets). The idea that things cannot be defined is a nice bit of theoretical play but winds up creating paralysis. Sure, no one can know exactly what I am trying to convey. So what? Trying is a noble failure.

So, on to the residue or, more specifically, the Invisible Man (I like to capitalize this as a proper noun since I prefer to believe he actually exists). He’s wrapped in bandages in order for his shape to be seen (he also wore those funny, goggle-like glasses and, if memory serves, a dashing smoking jacket). In order to be identified as a human, these “drapings” were necessary. Sure, no one could tell exactly what he actually looked like, but they could tell where he was and what the hell was holding that pipe up in mid-air (By the way, if he smoked or drank, wouldn’t we see the substance ingested? I mean, the invisibility didn’t extend to external objects, right?) From there, we realized that the “drapings,” or residue, can initially be acknowledged as a need for everyone else to know where the Invisible Man was at all time. Otherwise, he would be undefined, undetectable and, at some point, able to see them naked. Though the residue was for the protection of the visible, we soon realized that they were much more important for the Invisible Man himself. Without it, he would not know where he was. And that would be maddening (not in an irksome way but in a loony-bin way).

Without a sense of self, without the ability to have some identifiable aspect shown to someone or, more importantly, reflected back to oneself, there can be no sense of self. Sure, the reflection can only approximate and is inaccurate (Check this out), but they are somewhat beneficial reference points. And don’t get me started on Lacan’s Mirror Stage (You have read your Lacan, haven’t you?). Inaccurate reflections may create anxiety that sends us to analysis, but they do provide for some psychological stability. The alternative would be much worse. In art, we need our concepts to have a physical or psychological remnant. In a cynical way, art can be too interested in the physical object. People can use their knowledge of what the object “means” and what someone may or may not understand about it to create a culture of intimidation. The residue can, and often does, end up in the hands of someone with an agenda. This happens quite often when the artist is unreachable or, more so, dead. When the gap between artist idea/experience and audience is so vast, some feel the need to create authority in order to tell people when they are experiencing art. Perpetuating the myth that people need to be led through art in one way or another is a way to keep a lot of people employed (art consultants, anyone?). This has gotten us a bit P.O.’d. We’ve been around too many people who make such a point of being told what to see and, more specifically, what to buy. Now, we are definitely calling for a egalitarian, non-commodified, peace, love and understanding hippie like art world. But, we’d like to see a bit more direct experience as the rule, not the exception, right? This has been the driving force behind Team Building. Give some people some direct experience and see what happens. Let the art be made from that.

So, the project needs the residue. Without it, it could not be identified. More importantly, without it, we could not identify what we’re doing. We set up situations and then leave a lot to chance. But, the residue has become a prominent point for us to reevaluate and understand our need to get some of the ideas down. Without it, we would not be able to point to what we’re doing. And, without that, we would not be able to point to ourselves.

As for the sculptural element, this “big tower” that we’re constantly referring to, it is as necessary as we want it to be. It can be the largest bit of residue that our involvement with the IMA could produce. I’ve been struggling with the “having the cake and eating it to” thing as well. It’s always seemed like the Team Building and Tower endeavors were separate but connected. After our last meeting with The Group (capitalized for the same reasons), we’ve become much more focused on how the tower cannot be discrete from the experiential education. Each part keeps seeping into the other; and while it’s akin to osmosis to maintain homeostasis, the environment keeps changing. So, we continue to attempt to bring the various elements into balance while acknowledging that tension is necessary in art as it is in life. So, these seemingly antithetical elements maintain a stress but also provide a release. I have to believe that we have internalized Experiential Education’s message of self-challenge to such an extent that we are seeking out struggle as a choice to expand our lives and, by extension, grow. The two components don’t have to be resolved; that would be improbable, unrealistic and just plain misguided.

Our goal now is to continue to push to find ourselves in new situations providing new experience, tension and all. We can then offer ourselves and others the opportunity to drape something. To not do so would be insane.

