Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog » Max Anderson

Tracking the Discussions

Richard McCoy — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:27:10 +0000

I wasn’t able to attend the American Institute for Conservation’s (AIC) Annual Meeting last month in Milwaukee. However, thanks to ArtBabble, today I’m able to watch one of the more potent discussions: The Plus/Minus Dilemma: The Way Forward in Environmental, which was co-sponsored by International Institute for Conservation (IIC).

This discussion, which was moderated by our Director & CEO, was recently summarized in an article in the Art Newspaper, Climate control: time to change the settings.

I also want to point out what a great job AIC and IIC have been doing with their blogs to let members know about conferences and current news. Check out the AIC blog and read all of the recent posts about the Annual Meeting. While there’s no substitute for actually going to a meeting, the amount of information the members of AIC are sharing through the blog is impressive.

Along with AIC and IIC, ICCROM has been using Facebook and Twitter to share current news and connect with a larger audience. Even if you’re not a conservator, you ought to check out these pages and start paying attention to all of the discussions.

Fixing the Baroque

Richard McCoy — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:44:13 +0000

For the opening of the new Ancient Art of the Mediterranean gallery, I completed a couple of conservation treatments on objects that haven’t been on view in a long, long time. One of the objects is this Canosan vase which is from the 3^rd or 2^nd century B.C.E. Here’s a video of the IMA’s Director and CEO talking about the vessel and the new gallery he curated:

Before this more than 2,000 year old artwork came into my Objects and Variable Art conservation lab, it was safely stored in two separate boxes—one box contained the ceramic vessel, the other contained the 9 pieces that were detached from it. There’s a photograph in the historical files dating to the early part of the 20^th century showing how the vase was assembled when it was acquired in 1928.

My job was to carefully re-assemble these pieces and fill the missing areas to make the joints appear more seamless. Finally, I inpainted my fills to make them less visible (if you get up really close to the case, you can see my work).

Aaron Steele, the IMA’s Digital Assets Specialist & Associate Photographer, photographed this object before and after my conservation treatment up in his photo studio. Have a look:

Before treatment photographs

After treatment photographs

The Bird Flies in Denver

Richard McCoy — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 13:50:06 +0000

This post was co-written by myself and Jennifer Geigel Mikulay.

Artworks that are displayed outdoors face different risks than those that are kept inside. The pigeon, for example, is a dangerous bird to bronze sculptures; the acids in guano can actually corrode a bronze patina in a fairly short time. Another risk public artworks face is that we simply stop caring. When we stop noticing the artworks that surround us, their significance and cultural context is lost.

(via Flickr user travelbex)

Enter Wikipedia Saves Public Art (WSPA) which we created as part of our Fall IUPUI Museum Studies class (you might remember our student, Elizabeth Basile, blogged about her personal experience with the project back in December). The logic of this project is to put information about public artworks into Wikipedia so that people won’t forget or stop caring about them. Yes, there’s a lot of guano in Wikipedia, but with its millions of viewers a day and openness to participation, it’s a vital resource for the cultural sector.

Before we started WSPA, there were only a handful of articles in Wikipedia about public art in Indianapolis—not so good for a city that brags about having more monuments than any city other than Washington, DC. Through our efforts, there are now 57 articles (and more each week) about local public artworks on Wikipedia. Since we started WSPA, our articles have been viewed more than 66,000 times. Now we are thinking big about how WSPA can truly become a global project and how to get more people to make articles about public art in their own town.

Recently, we’ve had a lot of help from Lori Byrd Phillips (an IUPUI Museum Studies graduate student) and Sarah Stierch (a soon-to-be George Washington University Graduate student, who runs her own blog, Sarah – Your Favorite Museum Intern. Together, we’ve begun developing “The Process” to help Wikipedians and public art advocates translate information contained in public databases into Wikipedia articles. For example, did you know that volunteers working through Heritage Preservation’s Save Outdoor Sculpture! surveyed Indianapolis in 1992-1994 and found 205 sculptures? Information about all of them is available online through the Smithsonian’s public database.

Thanks to Magnus for making the application that allowed us to make this chart

But a lot has happened in Indy’s world of public art since the early 1990s. That’s why actually going out and visiting the artworks is important—to verify the information contained in the Smithsonian’s database, to make note of any changes, and to use the tools of 2010 to research and share information about those changes. In addition to finding artworks surveyed by the SOS! folks, you can research new artworks that have been installed across the city. We’re grateful to have our laptops, cell phones, and Web-based tools that have allowed us to create these cool things:

Here’s the Flickr map that we are using to plot the location of the more than 500 images we’ve taken of public art in Indianapolis. By mapping them in Flickr we also resolve their GPS coordinates.

Here’s the Google map that we’re using to plot the original 205 SOS! entries from the Smithsonian database. While the Flickr map is a lot easier to use, we are also experimenting with Google Maps because its satellite maps are so much better.

