As part of my work preparing for the reinstallation of the African galleries, I recently finished dusting the objects which are currently on view.  Removing accumulated dust from artworks is essential, and not just because it looks bad.  With time, dust can bond with, and encourage the deterioration of the surface of an artwork.

Dusting provided an opportunity to become acquainted with the wide range of surfaces that can be found on wooden sculpture from Africa. Given all the information one can get from these surfaces, this part of the project has been a visual and art historical education.

Under the dust, the surface observed can be one that the artist created.  Yoruba sculptor Lamidi O. Fakeye, for example, highlighted the wood itself by leaving the surface of his mounted horseman unpainted and unvarnished.

Detail of Mounted Horseman by Lamidi O. Fakeye, which features a bare wooden surface.

This is just one of a wide variety of possible surface finishes the artist could have chosen.  In contrast, this 20th century helmet mask for Bonu Amuen masker features a thick, slightly textured paint layer.

Detail of the painted surface of a 20th century helmet for Bonu Amuen masker.

The forehead of the Deangle mask is covered with layers of ritually applied materials.

For many works, however, the observed surface is the result of the combination of the artist’s activity and the use of the object after it was created.  Substances are often applied to painted wooden sculpture in Africa, however the material used and the reason for its application varies with the culture of origin of the piece.  Because of this variety, materials on the surface of African sculpture can provide information that is valuable for understanding the ways in which people have interacted with it.

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Filed under: African Art, Conservation

In honor of America’s favorite day of feasting, family, and football, here are works from the IMA’s permanent collection appropriately themed to help celebrate the day.  Enjoy.

Wayne Kimball, "Chairing Thanksgiving," 1982.

Just like that odd distant relative engaging you in awkward small talk for the entirety of the family dinner, Wayne Kimball’s quirky but meticulously crafted lithograph allows us a chance to appreciate that which often goes unnoticed or makes us uncomfortable. Kimball states, “My perceptions of certain past movements in art (most notably Northern Renaissance and Islamic Painting) coupled with idiosyncrasy…lead me to making some rather odd pictures…the compilation, arrangement and execution (and material quality) combine to hint at symbolic interpretations.”

Norman Rockwell, "Ours To Fight For, Freedom From Want," 1943.

Rockwell’s iconic image of the American gathering is more than likely etched in the back of everyone’s minds as we celebrate this season. Culturally significant now for its representation of American nostalgia, it was complementary in its own time to FDR’s “Four Freedom’s” speech given in 1942 to aid the war effort. This lithograph is based on one from a series of four themed paintings:  Freedom from Want, Freedom from Fear, Freedom of Speech, and Freedom of Worship (the Tenants of FDR’s speech).

Emile Bernard, "Le Moissonneur (The Harvester)," 1889.

Thanksgiving is said to have been born out of an English tradition of appreciative agrarians gathering as a community, not only to give thanks for their fall harvest, but also to rest and celebrate their hard work throughout the summer months. Bernard’s Breton farmers engaged in back-breaking labor to gather wheat from the field with their scythes. Bernard’s primitive technique and subject matter allows the viewer to be transported back in a time where the harvest was well-earned – where one didn’t go to the big-box store to grab a turkey from a freezer section, make stuffing from a box, or pick up a plastic wrapped Pumpkin pie and canned whipped cream.

Workshop of Jan Brueghel the younger, "The Sense of Taste," 1618.

This image is our urging of how not to eat today. Thanksgiving is a notorious diet breaker, and even the strongest-willed dieter can easily crumble at the mouth watering smell of Grandma’s homemade yams or Aunt Becky’s mashed potatoes. Jan Brueghel’s image contains a gluttonous feast, drunkenness, and if you look hard enough in the (bottom center left) you will see a small monkey. This is the artist’s representation of the devil being present in the scene (a common symbol in artwork during this time period). Lesson to be learned: Stuff the turkey, not yourself.

Filed under: Uncategorized

As a museum photographer, I get asked on occasion what is involved with my work.  What do I do?  My response is fairly straightforward, “I document the objects and exhibitions at the IMA.” But the specifics of my work are rarely detailed. And that is what I intend to do here. If you feel the intricacies of museum photography are best left unwritten then stop reading at, “I [just] document the objects and exhibitions at the IMA.”

For those of you who have a taste for the technical and an appreciation of process, begin reading here:

Art Directed Photography

Unfortunately for me (and I would argue the patron), this is what I get to do the least.

Art Directed photography requires a fair amount pre-planning and time to explore an approach to photography of an object or setting.  It requires the input of multiple parties, is of high quality, and has a distinct “look” to the final image.  These images are generally intended for more targeted uses in magazine and catalogues.

The images below of Alberto Meda’s Light-Light chair were taken with a Mamiya 645D and a Phase One P45 digital back. The inspiration came from our Senior Curator of Design Arts Craig Miller, who wanted to focus on the texture of the material. The silhouette of the chair legs emerges from the darkness to reveal the back and the carbon fiber texture.

Alberto Media, "Light-Light chair (prototype)," 1988, carbon fiber and Nomex composite. Purchased with funds provided by James E. and Patricia J. LaCrosse.

Here’s another example of an art directed photo shoot:

Allesandro Mendini and Alessandro Guerriero, "Side chair from Ollo Collection,"1988, plastic, laminate. Frank Curtis Springer and Irving Moxley Springer Purchase Fund. © Alessandro Guerriero.

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Filed under: Art, IMA Staff, Photography

The Venice Biennale has figured prominently on the IMA blog recently, and for good reason. The museum organized Gloria, an exhibition of six works by Allora & Calzadilla, which is currently on display at the U. S. Pavilion. Press coverage of the show has been both extensive and favorable with many critics collectively applauding the selection of the collaborative duo.

