One image from the documentary, in particular, caught my attention. It was of the National Sports Festival that was hosted in Indianapolis in 1982. I can’t find a copy of the image anywhere online so I’ll try to describe it to you (by the way, I have a VERY unreliable memory, so I might be remembering the details wrong…). Essentially, the image is of a stadium with a track, the stands are filled with fans and the infield is filled with athletes. In the center of the image stands 1, 2, and 3 from Robert Indiana’s Numbers. After doing a little research, (a.k.a. reading Richard McCoy’s blog from April 5), I discovered that they were used as backdrops to the gold, silver, and bronze medal platforms for the games.

The more I’ve thought about the image, the more I appreciate the connection to the current configuration of Numbers. We are currently displaying 4 & 6 in the Museum’s Welcome Center. 1, 2, 3, 4, & 6 now have a place in art history and sports history. Fingers crossed that 5, 7, 8, & 9 will have their chance one day, as well.

Robert Indiana, "Numbers," 1980-1983. Gift of Melvin Simon and Associates; 1988.241. © Morgan Art Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Indianapolis stands at the crossroads of the U.S., but now more than ever, it also stands at the crossroads of sports and art. The balance of the aesthetic and the athletic makes Indianapolis a vibrant host for the Super Bowl, but an even better home for the 1.7 million people that live in our Metro area.

Robert Indiana’s Numbers are just one of the many examples of art and sports intersecting in the Circle City this week. For a full list of all the fun cultural events organized in celebration of the Super Bowl, click here.

Robert Indiana, "Numbers," 1980-1983. Gift of Melvin Simon and Associates; 1988.241. © Morgan Art Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

The IMA is getting into the spirit by positioning 4 and 6 of Robert Indiana’s Numbers together on the 2nd floor, near the Welcome Desk. You can also check out one of the Super Cars (for the Carolina Panthers) near the entrance, outside the IMA’s retail store.

As Visitor Services Manager, I wanted to make sure we were prepared with as much information as possible for this huge event. One activity that we participated in was Super Service Training, which was set up to prepare our team with valuable tools and resources needed before the Super Bowl (and ensuing crowds) got underway.  We had an amazing time with our trainers! We played games, learned the history of the city, and absorbed valuable information that all customer service associates need to do their job at the highest level. After completing the training, all of us received our own “Super Service Pin” and certificate, pictured below. We will wear these with pride!

Come by and see us, and happy Super Bowl!

Robert Indiana, "Numbers," 1980-1982, Gift of Melvin Simon and Associates.

When you drive by Robert Indiana’s Numbers, you might think that these more-than-30 year-old sculptures look pretty good.  But if you get up close you’ll notice that the colors aren’t nearly as vibrant as they once were and the surface has lost much of its original glossy appearance.  Also, there are a few spots where the paint has chipped or fallen off.  So, even though our routine maintenance has kept them looking as good as possible, it’s clear they need attention, or since they were made by Indiana, I could say that they, ah, need some LOVE.

Numbers has been on my mind a lot recently because I’ve been researching the most intervening conservation treatment of the work’s life: this spring we’ll be completely stripping and re-painting each number to appear as they were first fabricated.

Before undertaking a conservation treatment of this scale it is important first to have all of the historic information at hand so we can be assured that we are making the right choices along the way, and ultimately that Numbers looks great.  I won’t go into all of the technical information of the treatment here, but I would like to share a bit of its story.  Thanks to the help of pre-program objects conservation intern Jessica Ford, we’ve put together a fairly complete history of Numbers.  Jessica and I have also added a lot of information to the Wikipedia article about Numbers.

Detail of flaking paint.

In 1980 Indiana was commissioned to make Numbers as part of the 20^th-anniversary celebration of Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group (then called Melvin Simon & Associates). However, Indiana’s interest in numbers began long before 1980, as he states in the 2009 documentary A Visit to the Star of Hope: Conversations with Robert Indiana:

“My involvement with numbers started with my mother, and her insistence on moving from house to house in Indiana. Before I was 17 years old I had lived in 21different houses. For my mother and father, their only amusement was really the automobile, and so we’d jump in the car and go driving around and check out all of those houses that we had lived in; and, of course, there was a number one, and there was a number two, and there was a number three.”

