SARAH URIST GREEN: This episode of the Art Assignment
is supported by Prudential.
We've spent quite a bit of time exploring art
in other people's cities, so we thought
it was high time we gave the same treatment to our own.
But how does one attempt tourism in one's own town?
First, I recruited Stuart Hyatt, fellow resident and also
superb sound artist, who has done quite a bit of city
exploring as part of his work.
Second, we met up at a coffee shop
to ditch our primary modes of transport,
and see how much we could accomplish in a day
without a car.
And third, well, coffee.
We ordered Americanos at Kaffeine Coffee
and sat down to plan our route.
We wanted to go full analog and use a paper map
and did a fair bit of plotting that way until, well, it
would have been silly not to use our magical devices at all.
We then walked down the road to pick up rental bikes
at the closest Indiana Pacers Bikeshare pickup location.
You need to bring your own helmet,
but the rest is fairly simple.
You'll see in the background the first
of our many encounters with the work of past Art Assignment
contributors.
Nat Russell of Fake Flyer fame was commissioned
by a real estate development company
to create a temporary public artwork
to disguise slash beautify the construction site behind it.
You'll notice a fair bit of construction in this video
because downtown Indy is in a bit of a boom cycle
when it comes to development.
And a good portion of this development boarder's
one of the city's newer amenities, the Cultural Trail,
an eight mile biking and walking path
that connects neighborhoods and cultural districts.
And the bikeshare is part of it too.
Along it, you'll pass a number of public artworks,
including this mural of Indianapolis-based poet Mari
Evans by artist Michael Alkemi Jordan.
One of her best known works is her 1970 poem
"I am a Black Woman."
And it feels appropriate to recite its concluding stanza
here.
We kept going along Massachusetts Avenue
and passed Julian Opie's "Ann Dancing,"
and Ann really is always dancing.
There is something supremely comforting about Ann dancing
morning, noon, and night, through snow, rain,
and presidential transitions.
That Ann, she never quits.
Just beyond, we encountered another literal literary giant.
This one a 38-foot tall Kurt, Vonnegut native son
of Indianapolis.
Vonnegut said in 1986, what people
like about me is Indianapolis.
So it's nice that he's here, although it hasn't
gone unnoticed that he spent very little time here
after leaving for college in 1940.
Then we rode over to "Prairie Module's 1 and 2,"
created by the art collective M12, which Stewart is part of.
They make works heavily informed by the context or place
where they're working, and here, the trust
formed structures reference both the covered
bridges that parts of rural Indiana are known for,
as well as the interstate infrastructure that
gives Indianapolis its tagline, Crossroads of America.
Its green roof grasses are reminders
of the surrounding prairie and its solar panels return
power to the grid.
On we went to City Market, outside of which we found
an artist design book share station
that's part of an art and literacy project called
the "Public Collection."
This really awesome, excellently functioning
one made by Brose Partington was inspired
by agricultural equipment and the linotype machine.
Stuart and I each picked up a book.
I snagged "My Daddy was a Pistol,
and I'm a Son of a Gun," by Lewis Grizzard,
for obvious reasons.
And Stuart picked up the classic "The House of the Spirits,"
by Isabel Allende.
Here's us comparing the last lines of each book,
and I'll spare you the suspense and tell you
mine won the contest.
I just hope heaven doesn't run out
of camels and fried chicken.
Having extracted all we needed from our finds,
we biked a few blocks to monument circle
and returned the books to another lending station.
This one designed by Brian McCutcheon of Customize
It fame.
Columns support an 1894 quote by Mark Twain
extolling public libraries as the memorials that really last,
preserving names and events, and also outlasting them.
A fitting sentiment for a city full of traditional memorials.
Then we headed south to the Alexander Hotel,
home to a remarkable gathering of artworks commissioned
specifically for the spaces.
You'll find an installation by Paul Villinski
of birds cut from vinyl records emerging from a turntable.
