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ArtBabble Video: Director’s Journal: Virgin of Guadalupe

IMA Work of Art:

LOVE by Robert Indiana

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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.

Anyway, I’m going to tell you how I help to keep our numbers clean and looking good (I get lots of help). For the past few years I’ve invited IMA summer interns working in other departments to help me and the conservation interns wash the “Numbers” (you can go here to Flickr to see a ton of images of our sculptures and Indiana’s various versions of the same sculpture on exhibit around the world).

Washing these 8 foot tall painted aluminum artworks is a fair amount of work, even when you have the good help I had. It’s a fairly straight-forward process to clean the sculptures: we simply wash them gently with soap (I use Orvus ) and water. Really, that’s it, some soap and water, a few ladders and lots of me acting like Mr. Miyagi and demanding perfect motions when doing the work.

Beyond the actual work it’s also a time when I can provide a real example of some of the maintenance we complete on the outdoor sculptures to interns in the other departments. After all (and this number is for Meg), there are over 50 artworks scattered throughout the IMA’s grounds, and soon to be a lot more over in the 100 Acres.

There are two other things that I wanted to mention, one is that you can go here and see a drawing by Robert Indiana that shows what the organization of the numbers meant to him and why we arranged them so. I’m always intrigued by this notion that just by putting two numbers together you can achieve a kind off greater meaning.
The second thing I wanted to mention is the fine Wikipedia article that Jasmine made about the numbers this spring. I have it on good word that invitations for Lunch with the IMA’s director have been sent out to the 5 that made Wikipedia articles of IMA sculptures. I’ve been digging around to see if others have been made, but haven’t found any. Speaking of that, I hope our IT department doesn’t check how many times a day I look at Wikipedia on this computer….

]]> http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/2008/08/15/numbers-blog/feed/ 7 http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/2008/08/04/letterboxing-crazy-passtime-or-new-olympic-event/ http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/2008/08/04/letterboxing-crazy-passtime-or-new-olympic-event/#comments Mon, 04 Aug 2008 09:00:00 +0000 Rob Stein http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/?p=605 The heat of summer is definitely upon us and as I sit here in my office, I can’t help but wish I was outside roasting away! So, for those of you looking for a good excuse to get some fresh air and a little adventure, I thought I’d share with you my one of my new favorite pastimes… LETTERBOXING!

(stay tuned for a great way to experience the IMA grounds before the end of this post!)

A friend told me about how they went letterboxing on a recent vacation and was surprised that I’d never heard of it before. Letterboxing is similar to its more recent cousin, GeoCaching, and involves hiding small boxes with journals and stamps inside them. The idea being to bring your own stamp and journal with you to collect a log of all the treasures you have found! Letterboxers leave clues to the locations of boxes they have planted online for others to find. Experienced letterboxers can collect hundreds of stamps from around the country and individual boxes can stay alive for many years! As I began to learn a bit more about it… I was hooked!

A Brief History of Letterboxing

Apparently, letterboxing has been around for a long time. Wikipedia’s article on letterboxing says that it originated in England around 150 years ago! Letterboxing seems to have gained popularity in North America in the late 1990’s. In exploring this a bit more online, I was stunned to find out how many boxes exist right around the corner! One popular letterboxing website lists over 46,000 registered letterboxes in the United States and over 1000 in the state of Indiana. There are even 2 letterboxes close by for our blog readers in Zimbabwe… What… am I living in a cave? How could I have missed this one? The thought of all these stealthy hidden little boxes brings out the pirate in me… Arggh!

(A Google Map of Letterbox locations around Indianapolis)

Letterboxing Resources

I’ve found a few great sites to fuel your burning letterboxing habit! Lately, I’ve been looking these sites up on my phone as we sail around with the top down on the Jeep looking for stamps to fill our journal. A good primer on what you need to start letterboxing can be found on this “Getting Started” page.

When you’re ready to find some boxes to search for these are some great links to start with:

• Search Letterboxes on AtlasQuest.com
• Search for Letterboxes on Letterboxing.org

Letterboxing @ IMA

So, why talk about a crazy hobby like letterboxing on the IMA’s blog? Well besides the obvious craft involved in creating some of the stamps I’ve seen… I was stunned to find out that there are two, count ‘em, two letterboxes already hidden on the grounds of the IMA. I’d be breaking the secret code of letterboxers if I gave away their exact locations… but here are the links to the clues so you can find them yourself. We’ve found both of them in the last two weeks, so I know their both still safe and sound. I wonder if our grounds keeping staff knows about these?

• IMA – planted by “Trail Mail Junkie”
• Robert Indiana – planted by “Dream a Dream”

I’m thinking that we’ll have to take it upon ourselves as proud IMA-staffers to plant a few more of these puppies out in the Art and Nature Park before it opens! Any ideas of some good hiding spots?

The IMA is no different. The museum’s “gallery rules” are rules for proper behavior around the artwork so that the collection is maintained in the best possible condition for generations to come. Most of the rules are common sense, if you stop and think about it. I mean, if Mom won’t let anyone eat pizza on her new sofa, do you think we want anyone near the Monet with a Double Decaf and a sticky bun? Think again, buck-o.

No touching is the Numero Uno rule we have. We humans are such tactile animals that we want to touch everything, from the shiny surface of Donald Judd’s Untitled, 1967 to the rough surface of Robert Indiana’s LOVE sculpture.

I understand, I have those urges too. Nonetheless, we must keep our grubby mitts off the artwork. I may have just swabbed down head to toe with anti-bacterial scrubs before attempting to fondle Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Diana, but if I can touch it, eventually we’ll have Little Johnny come along with his chubby Reese’s-caked fingers who’ll do a chocolate smear job on the piece. Over time, we’ll have a bazillion people leaving all manner of crap and corruption on our artwork.

No touching includes touching with other items, like pointy writing utensils or umbrellas and canes. Pencils are allowed in the galleries for convenience, but pens should stay in the pocket because ink is more difficult to remove than graphite. Plus, these items can scratch, chip, and rip the art.

There’s a common phrase about a “bull in a china shop” which is a scenario we try to avoid by restricting large bags and backpacks in the galleries, though we accommodate visitors with special needs. I’m telling you, some folks look like they’re ready to tackle a two-day assault on El Cap with the huge packs they carry in. Some folks think we’re worried about theft, which we are, sort of, but mostly we worry about stuff getting knocked over or banged up. Try our FREE coat check and meet officer Pearl Foster.

Photo flash is prohibited for general visitors, though we do allow limited use by the media, with close scrutiny from our Conservation staff. Think back to Mom’s new sofa. If it sat by a sunny window for a few years it would look faded and drab, just like our art would if we allowed flash photography.

Speaking of photography … we only allow photos of our permanent collection, so no pics in the special exhibits or in the third floor Contemporary galleries, and no tripods, bipods, or monopods, thank you. Why, you might ask? Hell, I don’t know. I’d have better luck explaining the Golden Ratio than I would Copyright Law and our Rights & Reproduction guidelines. Suffice it to say that we don’t want photos of our collection showing up in places not of our choosing.

So let’s recap: no food or drink in the galleries, no touching, no large bags or backpacks, no flash photography, and no photos in the special exhibits or Contemporary galleries. There are a few other rules that I’ve skipped, mainly because they don’t come in to play very often, but I’ve hit the big ones. We want everyone to come to our house and check out all the great things we have to offer, we only hope you understand when we ask you to follow our rules.

And that brings me to the topic of blog rules. Despi was kind enough to re-introduce me to them on my last post so this cartoon is dedicated to her benevolent dictatorship. From blogs to blackjack, the house always gets its cut.