Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog

I’ve been at the IMA for over two years now, and without a doubt one of the most talked about art installations over that time has been Orly Genger’s Whole, which lived mainly in the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion. It stood in a place that ensured each and every visitor who walked through those doors had to confront and acknowledge the installation in some way. I’ve been a huge fan of quietly observing over-the-top drama for all of my life, so this was right up my alley and I’ll miss it for sure.

The Design & Installation team taking down Orly Genger: Whole

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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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The IMA Blog team welcomes New York-based artist Orly Genger as a guest blogger.  We asked her to share some thoughts on her IMA exhibition, Whole.

I’m obsessed with making something that matters. I’m obsessed with working. And I believe that it is only through hard work that good work is made.

One of the most important things to me has always been to keep my hands moving, to keep making things. I worry about what I make and what it means after I make it.  I also used to think that talking about art, especially your own art, ruins it. That’s partly why I dropped out of art school. But I’ve softened on that in recent years, which is maybe a result of having gone to art school. I do talk here and there about my work and hope it won’t ruin anything, but instead reveal a bit about the way I’m thinking, at least in the moment.

Overhead shot of "Whole"

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I’m celebrating 4 years at the IMA today and it’s hard not to reflect on that.  It may not be a very long time in terms of a career, but it makes for a lot of audio, video and web projects, not to mention exhibitions and new innovative projects.

The first in-house video I worked on at the IMA was re-editing an African Pottery Techniques documentary shot in Burkina Faso.  At the time, it was a pretty big step for the museum – to actually do this in-house, quickly, easily and for free.  When I compare that to our latest  video release on Orly Genger’s installation “Whole”, I kind of laugh.  We shot this video in HD, incorporated Time Lapse, used a lift for certain shots and then published to YouTube.  Check it out below.

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Tentacles of the Beast, 2008

I just returned from a trip to New York in the height of the August heat with all of the lovely smells and suffocating humidity that comes with it. The goal of this trip? To spend as much time with artists and their work as possible, to slip into the city’s unique rhythms and magic anonymously and deeply. To see again.

My first experience with art on this trip happened unexpectedly and almost immediately. When I got to my Midtown hotel to drop off my bags before rushing down to a Chelsea studio on 26th Street, I pulled back my curtains and opened the windows, letting in the outside air to equalize the freezing air in my room. Set before me was a Hitchcockian scene, a 21st century Rear Window. I looked outside of my room on the eighth floor and saw various people engaged in quiet, disparate activities: in one window a woman busy at her desk, in another two people kissing, and an old man walking out onto the fire escape to grab a secret smoke. There were silent intimate recognitions, an awareness that we were all seeing each other, despite our resistance to acknowledging it, a fierce refusal to allow our eyes to meet directly. Extreme privacy and exposure both at once. I was reminded of the Impressionist era opera paintings where the subject of the work is spectatorship, the reciprocal experience of looking and being looked at. What happens in the space between.
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