Here, we also admire the work of Sonya Clark of our Measuring
History's assignment, who created out
of over 3,000 comb's a portrait of Indianapolis
his own Madam CJ Walker, a haircare tycoon
known as one of the first self-made millionairesses
in America.
There are a number of other excellent works here
but the piece de resistance is the bar and lounge
by Jorge Pardo, who designed the colorful array
of light fixtures that trail from the lobby into the lounge,
and recall a school of fantastical sea creatures.
Pardo was also responsible for the patterned cement
tiles and most of the furnishings,
but he was not responsible for the amazing cocktails
this place serves, which I was very sad we were too early for.
We then locked up our bikes and hopped in the car with Mark
because Stuart got a tip from a friend
that there was a lunchtime concert in 10 minutes over it
at Eskenazi Hospital.
The new named campus of this public hospital opened in 2013,
and along with featuring a number of artworks,
it hosts a music program that on this day
brought us the outstanding musical stylings of Indiana
soul legend Lonnie Lester.
This concert, offered free of charge
to whomever happened to be at the hospital that day,
was thoroughly appreciated by those of us
who stayed a while, as well as those
who let a smile slip as they hurried on to an appointment.
The unexpected pleasure of Lonnie Lester,
coupled with our walk through the gardens and plaza outside,
made the hospital's stated goal of lifting spirits
and promoting healthful living seem less like marketing
and more like truth.
As we drove away, we enjoyed Rob Ley's parking structure facade,
inspired by camouflage techniques
and composed of thousands of metal panels
that shift in appearance as you pass.
It was then back to our bikes and the Cultural Trail,
which we followed along Virginia Avenue
to experience an artwork by Acconci Studios led
by Vito Acconci, who will never live down
his renown for masturbating underneath the floor of an art
gallery with visitors above in 1972.
Lucky for us, his work has taken a turn for the much less
controversial, and he now leads a studio
that realizes architecture and public space
projects like this one.
In what used to be one of the darkest
and most terrifying passageways in Indy,
there is now Swarm Street, which activates
as you pass through and illuminates thousands
of LED lights embedded in the pavement
and in a framework above.
You not only trace your own path,
but you can see the paths of others generating
either a sense of camaraderie with their fellow passers by
or a helpful signal to pick up your pace.
It was beyond time for lunch when
we made it to Fountain Square and stopped at Wildwood Market
to ogle at all of the goods we couldn't carry with us
and enjoy their delicious sandwich of the day.
With our blood sugar back at a functioning level,
we were ready to see more art and headed
to Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, or IMOKA,
as it's called around here.
They were hosting an exhibition titled Unloaded.
Here at the Murphey Building, as well as at their other location
back near the Alexander, presenting
works by a variety of artists all
in some way exploring the form, image, and impact of guns
in contemporary culture.
Mel Chin's "Cross for the Unforgiven"
drew us in immediately, a Maltese cross
made from cut and welded AK-47 assault rifles.
I also appreciated the dissonance
of medium and subject matter in Stephanie Sy Juco's
crocheted rifle, as well as my very visceral reaction
to Andrew Ellis Johnson's finally detailed sculptural
rendering of the maxim see no evil, hear no evil,
speak no evil.
There's a lot of good work in this show,
demonstrating the bottomless diversity of responses
to a most American of issues.
We then headed upstairs in the Murphy Building,
where you can find an eclectic and changing collection
of artists studios, shops, and arcade, and music venues.
We were there to pay a visit to the tiny and mysterious Museum
of Psychphonics, which occupies a small nook and contains,
among other curiosities, a spaceship prop that was once
part of Parliament Funkadelic's Mothership Connection stage
show.
The museum is the brainchild of a group of local artists
and musicians aiming to make a place that
explores the interconnectedness of music, mystery,
spiritual realms, pop culture, sci-fi, and the extraordinary.
It's exactly the kind of specific oddity
that a bland leaning, chain restaurant
loving city like Indianapolis needs.
While there, we also ducked into People
for Urban Progress, an excellent nonprofit organization that
rescues discarded materials and redesigns them
for public benefit.
