Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog

Once upon a time, December 1980 to be exact, Italian architect-designer Ettore Sottsass had a little party to celebrate his plan to produce a new line of furniture.  He invited several young design collaborators.  A record was playing: Bob Dylan’s “Stuck Inside of Mobile (With the Memphis Blues Again).”  When the vinyl platter kept catching on the word “Memphis,” a new design movement was christened.  What punk was to music, Memphis was to design.

Sottsass and the members of the collective, including young architect Michele De Lucchi, broke through the “tyranny” of modernist taste by making furniture made from leopard print plastic laminate, celluloids, neon tubes and zinc-plated sheet-metals, jazzed up with spangles, glitter, and crazy color combos. Read the rest of this entry »

No, despite popular demand, the IMA is not having a Willie Nelson retrospective. What can I say…write your congressman. Maybe next year. Thursday, June 26th is the opening of On The Road Again With Jack Kerouac and Robert Frank.

I’ve had the pleasure to work on the team designing this exhibition and we’re all really excited for next week’s opening. How can you go wrong? Kerouac’s original scroll for On The Road, surrounded by Frank’s series The Americans.

Most of you probably read On The Road in either high school or college. I read it after reading an interview with Bob Dylan, who said that it changed his life. Its crazy, Read the rest of this entry »