AA

Dear Co-Blogger Dude,

And so it begins, writing for IMA blog. Never blogged before, and I’m not quite sure what to write about. I think it comes down to two possibilities: our Team Building project at the Art & Nature Park or music. I’m gonna choose a combination of the two.

Although our tastes in music differ quite a bit, there’s quite a lot of crossover. Shared music includes Clutch, Secret Machines, Radiohead, Dragonforce, Vast, Sugar, Sigur Rus, The Good The Bad and The Queen, and host of others. My most recent purchase is by “Battles.” It might end up on heavy rotation at the studio. (*)

I grew up with classical music as much as you did with rock. While I was being taken to Symphony Hall in Boston you were being taken to hear Zeppelin or the Eagles or the Stones. I think you got the much better deal. In any case, I ended up with a love of classical music that surfaces from time to time, and last week was one of those times. On Friday I took Gaby to hear Emmanuel Ax and the New York Philharmonic perform Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto. It’s a piece that’s moody and masculine, moving through thunderous and aggressive passages into delicate intricacy, and back again. It’s one of my favorite pieces of music and it was the first time I had a chance to hear it live. I was blown away. What I took away wasn’t measurable, wasn’t tangible. In fact the music itself doesn’t really exist except in the performance. The score isn’t the piece, a recording of the piece isn’t the piece either. The piece exists only when a group of people agree to do what it takes to perform it. This got me thinking about a word that came up recently regarding our work: “residue.”

The project we’re doing for the Art & Nature Park involves working with a team of 26 people from a wide variety of departments within the museum. Working within the basic methods of Experiential Education, or Team Building, we’ll play games and solve problems and talk about work and art and taking chances and respect over the course of several meetings in the months to come. In the end we are hoping that the group will be better positioned to successfully open the inaugural show of the park, and we will have collectively shifted the culture of the museum for the better. We were describing this project during a recent studio visit with John Hanhardt and he was trying to understand what tangible artifacts will remain after this project, what the “residue” will be. The fact that there will be not measurable residue seemed to fascinate him and defined the project for him as completely contemporary. Being at that concert last week gave this assessment a completely new meaning.

Lack of residue in art is nothing new. While the traditional parameters of art and criticism emphasize the presence of the object and consequentially the artist’s hand, music is one medium in which these two are not necessarily connected. We would no sooner represent the Team Building project with our notes and documentary photographs than a composer would present a score as the complete work and leave it at that.

What did the audience leave with last week? How did they represent the effect they experienced from the concerto? How did that experience influence them socially, if at all? If culture is defined by ideas and experiences, rather than objects, what is the role of monuments? How does that define the role of the sculpture we are building for the park? The tangible, the intangible, and the role of the artist’s hand — and consequentially the audience’s touch or lack thereof — is where the project rests right now. It’s a lot to think about.

Yeah, so I wrote about our work. Dammit. I thought I’d write about anything but, but… I couldn’t help myself.
Later,

Bordo

(*) REVISION: Since hearing Battles for the first time two days ago, it seems there’s no way in hell this will happen.

Dear Clogger (thought I’d create a hybrid term for us),

Music is the perfect place to start. Experience and preference regarding the medium are not only intensely personal but also largely intangible. You can tell so much about someone by how they regard their music collection. And if they don’t have one…God help them.

When you write of the concert you attended, it is completely understandable. And not in the “I understand what you mean” way but in the “I understand it” way. We’ve always talked about art’s ability to affect an audience as being located in the intensity and focus put into the art and not in the content. That’s why if someone makes art about a grand, sweeping idea like Love, for example, it’s easy to get lost and remain unattached to the potential of that subject matter. Too vague. If someone makes art about a particular idea like love of angora sweaters (as Ed Wood did), then we, the audience, have a much better shot of relating to it. It’s the obsession, the intensity that binds us (whether you like angora or not). So, you saw a performance of a classical piece. To someone who doesn’t like such music or just isn’t familiar with it, that may sound like a snooze. But the emotional response, that’s where that person comes in. When you mention the aggression and the intricacy that was conveyed, I immediately think of the Testament show I caught a few months back. For those not in the know, Testament is an 80s Bay area thrash band. Aggressive and intricate it certainly was. Classical…less. So the content is not as essential as is the passion to convey and connect. And it’s at this point of connection that the idea of residue begins.