This has meant salvaging old stadium seats
and repurposing them at bus stops throughout the city.
And it has also meant finding new uses for the 13
acres of fabric that used to serve
as the roof for the former RCA dome here in town.
I decided it was high time I ditched my saddle backpack,
so I purchased a lovely new drawstring
bag made from dome fabric Super Bowl banner
mesh and reclaimed seatbelts.
Although I did create a new problem
of how to repurpose my old one.
Is there an Art Assignment for that?
Then we made a quick stop across the street
to General Public Collective, an artist run project space
and concept shop, which was then hosting an exhibition called
Mr. Sad Apple Skin Jacket, of amusing and impressive works
by artist Lisa Berlin.
We enjoyed it, but then a sign told us it was OK to exit,
so we did.
Back on our bikes we trekked on to the Garfield Park
neighborhood to visit the new headquarters
for Big Car Collective, who offered us the what,
how, where assignment.
It's called the Tube Factory, and it's
housed in, you guessed it, an old tube factory.
It's a community center as well as an exhibition space,
and we caught the tail end of Detroit
based artist Scott Hockings show, which was magnificent.
Continuing the repurposing theme of the day,
Hocking's exhibition brought together
materials found in a building that was once an RCA factory,
and was most recently a recycling plant.
It was filled with materials that
had been left there unrecycled until Hocking
came along and spent weeks sorting through them
and arranging selections of them in the tube factory space.
Massive hunks of burned Styrofoam
form a mountain in the far end of the main gallery,
and on the surrounding walls are mounted enthralling
multi-hued plastic blobs.
Artists spent hours, days, months, and years
pursuing the kind of formal and textural effects created here
through the accident of industrial waste.
Hocking brings it together with brilliant economy.
Big Car is developing several buildings on this block,
including the sound art space Listen
Hear, which was still hosting Pablo Helguera's "Libreria
Donceles," when we filmed the assignment Combinatory Play
earlier in the year.
By this point, we were beat, so we biked to the nearest drop
off point, and once again took comfort
in Mark's gas powered ride.
We drove north and stopped by our favorite periodical shop
Printtext, run by Benjamin and Janneane Blevins.
They've hosted a series of exhibitions here organized
by curatorial collective AM called Syntax Season,
featuring artists whose practices
engage in various kinds of language games.
We were there for the month show with Jesse Malmed, whose show
included daily called in excerpts from late night talk
shows, as well as a theme song that plays out
of a standing microphone.
The light and our spirits were fading,
but we revived with iced coffee as Open Society
and decided to end our day at 100 Acres, the art and nature
park adjacent to the main campus of the Indianapolis
Museum of Art.
Full disclosure, I am the opposite of objective
about this particular space since I
dedicated six years of my life to working for this museum
and had a hand in the creation of the park.
It opened in 2010, and the whole idea of this place
is to reconsider what an art park is supposed to be and do.
Called 100 Acres because it occupies 100 acres, the park
features site specific installations,
a visitor center designed by architect Marlin Blackwell,
and a series of pathways designed to guide visitors
through a landscape much less tamed than most museum parks.
The works here were created by artists
from all over the world, each of whom
had vastly different approaches to their contributions.
Very little in the way of text is provided on site,
as you're meant to interact with what you find and seek answers
online or in brochures, if you're so inclined.
I've had the privilege of getting
to know this park over the course of many years,
before there was art here, walking through it
with artists on site visits, and as construction unfolded.
And now after, as it's become a valued refuge in the city.
So, yes, I am biased toward it, but isn't that
always the case in the place where you live?
The longer you're there, the more
ties you have to the people and places
and objects that inhabit it.
So I couldn't look at this city with clear eyes,
but I did have a great day within it.
I spent time with a friend, explored life
without a car in this car dependent city,
upped my backpack game considerably,
and despite having visited all of these places before,
still had surprises along the way.
After it was over, I realized nearly everything we visited
had been created within the past 10 years, which
made me equal parts grateful for this city's present and hopeful
for its future.
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