Music and art go hand in hand. And what better pairing for Tara Donovan’s ‘extraordinary’ art than a performance by percussionist Nick Hennies?
This Saturday, you can experience the sounds Nick Hennies as he performs music from his forthcoming album, Psalms, as well as Objects, a new work dedicated to the exhibition Tara Donovan: Untitled and composed especially for this installation.
Drawing connections to Donovan’s work, Hennies’ piece makes seemingly familiar sounds become strange and new.
Here’s a post from Ben Valentine, who’s volunteered with me for the past year. He’s not interested in a career in conservation, but rather an artist who shows frequently and has designs on a MFA. He also runs the blog Contemporary Art Truck.
For the past 16 weeks I’ve been volunteering my Monday mornings in the Variable Art Conservation Lab to clean and maintain the 6 room-size installations in the Tara Donovan exhibition, Untitled, which closes in less than 2 weeks on August 1st. Back in March I volunteered to help construct these complex installations under the guidance of Tara, her assistants, and alongside 15 other volunteers. The initial installation took this team more than 60 hours over the course of 8 intense days.
On the night of the opening party I remember walking through the exhibition with a friend and proudly pointing to certain areas of installations in which I worked the most. I talked about the specific areas in Untitled (Plastic Cups) where I sat and stacked cups in order to execute Tara’s plan. And then, after Tara and her assistants returned to New York, I became Richard’s go-to guy for cleaning and maintaining the installations.
Untitled (Plastic Cups) 2006, Courtesy of Artie and Millie Glimcher
Looking back I think I had a false sense of agency on opening night, a false sense that my aesthetic had entered the installations in some way. Now, after spending all this time with Tara’s artworks, I’ve thought a lot about her process, and along the way regained perspective on the minor role I played in Tara’s work. Tara’s art is the unique process she discovered for each instance. Tara’s ideas have the artistic merit; I was simply a means to help realize them here in Indianapolis. Read the rest of this entry »
This Thursday at The Toby I’ll be participating in a panel discussion about the new exhibition, Tara Donovan: Untitled.Here’s a taste of what we’ll be discussing, from this exhibition’s TAP tour.
The event is free, open to the public, and offered in conjunction with the IMA’s Educator Sneak Peek Program. To accommodate multiple audiences, the program will be divided into two sections (feel free to come to one or both parts):
Part 1 — 5:00 pm
We’ll discuss the roles of staff members in selecting, displaying and caring for contemporary art.
Part 2 — 6:00 pm
We’ll discuss in greater detail the process of commissioning new artworks, complexities of working with installation art, and the long-term care of contemporary artworks.
Joining me on the panel will be a friend and special guest, Jill Sterrett, Director of Conservation and Collections at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA); and
Lisa Freiman, IMA Chair of the Department of Contemporary Art;
Greg Smith, IMA Senior Conservation Scientist.
Here’s a link for more information about the program. I think we’ve got just about all the angles covered in this panel, but if you have any questions that you’d like us to address, please leave a comment and we’ll see if we can add it into the conversation.
In a few short days, you’ll have the chance to experience Tara Donovan: Untitled at the IMA and take the TAP tour along with it. Opening this weekend, it’s been a mad dash to finalize this exhibition experience that features audio commentary, polls, videos and high-res imagery, all accessible on an iPod Touch. Oh, and if you’re an IMA member, TAP is free to you.
This is the second TAP tour we’ve done for an exhibition, and another major accomplishment for the Nugget Factory. NF FTW! As with any project, the second go-around always seems a little smoother. We certainly couldn’t have done it without the collaborative spirit of the contemporary department. Also, big ups to our applications team for some slick interface modifications to the TAP software. Did I mention the entire software development, content production and implementation was done entirely in-house?
Another difference you’ll notice if you took the Sacred Spain tour last winter is that this tour focuses more on the visitor’s interpretation and experience and offers many different perspectives.
You’ll hear voices from curatorial, design, education, and conservation at the IMA. One of those voices is IMA’s Phil Lynam, Manager of Art and Design Education. We hope this sample stop will entice you to TAP into Tara Donovan:Untitled at the IMA. Listen below:
This is the 