Yes, there can be much documentation or proof that something occurred. But residue? That is trickier. With Team Building, we are seeing through a gesture that began with our desire to connect with and affect people. We want people to experience something and have that experience lead somewhere. Where? We don’t know. That’s up to the person doing the experiencing. There doesn’t need to be a physical or tangible manifestation of the experience. In fact, there can’t be. So the residue from the project will be unquantifiable. We know there is the potential for it but cannot, or will not, try to control it. The people involved will hold on to it in whatever way they want. Some may not hold on to anything. If any residue exists, it will seep into people’s minds and, perhaps, into their lives.

We, as artists and performers, will give to the audience. We will get back whatever energy they give and whatever experience they afford. It’s a bit of a dance. The effects of it are sent out to influence in any way that it might. Can culture be affected? Yes. Will it? That’s not the point. Or at least our point. Our goals are to create an experience not determine an outcome unless that outcome is to create a desire to experience more.

Therein lies the connection with music and live performances. We put on a show. The audience comes to see us. We give and get. They give and get. When it’s over, it’s over. Until the next concert.

You can, however, buy a t-shirt on the way out.

AA

I also owe a lot to football and it’s something I’m always willing to discuss, play or watch. It’s even more appropriate to discuss today and even into the summer. In a matter of hours, over in Moscow, the Champions League Final kicks off featuring an all-English match up of Chelsea FC and Manchester United FC (I’m rooting for Man U). In a matter of a few weeks (17 days to be exact), the European Championships begin, sadly without England, but I’ll be rooting for the Orange Crush (that would be the Dutch National Team) and glued to every game I can catch on TV.
Every two years I become transfixed with the World Cup or Euro Championships – and it is heaven. I remember beautiful goals as if they were works of art and the players that create them (Pele, Maradona, Cruyff and Zidane) like artists – but I excitedly digress and this is where I bring this post back to planet art museum. With all this football on my mind, I decided to research contemporary works of art and artists influenced by or featuring this sport.

Here’s what I found:

Local artist Artur Silva is pretty cool and not because I can have a conversation about Gordon Banks with him. Artur is Brazilian which means he has the luxury of supporting some of the best teams in the history of the game. I remember watching the 2002 World Cup game between England and Brazil in a bar as Brazilian fans samba’d around me celebrating their victory. It was painful loss for an England fan, but it really opened my eyes to the beauty of Brazilian soccer. Around the same time, I came across this piece by Artur Silva and it brought back so many memories of Pele, the game, the history. So thank you to Artur for that.

I’ve written about it before, but I don’t mind beating a dead horse. Zinedine Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait is an impressive cinematic work of art that depicts the beautiful game and one of the games greatest players ever, Zizou. Directed by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, it features stunning camera work (all 17 of them), a mesmerizing soundtrack by Mogwai and clever, thoughtful editing. Do whatever you can to find this video.

Fellow blogger Phillip sent this link to me ages ago and I went nuts. German artist Susken Rosenthal creates individual portraits of specific football matches by sketching and tracking the ball movement in real time. The result is similar to that of a seismographic drawing. To someone not familiar with soccer, it may not make sense. To me it’s a work of art.

And in short -

Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco not only plays soccer but has also depicted it in some of his work. Check it out here.

Here’s an interesting piece by Brian Jungen that synthesizes Nike silver soccer balls made to resemble lava rock.

Turkish artist Omer Ali Kazma created a video installation on Turkish team, Galatasaray featuring footage from over 8 months of work. I would love to see this somehow. Can anyone help me out?

And that’s all I’ve got…for now. If you’ve made it this far and want to contribute any recommendations for contemporary artists and football, please leave me a comment.

In the meantime, enjoy this Maradona goal scored against England in the 1986 World Cup. Painful for me to watch, but quite possibly a work of art.