For his important 1980 commission Indiana produced the following print called The Ten Stages: Number Sculptures Reflected.

Robert Indiana, "The Ten Stages Number Sculptures Reflected," 1980. © Morgan Art Foundation Ltd./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

The artist has stated that his inspiration for this drawing came in the early 1970s when he was an artist-in-residence at Dartmouth College and was given a copy of the 19^th-century print of The Life and Age of Man: Stages of Man’s Life, from the Cradle to the Grave.  In a recent telephone interview, Indiana told me that the print still hangs in his studio, and that it looked like this black and white one by James Baille:

James Baille, "The Life and Age of Man: Stages of Man's Life from the Cradle to the Grave," 1848.

From 1980 to 1983, Indiana fabricated each of the eight-foot-tall aluminum sculptures at Lippincott, Inc. in North Haven, CT.  In addition to fabricating Indiana’s first LOVE sculpture, which is so prominently displayed at the IMA, Lippincott fabricated important works for Ellsworth Kelly, Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, and Claes Oldenburg. (A well-illustrated monograph, Large Scale, was published in 2010 about the early years at Lippincott—I recently interviewed the author over on the Art21 Blog.)

In 2002, when a version of Numbers was on display on Park Avenue, Carol Vogel interviewed Indiana about the sculptures for an article in the New York Times.  In this article, Indiana identified the significance of the colors of each number in parallel to the original print:

1, Red and green, represents birth
2, Blue and green, infancy
3, Orange and blue, youth
4, Red and yellow, adolescence
5, Blue and white, pre-prime of life
6, Red and green, prime of life
7, Blue and orange, early autumn
8, Orange and purple, autumn
9, Yellow and black, warning
0, Shades of gray, death

”I didn’t use 10 because I don’t like double digits,” he said.

By 1983 Indiana had finished Numbers and it was in the possession of Simon Property Group.  While we’ve not been able to find a clear record of where each number was displayed, or really even good evidence that each part of Numbers was actually on display here in the city, it is known that 1 was first on view outside the Simon headquarters and that some of them were around the city of Indianapolis in the early 1980s at various locations.

Here’s a 1981 photo of well-known Children’s Museum of Indianapolis director Mildred Compton celebrating her 21st year of service in the central court of the museum on Meridian Street.

And here’s an account of 1, 2, and 3 being used as the medal podium backdrop for the 1982 National Sports Festival held here in Indianapolis.

If you have pictures or evidence of any others being on display in Indy, please leave me a note in the comments section. I’d love to see where else they  were located.

As part of the commission, Simon Property made arrangements for Numbers to be donated to IMA once their anniversary celebration was finished. True to their word, they were given to the IMA in 1988, but not installed until 1992—around the time the IMA was headlong into constructing the Edward Larrabee Barnes wing of the museum. Here’s a slide I scanned of the 1992 installation with three young ladies in the foreground.

Once installed, they remained on the IMA’s Alliance Sculpture Court until 2002.   After the museum underwent another expansion and renovation, in 2005 they were installed in their current location on the east side of the mall.  During this time, Indiana worked with the museum to give Numbers a new arrangement by grouping pairs of them together.  Here’s how he defined all of the pairings:

41 Pearl Harbor took place while I lived in Indianapolis
29 The crash which I experienced as a child on the East Side
50 Suggesting in part my hometown’s most famous institution: the last zero lost on a fast curve
76 The United States birthday every hundred years
38 My father worked for many years on this street

Indiana has created multiple versions of Numbers in a variety of sizes and materials and displayed them all over the world, however the IMA has the original set and the only one that hasn’t left the state of Indiana since it was fabricated.