At the 1952 Venice Biennale, Deputy Commissioner of the U.S. Pavilion, Eloise O. Spaeth, employed a different approach with mixed results. Four established and well-known artists – Edward Hopper (1882-1967), Stuart Davis (1892-1964), Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1893-1953), and Alexander Calder (1898-1976) – were honored with small retrospective exhibitions. In his review of July 20, 1952, Stuart Preston of the New York Times expressed disappointment with the uninspired exhibition concept, stating that the American Federation of Arts “play[ed] [it] safe this year.” Despite this critique, Preston found merit in the apt selection of Hopper to represent the United States abroad. Preston observed that: “Hopper made the deepest impression. Foreigners recognized, and rightly, something authentically American in the pathos of his landscapes, a germ of loneliness which they detect in our literature.” The IMA’s Hotel Lobby (1943), which was among the works displayed at the 1952 Biennale, conveys the feeling of isolation described by Preston and noted by the show’s attendees. Hopper’s figures, whether alone or in the company of others, appear detached from their surrounding environment.

Edward Hopper, "Hotel Lobby," 1943. William Ray Adams Memorial Collection. ©Edward Hopper.

The motif of the contemplative figure is hardly unique to the work of Hopper, or even American art, though. Scholar Gail Levin and others have cited artistic precedence in the domestic interiors of Dutch seventeenth-century painter Jan Vermeer (1632-1675), which were likely seen by Hopper on his many trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or on the three occasions he visited Europe from 1906 to 1911. According to art historian Pamela Koob (“States of Being: Edward Hopper and Symbolist Aesthetics”), Vermeer studies experienced a revival during this period due to the organization of several exhibitions in New York.

Hopper’s paintings also bear a strong resemblance to those of Dane Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916). In December 1912, an exhibition of Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish art, sponsored by the American-Scandinavian Foundation and organized by Christian Brinton, opened at the American Art Galleries in New York. Since Hopper lived in the city at this time, it is possible that he was introduced to Hammershøi’s paintings in person or in print, as they were discussed in three separate New York Times reviews. Interestingly, art critics lauded the curator’s selection of Hammershøi and praised the authenticity of his work. In a preview of the exhibition, published  August 11, 1912, a Times reporter found that Hammershøi “…not yet in his fifties, has taken an isolated place in the art of Denmark, belonging to no school, and betraying in his work no clearly defined inheritance from the past.”

Vilhelm Hammershøi; Interiør med ung læsende mand 1898.Olie på lærred. 34,4 x 51,8 cm. (via www.hirschsprung.dk)

Forty years apart, the reviews of Hopper and Hammershøi exhibited rather provincial slants, as they failed to acknowledge the wider application of the artists’ themes.  However, Robert Rosenblum’s seminal Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition (1975) would later propose the existence of a “Northern” sensibility, which manifested itself in the artistic production of Europe and America for at least a century and a half. Noting parallels in form and feeling, Rosenblum traced a trajectory from the German Romantic landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) (who, incidentally, popularized the motif of a contemplative figure seen from the back, called a Rückenfigur) to the chromatic abstractions of Mark Rothko (1903-1970). Clearly, the cases of Hopper and Hammershøi substantiate Rosenblum’s argument. (The prolific scholar even identified the works of the two artists as analogous in a 1997 essay on Hammershøi.) Yet, the broader context of their paintings seems to have been lost on critics of the American-Scandinavian exhibition in 1912 and, later, of the 1952 Biennale.

Filed under: Art, The Collection, Venice Biennale

The local movement is here.  Buy local. Eat local. Shop local.  The IMA is a world class museum (Biennale, anyone?) with a rich local connection, which is why this fall I will be introducing a new series connecting artworks from the IMA collection with historical and contemporary Indianapolis.

Theodor Groll, "Washington Street, Indianapolis at Dusk," 1892-5.

This work from the IMA’s permanent collection by Theodor Groll showcases late 19^th century Indianapolis, the State Capitol Building and Washington Street. Groll himself was not an Indianapolis resident, but instead a prominent German artist passing through Indianapolis after judging the German entries for the World’s Exposition in Chicago.

Illuminated by gaslight electricity, the painting exhibits horse-drawn trolleys rattling down the metal tracks in Indianapolis streets. A year after this painting was completed, 1896, the first electric streetcars were introduced in Indianapolis. They were an effective mode of transportation, but were soon phased out by the even more convenient automobile.  The last Indianapolis electric streetcar line closed in January of 1953.

The view also includes the brilliantly lit Park Theater directly to the east of the Capitol building. It was once called, “The most elegant theater in the west” but burned in March 1897, just two short years after this painting was complete. On the right side of the painting, the street is lined with market stalls and a dimly lit saloon, one of many in the area. The 1892 Indianapolis Business Directory listed Washington Street alone as having 74 people in the saloon trade.  In the 1920′s, Prohibition put many of these locally renowned establishments out of business.

If you view historical photos like those from the Indiana Historical Society archives, you will see that Groll’s representation of Indianapolis was somewhat idealized. In fact he finished his painting in Germany using memory, photographs and sketches he had taken while in the city. The painting is fairly accurate except for the sunset appearing to the Northeast, and the distortion of the Capitol building resting on the edge of the street. As you can see in this contemporary photo, it actually sits back much farther.

The Capitol building in 2011

Instead of streetcars we now have IndyGo buses. There are no longer horse-drawn carts and daily markets, but cars and franchise businesses. If you look closely at the painting you can see men and women talking, citizens engaged in commerce, and those headed home in their wagons after a long day in the city. A boy walking his dog, a woman and child walking hand in hand and the formidable State Capitol aren’t much different than what you would see today.

Groll’s painting is a refreshing snapshot of nostalgia and is currently on view on the second floor in American Art. Come take a look!

Filed under: Art, Local