And here are two Gowalla trips we’ve made for Indianapolis:

IUPUI Public Art Collection Highlights Tour.

Top 10 Public Artworks in Indianapolis.

Gowalla is an iPhone-based app that has a lot of potential for helping to geo-locate and photo document public artworks. Look, for example, at the number of people that have checked in and taken a photograph at the Texas Rangers Monument in Austin.

These tools have helped us locate, document, and share information about hundreds of public artworks in just a few weeks. With this information we will continue making Wikipedia articles about public art in Indianapolis. As mobile technology spreads (particularly GPS-based technologies), opportunities to care for public art will also grow.

Wikipedia Saves Public Art. Logo designed in 2009 by Michael Mikulay.

With all of this in mind, we’re excited about travelling to Denver next Tuesday to participate in the one-day workshop, Wikimedia@MW2010. Perhaps we’ll have a chance to discuss how WSPA is an effective tool for documenting collections of public art that are not well known beyond their distinct local context. Also in Denver, we’ll be joining Rob Stein to listen to Max Anderson and Samuel J. Klein (Wikimedia Board of Directors) give the keynote presentations and then work through important issues and ideas raised by other participants. Our experiences with WSPA have given us a few ideas for the cultural sector that we’d like to share in advance of Wikimedia@MW2010:

* In the spirit of the Encyclopédie and in particular the Descriptions des Arts et Métiers, Wikipedia can become the central hub of information about the materials, tools, and techniques artists have used and are currently using in their practices. Likewise, Wikipedia can become the central hub of information for the materials, tools, and techniques art conservators use in their work. An ideal article about a public artwork would include a material and technical description that was linked to corresponding and accurate information within Wikipedia.

* Public art today is often made using “current technology,” which presents an entire new set of issues. For example, Jaume Plensa’s Crown Fountain in Chicago is comprised of thousands of LEDs. Many technologies used in art quickly become outdated or difficult to update after a few short years. What if we could develop a similar “Conservation Status” for technologies like what exists for endangered animal species like the Bengal Tiger?

* Cultural institutions and public repositories should be encouraged to share their out-of-copyright images of art and put them in Wikimedia Commons.

* Finally, wouldn’t it be cool if the article about Art21 and all of its seasons was as thoroughly detailed and researched as iCarly’s?

What WSPA really needs, though, is for more people to make articles about public art in Wikipedia. Why not try it? If you need some inspiration, check out the “Template”, “Showcase,”, and “Open tasks”. And be sure to use the “talk pages” to leave feedback, questions, or ideas so we can all work together to make the project better.

Everything we know about Wikipedia and the other digital tools discussed above, we’ve learned by using our computers to experiment and engage in dialogue with more experienced contributors. (Wikipedia even gives “newbies” a sandbox to play in!) If you care about cultural heritage, you’ll find many kindred spirits in Wikipedia. That’s why we’d like to see you on Wikipedia, where we can work together and maybe even enjoy some Wiki Love. In an effort to bring some of the energy from Wikimedia@MW2010 directly back to Indianapolis, we’ve invited Liam Wyatt (Vice President, Wikimedia Australia) to give a public lecture at the Herron School of Art and Design on April 19 at 1:30 p.m. in the Basile Auditorium.

Links we like:Tara Donovan Interview and Climate Control

Kate — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 20:16:15 +0000

Check out this article from our own intrepid blogger Richard McCoy as he interviews artist Tara Donovan:

click here to read it

While you’re at it, don’t miss the latest from IMA Director Maxwell Anderson on environmental control in art museums:

click here to read it

IMA on art:21

Kate — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:21:26 +0000

Head on over to art:21‘s blog and check out IMA’s very own Maxwell L. Anderson as he continues the conversation on museums and deaccessioning. You can read his post here.

The Pharmacy

Kate — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:18:58 +0000

The Pharmacy prescribes the following links to combat Monday online anemia.

The Selby

Blog: The Selby

The Selby is full of uber-cool photographs of creative people in their living spaces, taken by photographer Todd Selby. (via timesonline.co.uk)

ArtBabble Video: Director’s Journal: 100 Acres Visitor’s Pavilion

Learn about current IMA events with Melvin and Bren Simon Director and CEO Maxwell Anderson. This episode features a conversation with 100 Acres Project Manager Dave Hunt and architect Marlon Blackwell about the Art and Nature Park Visitor’s Pavilion. Listen in as they discuss how the pavilion was constructed and what it will offer to visitors of the park.

IMA Work of Art:

Père Biart Reading in the Garden

Tweet:

erikajoy: Twitter experiment. Indianapolis Museum of Art bloggers…are you on twitter? I love your blog http://www.imamuseum.org/blog

The Pharmacy

Kate — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:25:13 +0000

The Pharmacy prescribes the following links to combat Monday online anemia.