And now a new chapter begins for our Numbers.  While it may seem fairly straightforward to restore these sculptures (they are after all, just painted aluminum), they were originally painted with a specialized coating system which is more than 30 years old itself, making them a bit tricky to re-paint correctly. Also, with a total of 20 different colors used (two on each), matching the colors can have its difficulties.  But we’ve assembled a solid team for the project and we all look forward to having them back at the IMA looking better than ever.

Finally, I leave you with picture of Robert Indiana talking with IMA Registrar Sherry Peglow in 2000 when the artist was last here to help install the exhibition Crossroads of American Sculpture, which included other Indiana-born artists John Chamberlain, Bruce Nauman, George Rickey, David Smith, and William Wiley.

Google has paid homage to a number of artists, inventors, and social happenings since it started doodling in August of 1998. The practice began when Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin modified the company’s infamous logo to indicate their attendance at the Burning Man festival. Well received by users, the duo decided to create a second alternative logo for Thanksgiving. With a designated Chief Doodler and a team of designers, there have been over 300 doodles created for Google’s US site and over 700 internationally.

The recent Valentine’s doodle sparked my interest in the doodle history and with very little research needed (using Google of course), I came across a timeline of Google doodles. Here are a few that I found to be particularly noteworthy.

It only seem appropriate to start where it all begin. Posted globally on August 30, 1998, the Burning Man festival doodle was used internationally to represent an “out of office message” for the two Google founders who were attending the festival.

Commemorating the birthday of Piet Mondrian, this doodle was published globally on March 7, 2002. It is also the first doodle I came across that clearly paid tribute to an artist.

Other artists later recognized with doodles include Paul Gauguin, Michelangelo, M.C. Escher, Diego Velazquez, and now Robert Indiana (among others). Norman Rockwell’s tribute (published globally February 3, 2010) is pictured here:

Many doodles in the first several years were pretty simple, often replacing one letter with a cartoon or image. “L” became Santa Clause, or “O” became an Easter egg. Veering from the very literal designs published around the same time (and mentioned above), this doodle (issued globally on January 04, 2006) celebrated Louis Braille’s Birthday:

The day this doodle was published (May 22, 2010), was a fairly unproductive morning in my office. Interactive and highly addictive, this doodle commemorated the 30 year anniversary of Pac Man’s creation. Perhaps one of the most popular doodles to date, Google has kept an active link for the Pac Man doodle for those needing a Pac Man fix.

One of my favorite Google doodles was actually created by 15 year-old Vance Viggiano as part of the Doodle 4 Google program. Meant to inspire tomorrow’s leaders and inventers, this competition invites K-12 students to create a doodle around a theme chosen each year (significant scholarship money is awarded to the winner). Vaggiano’s doodle was created to complete the theme “If I could anything, I would…”. He finished the sentence with “…enrich the world with an intense passion for art and the everlasting joy it provides. Art embodies the creator’s expression, and offers exquisite exuberance towards both the artist and the viewers, also serving to soothe an ailing soul in distress.” Talented and thoughtful – he wins my vote.

You can browse the entire collection, or for those students interested in this year’s Doodle for Google, registration ends tomorrow.

If I want to become part of the IMA’s blogging team (and I do), I’m supposed to write something about myself and the best anecdote or experience I had at the museum.

What is best? Best for you to read or best for me to have? I don’t know. It’s all been good. So I’ll just give you my top five experiences and let you decide what’s best. Let’s save the boring bio stuff for the end. I’ll try not to make it too boring, yet totally true. Have you noticed how easily people brag/exaggerate in their online bios? Everybody is a guru of something. Not me. But we’ll talk about that later.

My top five IMA experiences

#1. My husband and I were standing in the lobby of the IMA at a kickoff party for a big opening. A woman came up to me and said I looked exactly like Annette Bening. I have to admit, that was a few years ago and she may have had a few drinks when she said it. But still. There’s not a menopausal woman anywhere who wouldn’t savor that compliment. Call me shallow. I don’t remember the exhibit opening but I do remember being compared to one of my favorite movie stars.

