TOURS
Permanent Collection Tours
The IMA offers free, regularly scheduled tours of the IMA’s permanent collection for all visitors Tuesday through Saturday at 1 p.m.; Fridays and Sundays at 2:30 p.m.; and Thursdays at 7 p.m. ASL interpreted tours occur each month on the second Thursday at 7 p.m. and third Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Tours meet on the second floor near the Welcome Center. Assistive listening devices are available by request. For a schedule of upcoming public tour topics, visit: www.imamuseum.org/programs/
Special Exhibition Tours
Special exhibition tours of Beauty and Belief: Crossing Bridges with the Arts of Islamic Culture are available with exhibition admission. Times vary. For a schedule of upcoming tours, visit: www.imamuseum.org/programs/
Family Tours
Saturdays, December 8 and 22
1:30 and 2:30 p.m.
Meet on the second floor near the Welcome Center
Free
The IMA offers free, 30-minute gallery tours for families with children of all ages on the second and fourth Saturday of each month.
Lilly House Tours
Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays
2 p.m.
Meet in the Lilly House lower level lobby
Free
The IMA offers free, regularly scheduled tours of Lilly House, the American Country Place Era home of the late Indianapolis businessman, philanthropist and collector J. K. Lilly, Jr.
Meditation Hikes
Every Friday
5:30-6:30 p.m.
Meet at the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion
Free
Each Friday, the IMA is the site of Meditation Peace Hikes facilitated by Global Peace Initiatives. In the spirit of mindfulness, the hikes move through the IMA’s grounds, gardens, or 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park, sometimes in silence and sometimes with dialogue. Hikes occur regardless of the weather. Tours depart promptly at 5:30 p.m. For more information, visit globalpeaceinitiatives.net.
EXHIBITIONS
Graphite
December 7, 2012 – April 7, 2013
11 a.m.–5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays
11 a.m.–9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays
Noon–5 p.m. Sundays
McCormack Forefront Galleries
Free
Graphite is a naturally occurring mineral as well as a synthetic, industrial product that can be processed in multiple ways. This exhibition brings together recent artworks that reveal the material’s potential to take a variety of forms while also yielding a wide range of visual effects. Carvings, powder, liquid, lumps, sticks and pencils are just a few ways the material can be presented. The first major museum exhibition to explore graphite as a medium in works beyond drawings, Graphite includes sculpture, drawing, and installation works created over the past decade—including several newly commissioned works—by emerging and established contemporary artists. Artists in the exhibition include: Carl Andre, Judith Braun, TR Ericsson, Dan Fischer, Roland Flexner, Michaela Früwirth, Karl Haendel, Joyce Hinterding, Christian Holstad, Kim Jones, Robert Longo, Adam McEwen, Geof Oppenheimer, Dan Shaw-Town and Molly Springfield.
Lauren Zoll: Something is
Through April 14, 2013
11 a.m.–5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays
11 a.m.–9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays
Noon–5 p.m. Sundays
Carmen & Mark Holeman Gallery
Free
Something is features a newly commissioned body of work by Indianapolis-based emerging artist Lauren Zoll that explores the intersections of painting and video. Numerous large-scale paintings, videos and a collage affixed directly to the gallery wall will form an immersive and variable installation. Something is proposes an open-ended investigation—the title itself is the start of a phrase to be completed by exhibition visitors as they interpret the changing and foreign environment of the installation within the gallery.
Beauty and Belief: Crossing Bridges with the Arts of Islamic Culture
Through January 13, 2013
11 a.m.–5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays
11 a.m.–9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays
Noon–5 p.m. Sundays
Allen Whitehill Clowes Special Exhibition Gallery
$12 Adults, $6 Children 7-17, Free for IMA members and children under 6
Beauty and Belief: Crossing Bridges with the Arts of Islamic Culture brings to life the story of art created in the societies fostered by Islam, including objects from the seventh century to present day. The exhibition features more than 250 objects—including calligraphy, ceramics, paintings, woodcarvings, and textiles—that not only address what defines Islamic art, but also offer an overview of Islamic culture throughout history. Pieces in the exhibition would have been used and cherished in the homes of royalty as well as those created for modest levels of society. The exhibition draws heavily from collections across the United States as well as many other countries such as Kuwait, Great Britain, France, Denmark, Morocco and Italy. Some of the artworks will be seen for the first time in the United States, and the exhibition will be the first time this range of objects can be seen in one place.