38 Years of Super Bowl Commercials

Blog: 38 Years of Super Bowl Commercials

Let’s face it- the day after the Super Bowl is usually spent talking about the commercials. Whether you loved or hated what you saw last night, here’s your chance to relive 38 years’ worth of ads. Not a blog, per-say, but enjoy none the less.

ArtBabble Video: Mildred Howard: Abode- Sanctuary for the Familia(r)

For this video the San Jose Museum of Art sat down with artist Mildred Howard to talk to her about her 1994 artwork Abode: Sanctuary for the Familia(r). The work recently changed from promised gift to gift and is now officially part of the SJMA permanent collection.

IMA Work of Art:

Alchemilla vase by Alessandro Mendini (Designer)

Tweet:

MaxAnderson_USA: Congratulations, Saints–great game. PS–Did you want that picture via FedEx or UPS?

The Launch of Eden II

Sarah Green — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:35:23 +0000

Eden II

On Friday morning, November 20, I stood hard-hatted and slack-jawed beneath Tea Mäkipää’s ship, Eden II, as it hung from a crane far above 100 Acres, and couldn’t help but marvel at the process that turns conversations, emails, and artist’s renderings into an actual, physical, 47-foot, 8-ton object.

This rare pleasure is experienced by those involved with object– and place-making everywhere, but it was felt most distinctly by the crowd gathered for the ship launch in 100 Acres, a park first envisioned in an IMA strategic plan in 1996. While Eden II began its journey via two cranes, one barge, and one motorboat from the park’s central meadow to its resting place in the southwest corner of the lake, one could also see crews at work building the walls of Alfredo Jaar’s Park of the Laments, hear the nearby construction of Marlon Blackwell’s visitor’s center, and observe the assembly of Andrea Zittel’s fiberglass floating island by LA-based fabricators The Barnacle Brothers. At long last, 100 Acres is really happening.

I came to the IMA in summer of 2007 and to Finnish artist Tea Mäkipää’s project in early 2009, after former IMA curator (and friend!) Rebecca Uchill left Indianapolis to pursue a PhD. Mäkipää had first travelled to Indianapolis in July of 2007 to conduct research for her commission, and the idea of developing a boat-based project surfaced early on. Having come across a warship when traveling in the United Arab Emirates earlier that year, Mäkipää was interested in thinking about the waterway system in Indianapolis and, in particular, the canal, river, and lake in and around 100 Acres. We had provided Mäkipää with information about the historic and ecological development of these waterways, and local volunteers took the artist on boat trips along the canal via pontoon boat.

She came to the museum with a proposal for a ship, Eden II, seemingly packed with emigrants from an unknown homeland and mysteriously present in the 100 Acres lake. Much research ensued over the possibility of finding a functional boat and transporting it to the park site, as Mäkipää had originally hoped to procure a ship in Europe and sail it to the United States as an extension of her recent project, 10 Commandments for the 21st Century, whose first rule is: “Do not fly.”

Although the voyage would have been a stunning artwork of its own, unfortunately cost, liability, and timing prevented this plan from proceeding. After searching high and low for suitable ships in the US that would fit the scale and needs of the project (thanks former IMA intern Lindsay Clark!), it became clear that a functioning boat would not only have unnecessary parts for our purposes (an engine), but would also be prohibitively expensive to purchase and transport. In the summer of 2008, the artist submitted a revised proposal to construct “a floating structure that resembles a ship”, and with her we embarked on the mission of devising a building plan.

In July of 2009, Icelandic artist Halldor Ulfarsson arrived at the IMA to work as Mäkipää’s assistant and begin construction of the skeleton of Eden II. The kind folks over at the Herron School of Art and Design, most notably Eric Nordgulen and Greg Hull, agreed to lend us their magnificent sculpture studio for a few weeks to accomplish some of the primary metal work for the project. Ulfarsson worked with IMA staffers, including Mike Bir, Brad Dilger, and Brose Partington, to finalize plans for the ship and construct its primary structure. In August, that structure was transported via truck to the central meadow of 100 Acres, and in September, Mäkipää arrived to begin the work of skinning and detailing the ship with Ulfarsson and noble IMAers Scott Shoultz, TJ Lemanski, and Toni Hook.

Herron students also joined the project: Jason Bord, Ava Larkin, Shi-Fen Liu, Wes French fabricated a menacing-looking harpoon and gun, and Amanda York and Kathryn Armstrong assembled a net of rubbish that hangs from the ship’s deck. All the while, a plan was taking shape for Eden II’s eventual launch into the 100 Acres lake, which would also entail the construction of a pontoon system, a keel with considerable ballast, and anchors that would be set in the bottom of the lake.