I am a Christian. I am also an artist and creative, and what I do is driven by my faith experience. — Makoto Fujimura said in a 2007 article by Associated Press reporter Eric Gorski

One might argue that the origin of art is religion and that the two have been interconnected throughout history. We certainly have a fair share of religious art. So why is it that today art has become a secular topic? It seems strange in my opinion that someone’s career in art doesn’t merit a discussion of beliefs or nonbeliefs or their inspiration or guiding force. In a time where people in film and music, and even sports and politics openly discuss faith, why do the visual arts shy away from sensitive questions and stick to the “creative process”? Perhaps it’s because it makes us uncomfortable?

Whether or not one believes in God, whether we describe ourselves as theists, atheists or even anti-theists, we all live in a world that is profoundly influenced by concepts of god. — 100 Artists See God exhibition introduction

The 2004-06 traveling exhibition 100 Artists See God, organized by Independent Curators International in New York, involved inviting 100 artists “to picture the divine.” According to the project description, the collaboration brings the topic of faith “to the forefront of artistic debate and acknowledges the prevalence of religion and spirituality in contemporary art, culture and politics both within and outside of the United States.” What emerged from the exhibition was a wide range of religious imagery, from traditional depiction and analytical assessment to humorous and completely unconventional interpretations of god. For example, artist Damien Hirst created shelves of drugs to represent “god.” Another work by Paul McCarthy shows two men out in the woods peering under dried up brush with a stick. Mirror #8, a 1972 work by Roy Lichtenstein, was also part of the exhibition. (Click here to see works from 100 Artists See God.)

Closer to home, a 2007 exhibition at the Indianapolis Museum of Art called María Magdelena Campos-Pons: Everything is Separated by Water, touched on the influence of Santería faith in the artist’s life and its depiction in her work. While that show, which explored a non-mainstream faith as one aspect to an artist’s work, was well received, another smaller local gallery show that based an exhibition around the exploration of artists’ views on faith and spirituality was not as successful, particularly with church communities. (The gallery asked to remain anonymous.)

Should we encourage a dialogue on faith, whether or not we have one? 100 Artists See God is a intriguing example of how it can be done. Is Indianapolis ready for this conversation? And likewise, is the religious community ready to take the arts seriously?

Those who know me at all know that I am a Mac sympathizer and will take every opportunity to shamelessly plug Apple products. (And use as many as I can get my hands on.) So it is not surprising that I would have iTunes U at the top of my favorites list. But there is another reason to love iTunes right now….IMA is on it! We launched an iTunes U page on January 28^th allowing anyone with an iPod (or iPhone) to download free IMA videos and audio tours. In addition to finding our digital stuff on YouTube and imamuseum.org, now you can also find it where you already play, in the iTunes store. Search for “Indianapolis Museum of Art” and take your pick of free art videos! (Did you know it is good karma to share this newfound knowledge with friends? Who wouldn’t want to score some free downloads?) BTW, it is definitely bad karma to think to yourself, “Nobody wants free art videos.”

Reading my last blog post will expose my relatively new love of Facebook. The only Web 2.0 thing I love more than Facebook is the super fantastic app ArtShare. Developed by the talented crew at the Brooklyn Museum, it is an easy-to-use tool that allows you to share art you dig with anyone who visits your Facebook page. Just install the app, select art you like and watch it cycle through a loop as you poke strangers, dish out your daily zombie bites and digitally scribble inside jokes onto friends’ walls.

To make it even more awesome, I spent a morning last week uploading a sampling of IMA-owned works of art so that soon all of my peeps (and hopefully people I don’t know) will start choosing some of our stuff. I will also mention that any artist can upload work to share with friends too. (The only thing I like to promote more than Apple stuff is the talent of underappreciated artists.) There are many practical reasons why artists and museums should love ArtShare. I am, of course, referring to things like marketing, networking, mission statements, etc. But, none of these describe the reason I love it. I simply love art and ArtShare lets me indulge that interest and share it with others.

So, I hope you will investigate these on-line opportunities and find that you like them too. Otherwise there would have been little point to your reading this humble post.