#2. I took a drawing class at the IMA once and learned that I don’t have an artistic bone in my body. No latent talent just waiting to be developed. The instructor’s approach was simple: draw the shapes of a canvas in the gallery and fill in the space with the basic proportions of the objects within–not the details, just the proportions. “Oh, please!” I thought. “Anyone can do that.” Wrong. But, hey, at least I can remove learning to draw from my bucket list and get on to other more realistic things like growing my own vegetables.

#3. Sometimes I take a book to the IMA and read in the comfy leather chairs scattered throughout the galleries. I don’t even look at the art. I know. That’s what libraries are for. Here’s the problem. I work in a library two days a week. Trust me. You don’t want to read or study at a public library unless they have washable leather or vinyl seating. I’ll let you figure that one out for yourself. Check out your books and read them at home or at the IMA. People are usually quiet when looking at great art. And you can sit down without worrying about well, as I said, I’ll let you figure that one out.

#4. The IMA is a great place to go after a disagreement with your spouse or significant other. One summer day, after my husband said or did something I found atrociously thoughtless, I jumped in the car and headed to the museum for a walk. After nearly 30 minutes of stomping around the grounds in a rage, I started to notice that everything was in full bloom. I found myself in front of Robert Indiana’s LOVE sculpture. It reminded me that my petty little fight didn’t amount to much in the scheme of things. I remembered that my marriage (sort of like that LOVE sculpture) was permanent. It was a what-would-Jackie-do moment for me. I got in my car, headed home and made lunch for my husband.

#5. I’m a big fan of the one-hour IMA visit. Let’s face it. For the average Jane (that’s me) who doesn’t know much about art, the prospect of slogging your way through a complete exhibit, reading every line is like asking a first grader to read Moby Dick. Whether they can read it or not, they most certainly won’t be able to connect all the dots. Not enough experience. I don’t pretend to be something I’m not. But I don’t deprive myself just because I’m a little ignorant. If there’s an interesting exhibit, I go for an hour. I pick out one piece that really appeals to me. I try to learn all I can about that piece while I’m there. Then I leave. If I have time, I try to learn more afterwards. I may decide to go again for another hour. This is the only way I know to have an experience that sticks. I probably miss some important stuff with this technique, but I look forward to going back because I know I’m not going to make myself bored and tired. Good art deserves our best attention. I believe in giving it all I’ve got, an hour at a time. But that’s just me. Everyone should do it their way.

Now for the boring, but totally true bio stuff I promised. Once upon a time, I was a corporate writer paid to write things for big business. It’s the only kind of writing I ever found where you can make enough money to support yourself. After doing that for about 11 years, I started to connect with what one of my colleagues said about our work: “I’m really tired of writing pink champagne and having some attorney rewrite it until it becomes like distilled water.” I’m not saying I’m a pink champagne kind of writer. But I did have a few moments of greatness along the way, especially while I was working for a company I truly believed in.

Gradually I worked up my courage to swap that life for one that now includes all my loves–books, kids, writing, yoga and more time for golf and family. (I know that last part sounds trite, but it’s true.) In 2004, I finished a master’s in library science, which allowed me to enter the library profession at a wage that keeps me above the poverty level. I knew it wouldn’t pay as well, but I get to do and say what I want. It’s hard to put a price on that. When I’m not working part-time at the library, teaching yoga, or helping my husband in a small, family-owned business, I write a blog, Leading Reads. It’s mostly devoted to inspiring books, ideas, and people plus an occasional golf or yoga story.

Why vote for me? I write well, enjoy art enough that I visited Italy for an art and architecture tour a few years ago, and live just a few miles from the IMA. I can be there in a heartbeat. I don’t know enough to be snooty about things, so I can promise you I won’t have a highbrow complex if you give me this pleasure of blogging. A crown was promised with this position, but it’s not necessary. If someone would occasionally tell me I look like Annette Bening that would be nice.

(via hanginthere)

Happy Holidays everyone!