This narrative glosses over many details (you may now anxiously await my novel: East of Eden II), but we finally arrived at launch day in late November. After a week of waiting for rainy weather to clear, Mike Bir and much of the IMA’s installation crew assembled in the park early Friday morning with a tightly choreographed plan of action.

A smaller crane lifted the ship from the meadow (it stayed together!) and brought it to the shore of the lake (expertly navigating a grove of trees!). I winced as the crane tunneled enormous tracks into the park ground—under the watchful eyes of many from the Horticulture & Grounds crew who will no doubt have to address said tracks—but comforted myself by repeating my mantra for the day: Better now than a week before the park opens. After the ship was placed near the shore, we gathered for a quick group picture, which included the crew as well as the project’s engineers, crane operators, mighty 100 Acres project manager Dave Hunt, park director Lisa Freiman,

and IMA director Maxwell Anderson. In the absence of the artist, who sadly had to miss the event, and with Mike Bir’s support, I then said a silent prayer and broke a bottle of champagne (ok, ok, it was Prosecco) on the ship’s hull. Then, back to business: a second, enormous crane lifted the ship high enough so that the team could attach the keel and ballast, and the whole contraption was gingerly extended over the lake and placed gently in the water. A barge was then attached to the side of the ship, and it was ferried by motor boat over to its final location, where anchors attached by cable to buoys waiting to be attached. Enter Brad Dilger, IMA Multi-Media Designer and certified scuba diver, who helped set the keel and attach the anchors to Eden II.

By the day’s end, the ship was resting peacefully in its intended spot. There is still much work to be done to complete the stabilization of the ship. And there is still a guard shack to be constructed on the shore of the lake, which will house audiovisual components affording visitors views of what is supposedly transpiring aboard the mysterious vessel. However, my spirit is (forgive me) buoyed enormously by the success of Friday’s launch. Last I checked, museums aren’t in the business of building ships, or even independently floating sculptures that resemble ships. I’m awfully proud of what Tea Mäkipää has accomplished at the IMA, and it couldn’t have happened without the herculean efforts of the IMA staff and the Indianapolis community at large. Thanks, everyone.

The Pharmacy

Kate — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:01:43 +0000

The Pharmacy prescribes the following links to combat Monday online anemia.

www.eatmedaily.com

Blog: Eat Me Daily

Eat Me Daily is a blog about food with a critical (and sometimes cynical) take on the culture at large, including media, books, cookbooks, art, design, celebrity, fashion, robots, and cookery.

ArtBabble Video: Director’s Journal: Virgin of Guadalupe

Learn about current IMA events with Melvin and Bren Simon Director and CEO Maxwell Anderson. This episode features a conversation with senior curator Ronda Kasl and conservator Christina O’Connell about the painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe, for the IMA’s exhibition Sacred Spain, running through January 2010. Listen in as they discuss the painting, its history, and how it was restored in the IMA’s conservation lab.

IMA Work of Art:

LOVE by Robert Indiana

Tweet:

vangoghmuseum: @boijmans Congratulations on the launch of ArtTube, a brand new videochannel! the Dutch #ArtBabble?

Making Arts Journalism Viral

Meg Liffick — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:54:05 +0000

At a time when both the art and business of arts journalism are undergoing transformative change, A National Summit on Arts Journalism is being convened to explore some of that change – on Friday, October 2 at Noon EST.

The Summit will present a range of ideas and projects representing current thinking in covering the arts. Five projects were selected in an open call this summer that attracted 109 submissions. Five additional projects will be presented representing broad trends in the field of journalism. Presentations will be made in front of a live audience, streamed over the internet and archived on this Web site.

Watch the live event right here from Noon – 4 p.m. EST

Live video by UstreamThe IMA is proud to be included as a featured project. Be sure to tune in from 12:15 -1:15 p.m. to see Maxwell Anderson, The Melvin & Bren Simon Director and CEO, discuss how the Museum’s digital efforts will impact the future of arts journalism.
In addition to the featured projects, the Summit will also include two roundtable discussions about the art and business of arts journalism.

Want to join the discussion? You can also participate on Twitter. Just use the hashtag #artsj09.

A National Summit on Arts Journalism is a project of USC Annenberg School for Communication and the National Arts Journalism Program. It is made possible with the generous support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew J. Mellon Foundation, the University of Southern California and the National Endowment for the Arts.

See the entire schedule and learn more at najp.org.

Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog » Max Anderson

Tracking the Discussions

Fixing the Baroque

The Bird Flies in Denver

Links we like:Tara Donovan Interview and Climate Control

IMA on art:21

The Pharmacy

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The Launch of Eden II

The Pharmacy

Making Arts Journalism Viral

Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog » Max Anderson

Tracking the Discussions

Fixing the Baroque

The Bird Flies in Denver

Links we like:Tara Donovan Interview and Climate Control

IMA on art:21

The Pharmacy

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