As you all are hopefully aware, the leader of many a mechanized-two-wheeler assault peloton, Lance Armstrong, has come out of retirement and is competing in the 2009 Tour de France to promote cancer awareness through his Livestrong organization. What you all may not be aware of is that Lance has a thing for art and has commissioned some pretty notable artists and designers to create bikes for him.

For example, Marc Newson, whose designs were included in our recent exhibition, European Design Since 1985, is responsible for the graphic treatment on this time trial bike.

Marc Newson's bicycle for Lance Armstrong

The creator of the iconic Obama “Hope” poster, Shepard Fairey, was also tapped for a graphic treatment for Mellow Johnny (Lance’s nickname).

Shepard Fairey's bicycle for Lance Armstrong

And while there’s no image of the bike yet (that I can find), young British artist, Damien Hirst, is also set to chime in with a bike design for Lance. Stay tuned with a Google search and Lance’s Twitter feed.

In the meantime, my mechanized brother, Chalkbot, who is faithfully chalking the roads of the tour with LIVESTRONG text messages sent to 46453, wants you to check out some of his handiwork and follow him on Twitter.

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?

But this year I’d like to ask you to lend me a hand in taking care of the IMA’s outdoor sculpture. No, no, I’m not talking about actually getting you to join me in doing the labor, but I’d like to ask you to participate in a kind of experiment in documenting some of the sculpture on the grounds – that is to say make Wikipedia entries and upload some pictures of the IMA’s sculptures. If you don’t’ already know, anyone can make Wikipedia entries!

This idea came out of the fact that I’ve been interested in the number of existing Wikipedia entrances written about individual works of art: for example Van Gogh’s Potato Eaters and Damien Hirst’s, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. Also there are good entries about two artists who have sculptures on our grounds, Barbara Hepworth and Mark di Suvero (including a note that di Suvero’s Snowplow is at the IMA), but I can’t find an entry for any individual works in the museum’s collection; so let’s start with the outdoor sculpture.

Maybe at this point you’re asking yourself why someone here just doesn’t make entries for the IMA collection. Well, I’ve thought about it some and decided against doing it myself because I work here and it might be a conflict of interest. See this article in the New York Times for a bit of rational, Seeing Corporate Fingerprints in Wikipedia Edits.

Or maybe you’re thinking to yourself that there’s got to be something in it for you before you consider taking the job. And maybe there is. Certainly, I’m going to be stoked to see even one entry in Wikipedia about our outdoor sculptures. So as far as payment, I can offer to announce your work on this blog. Admittedly, the payment is minor but the work is great.

So, what do you think? With individual entries of the sculptures and pictures uploaded into the galleries, we could begin gathering information about our sculptures. And if you had pictures to upload, they uploaded to the IMA’s Flickr Pool. Not only would I think this is just plain cool, but it would be helpful because we could start keeping a kind of public record of our pieces with notes to their condition.

I think this could be the cleverest thing going on this summer, but perhaps I’m out on a limb here and no one will even do one.

What do you think, you want to help?