This post was written by Jessica Barner, one of the IMA’s Conservation Technicians, who works with the Textiles and Objects Conservators. As the textile department prepares for the upcoming exhibition, Material World, stay tuned for more posts on the collection and exhibition organization. Enjoy!

After reading a previous blog about museum storage, we thought it would be fun to share the fine work of our Packing & Storage Department. John Ross, one of our Storage & Packing Technicians, created a beautifully-crafted housing to store the headdress of an African dancer’s costume. This costume is of the Poro Society – a society mainly found on the Western coast of Africa. The term Wenilegei means “bird man,” so I guess one could say that John contained the “bird man!”

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Filed under: Art, Conservation

As an art conservator here at the IMA, I’m always interested to hear what people have to say about their experiences with art. But having Tyler Green over at MAN say that he’s bummed he didn’t get to climb on our Orly Genger installation, well, that really piqued my interest. Of course, you know, Tyler, Len is named after the famous body builder, Len Sell, and I think our “Len” would be able to fend for himself if you came climbing around here. I agree with Tyler though that this installation is different in many ways from her previous installations that were meant to be more directly interacted with.

In addition to Tyler’s post, Ms. Genger’s installation was also discussed in Interior Design and Ana Finel Honigman interviewed Ms. Genger over at Saatchi Online. Don’t forget Ms. Genger herself wrote a post for this blog back in December.

Almost the whole installation

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Filed under: Art, Conservation, Current Events, Exhibitions, Interviews

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…
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Filed under: Art, Current Events, Local

Tyler Green

You may recall a few mentions of Tyler Green here on our blog.  He is the author of the distinguished art blog Modern Art Notes (MAN).  Waves of giggles and high-fives have radiated through IMA each time we get a mention among the national heavyweights featured on MAN (Except this recent one, which we internalized as an interesting challenge, emboldening our collective spirit).

So you can only imagine the excitement now that he is in Indy.  He will be giving a talk at the Central Library tonight entitled, “Ten Things I Hate About Contemporary Art.” This visit has been organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art.

To borrow a quote from IMCPL’s description of the program, the Wall Street Journal called MAN, “the most influential of all visual arts blogs.”  So I hope you are already checking your calendar, because this is an event not to be missed!  I hope to see many IMA blog readers there! Come say hi and collect a free IMA Blog t-shirt!  (While supplies last, of course!)

The details: Central Library (40 E. St. Clair St.), 7 PM, FREE  For more information visit IMCPL website www.imcpl.org.

Filed under: Art, New Media, Technology

Some girls have crushes on rock stars or actors; I crush on art critics and museum directors. Yes, I know, I’m a huge geek…but since it is Valentine’s Day, I thought I would profess my undying love to my top 5 crushes in the art world. (In no particular order.)

Michael Kimmelman– Rocked my world in 2007! Last year I read his book The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa and it changed the way I think about art, my job and my life. I’m also pretty sure he may have one of the coolest gigs in the world, as the chief art critic for the New York Times.

Tyler Green – First of all, he’s all MAN. I’m in awe of Tyler’s authoritative and often humorous blog postings for Artjournal’s Modern Art Notes (MAN). He keeps me in the know and constantly brightens my days with his prolific musings on the art world. I’m also completely in love with him because he just added the IMA to his blog roll. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Musings