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

IMA Work of Art:

LOVE by Robert Indiana

Tweet:

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

Do you have any memories related to Robert Indiana’s Love sculptures? Or Anish Kapoor’s “Bean” in Chicago? What about Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s saffron-colored gates in New York’s central park? How about one of those giant spiders by Louise Bourgeois…or those cows on parade? Did you ever take a picture with one of these or another public art work? Well, I surely have (see me below). Something about the interactive nature of public art, and the feeling that it informally exists in its spot for me, rather than for a gallery space or for someone’s wall, really helps me enjoy public art. And I think regardless of if you like a piece or don’t, it inevitably makes you aware of your space, your participation in it, and someone’s efforts to enrich or change it. As a friend recently reminded me, these works at least make you ask, “Why is this here?”

Saying hello to a Juan Munoz sculpture

The definition of public art differs depending on whom you ask and why you are asking. For example, must the government supply the funding for a project to officially be labeled as public art? Is graffiti public art (see also: Banksy)? Is my neighbor’s daughter’s sidewalk drawing a piece of public art? Is the Love sculpture even public art if it sits on the Museum’s private property? Raquel Laneria sheds some light on this murkiness in her Forbes article “Why We Love – And Need – Public Art.” But whatever the official definition – to me, its an art work in a public space that I can personally access – and I agree with those “nonprofits, federal organizations and private investors who believe it is something indispensable to city life,” and with Darren Walker, who is quoted in the article as having said, “public art is a public good.”

My collage of art, found within a three-block stretch of Washington Street in Indianapolis.

I recently attended the walking tour of George Rickey: An Evolution (I highly recommend it – the last guided tour is August 16) in downtown Indianapolis. Our guide, Mindy Taylor-Ross, prefaced the tour with some Arts Council info and mentioned that Indy was at one time pursuing a ‘percent-for-art ordinance,’ which would provide a more or less stable (though small) funding source for public art in Indianapolis. Many other cities, including Seattle and Chicago, already have similar ordinances. A percent-for-art ordinance states that a percentage of publicly funded capital improvement projects (usually between .5 and 2%) is reserved for the commissioning of public artworks, which generally end up inside the building or on its outlaying property. In my interpretation, this ensures that as long as the city spends money on building projects, public art projects will exists in these spaces. While I’m sure there are a lot of politics and red tape involved in this process, theoretically, this is a good idea. Though with the current government leadership such legislature is likely not a priority, perhaps it could be pursued once more when times are less rough. The Project for Public Spaces website indicates a few other funding sources for public art – public/private sector collaborations, percent and non-percent for art programs, soliciting developer participation, and several other alternatives.

For fun, I polled some friends to find out their favorite and least favorite public art works. Many respondents voluntarily said that the reason they liked it was because they can still vividly see it when they think about it. Pretty cool.

“Loved it”
Eero Saarinen, Gateway Arch (the St. Louis Arch); J. Seward Johnson Jr, The Awakening; Juame Plensa, Crown Fountain; James Yamada, Our Starry Night; Igor Mitoraj, Tindaro Screpolato; the Pineapple Fountain in Charleston, SC; Jim Benedict, Forks, Cheese, Hangers; Magdelena Abakanowicz, Agora.

“Not so much”
Julian Opie, Ann Dancing; Pablo Picasso, Untitled, Chicago. (especially with the baseball caps); Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen, Big Sweep.

What public art works do you like or dislike?

The Awakening

I’ll try not to belabor the point with too many statistics, but in sheer square footage – 669,000 and change in the main building – the IMA ranks in the top ten out of about 230 other art museums. That’s a lot of square footage our security officers have to patrol each day, 24/7/365. And in that space is an art collection of roughly 54,000 pieces of art from all over the world and from all time periods.

Now, numerous other institutions have bigger buildings or more artwork, so let me add a few other amenities that the IMA has: a reference library, studio/education space, retail and dining areas, the 500-seat Deer-Zink events pavilion, and The Toby, a 600-seat theater to augment our warm-weather outdoor amphitheater.

