Thornton Dial is a keen observer of the human spectacle and its narratives of corruption and moral strength, folly and triumph. As an artist, he has spent the last two decades exploring the truth of American history and culture in all its complexities and contradictions. This exhibition presents a major survey of Dial’s work, an epic gathering of over fifty large-scale paintings, sculptures, and wall assemblages that address the most compelling issues of our time.
Kate Gilmore is one of the featured artist’s in Framed, an exhibition of recent video work focused on bodily confrontation with the frame of the camera. The exhibition runs at the Indianapolis Museum of Art through March 6, 2011.
Body Unbound: Contemporary Couture from the IMA’s Collection, on view from April 10, 2010 to January 30, 2011, will examine the many ways designers have manipulated, transformed and liberated the female figure. The exhibition will feature groundbreaking designs by Rudi Gernreich, Issey Miyake, Junya Watanabe, Thierry Mugler, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Gianni Versace and other avant-garde fashion designers. Body Unbound will explore how these designers used modern construction and unexpected materials to contort, conceal, reveal or mock their wearers.
Fashions by visionaries Rudi Gernreich and Jean-Paul Gaultier illustrate how some designers played with the notions of shape and construction, challenging mid-century ideals of form. Examples by Issey Miyake and Junya Watanabe, based on the theories of androgyny and “universal beauty,” demonstrate how Japanese designers working in Paris in the 1980s and 1990s promoted an alternate way of styling the body, concealing its contours and silhouette.Pieces by Thierry Mugler, Gianni Versace and Franco Moschino display how designers utilized innovative textiles and subversive design elements to toy with the concepts of seduction and femininity.
Featuring a range of works, many of which are recent additions to the IMA’s fashion arts collection, Body Unbound will demonstrate how some of the most influential designers of the 20th century helped shape the direction of avant-garde fashion. Organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Body Unbound: Contemporary Couture from the IMA’s Collection will be on view in the Paul Textile and Fashion Arts galleries. The IMA will be its sole venue.
Public art is a mini-theme today, so let’s finish with a video about Los Carpinteros work at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Los Carpinteros has developed a large-scale site-specific installation titled Free Basket for 100 Acres: The Virgina B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park that continues their interest in the juxtaposition of the practical and the imaginary. Free Basket draws on the form of the basketball court, turning it into an aesthetically surprising entity that also offers a site for the community to engage in recreational play. In developing their project, Los Carpinteros chose to draw on the rich history of sports in the city of Indianapolis. Their project seeks to bring together art, culture and sports, providing an interactive platform for the larger community that engages them in art. Free Basket will be Los Carpinteros’s first long-term public commission in the U.S.
Architect Marlon Backwell and Structural Engineer Guy Nordenson discuss the 100 Acres Visitors Pavilion. Designed by Marlon Blackwell Architects, the 100 Acres Visitors Pavilion will serve as the cornerstone of the park and promises to be one of the regions signature architectural landmarks. The form of the building takes inspiration from the structure and geometry of a fallen, folded leaf. The Visitors Pavilion will be a LEED certified structure, with careful attention paid to environmental sensitivity and energy efficiency throughout the design and construction process.