IMA's campus and LOVE

If that’s not impressive, the IMA sits on a 50-acre landscaped campus with garden paths and outdoor artwork including the world-famous Robert Indiana LOVE sculpture . Also on this campus is the Garden Terrace events pavilion, a venue for smaller wedding receptions and meetings; the 1330 House, a temporary residence for visiting scholars and couriers; and Newfields, office space for our horticulture staff and home to the Horticulture Society’s reference library.

It is a rare thing that a museum has its own national historic landmark, as the IMA does in Oldfields-Lilly House and Gardens. I always enjoy taking new officers to Lilly for a tour from Bradley Brooks, curator and director of the house.

In terms of off-campus, let’s take a cruise past Westerley, the 5-acre IMA director’s residence. During the Gifts of the Tsars exhibition back in 2001, the IMA utilized the house for temporary housing of several Russian couriers. Security staffed the house, prompting me to refer to it as Best Westerley. Presently, we monitor the security systems and perform other tasks as requested by the director.

To complete the tour, I’ll mention the “100 Acres,” the Art & Nature Park to the west of the museum. Surprise, it’s a 100-acre plot of land with a big lake (I’ve heard 40 acres). Even though official construction has been delayed, the park is still open for dog walking and Frisbee throwing. Naked jogging is frowned upon, however.

Mindy and the jogger

There you have it, 150 acres of artsy goodness with two, count ‘em, national historic landmark properties, a mini-hotel for scholars, theater space for year-round films and concerts, two reference libraries, and an awesome director’s residence. Combine that with a variety of events and programs and our significant presence on the Web, and there is no doubt we have a world-class museum in our midst. Hugs & Kisses on Valentine’s Day.

The Wikipedians, Max, and I.

Pictured from right to left are: Max, Aaron (aka The Urbanophile), Jasmine, Christina, and myself.  Not pictured here are Jenny and Joelle.  While I know that Jenny had a scheduling conflict that day, we never did get a response back from Joelle (where’d you go, Joelle?).

Here’s a list of the articles they created:

Christina’s Sutphin Fountain

Jasmine’s Numbers

Aaron’s Mega-Gem

Joelle’s LOVE

Jenny’s SnowPlow

I’ve been watching these articles since they were created and noticed each one has been added to by other Wikipedians – even if just a little.  The article on Robert Indiana’s LOVE sculpture has really taken off.  It’s started to grow into an article about all of Indiana’s LOVE sculptures, not just the one at the IMA, which of course was the first sculptural version that he made.  Wouldn’t it be cool if it became the place for information about that sculpture!

Though I don’t think I’ll be offering lunch with Max anytime soon for making more articles, I do encourage you to make an article about an artwork in the IMA’s collection.  Maybe it’s just because I’m a believer in Wikipedia, but I think it’s important work.  It could be a student project either at the college or high school level – really, anyone can make an article once you get the hang of it.

Because I’m interested in exploring and developing the idea that Wikipedia articles can serve as a place to document public artworks by hosting images, referencing other published information, and allowing the public to have first-hand involvement in the history and preservation of public art, I started working a while ago with a two other conservators Crista and Daniel to make Wikipedia articles about a few public artworks.

Here’s a list of the articles that we created:
In Indianapolis:
Ann Dancing

Depew Memorial Fountain

In Wabash, IN
The Lincoln Monument of Wabash, Indiana

In Washington, D.C.
Always Becoming

While we found that hosting images can be a little tricky (clearing copyright, etc) there’s clearly a lot that can be achieved through this work.  Take for example the Ann Dancing sculpture here in Indy by Julian Opie.  While it was installed in January of this year, it had some display issues and was recently taken down for repairs.  How do I know this?  I found out when someone made an edit to the article.  In a matter of days an image was uploaded and links were made to the local newspaper coverage.

I had never been so interested to see an artwork not working.  It was an example of history being written almost as it happened!

Who knows what will come of all of this but I believe there’s great potential for Wikipedia to help raise awareness about the preservation of artworks through documentation and keeping an up-to-date history – something that print publications simply can’t do.