Organized by the Brigham Young University Art Museum, Beauty and Belief is supported by a major grant from The Institute of Museum and Library Services, grants from The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities as well as a number of private donors. Public programming at the IMA made possible by a grant from the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art.
MOLA: Kuna Needle Arts from the San Blas Islands, Panama
Through April 28, 2013
11 a.m.–5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays
11 a.m.–9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays
Noon–5 p.m. Sundays
IMA Alliance Gallery
Free
In 2008, a collection of more than 350 molas was donated to the IMA by Irene Hollister, whose late husband, Paul Hollister – a writer, lecturer, painter and photographer – collected them in the 1960s and 1970s. Living in New Hampshire, Hollister sought out the IMA from her research of textile collections. The molas represent the textile arts of the Kuna Indians, the indigenous people of Panama and Columbia. The Kuna are famous for their bright, colorful and meticulously appliquéd textiles, which adorn the front and back of Kuna women’s blouses. MOLA: Kuna Needle Arts from the San Blas Islands, Panama includes a selection of about 50 of the finest molas from the Museum’s collection. Ranging in date from the early 1900s to the 1970s, the molas represent a myriad of motifs and designs.
Musha-e: Japanese Warrior Prints
Closes December 2
11 a.m.–5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays
11 a.m.–9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays
Noon–5 p.m. Sundays
Appel Gallery
Free
Power and visual strength of imagery combined with tales of honor and heroism were highly popular among the people of the Edo period. This exhibition features examples from a genre called musha-e, or “warrior prints,” which depicted armored samurai in battle scenes and other historical or legendary settings. Popular literature and theater contributed to the blending of fact and fiction in these prints, creating fantastic figures much larger than life. Utagawa Kuniyoshi brought the genre to its pinnacle of popularity—as indicated by his nickname,musha-e no Kuniyoshi, or “Kuniyoshi of the Warrior Prints.” Four works by Kuniyoshi and one by his student Yoshitora are included. The exhibition also highlights works by such popular artists as Hokusai, Toyokuni I, Kunisada (Toyokuni III), Koryūsai and Shunzan in a variety of formats that include book illustrations, pillar prints and triptychs in addition to the standard size (ōban) woodblock.
William Hogarth: The Painter of Comic History
Through June 2, 2013
11 a.m.–5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays
11 a.m.–9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays
Noon–5 p.m. Sundays
Conant Galleries
Free
William Hogarth (1697–1764) was born in London and rarely strayed beyond its precincts. Hogarth’s London, overcrowded with a million people, raucous and bawdy, provided a limitless source of subjects for his observant eye and sharp wit. His first satirical engravings appeared at the age of 24 in which “the then reigning follies are lashd,” and he continued in that vein, revealing the foibles of all strata of English society, for forty years. His print cycles—A Harlot’s Progress, A Rake’s Progress and Marriage à la Mode—made Hogarth the artistic parallel to his contemporary literary satirists, Henry Fielding and Jonathan Swift. Serving as his own designer, engraver, publisher and advertiser, and selling his prints inexpensively from his own shop, Hogarth reached the broadest possible audience, was by far the most popular artist of his day and was the first truly English artist. William Hogarth: The Painter of Comic History features Hogarth’s 57 most-noted engravings, drawn from the IMA’s permanent collection—proving that even after 250 years, Hogarth remains a knowing observer of human behavior.
An American Legacy: Norell, Blass, Halston and Sprouse
Through January 27, 2013
11 a.m.–5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays
11 a.m.–9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays
Noon–5 p.m. Sundays
Gerald and Dorit Paul Galleries
Free
An American Legacy: Norell, Blass, Halston & Sprouse highlights the achievements and celebrated fashion designs of Norman Norell, Bill Blass, Stephen Sprouse and Halston, all of whom hailed from Indiana. Spanning more than 50 years of fashion history, the exhibition presents the work of four innovative designers, their individual styles and lasting influence on American fashion. The exhibition features 51 garments drawn from the IMA’s comprehensive collection, augmented with major loans from the archives of Stephen Sprouse. Established in 1973 with the donation of five pieces from the estate of Norman Norell, the IMA’s American fashion design collection now comprises more than 500 pieces from Norell, Blass and Halston alone, one of the largest of its kind in the country. An American Legacy is the first group exhibition devoted to these prolific Indiana designers, whose work came to define true American style.
Alyson Shotz: Fluid State
Through January 6, 2013
11 a.m.–5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays
11 a.m.–9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays
Noon–5 p.m. Sundays
Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion
Free
Artist Alyson Shotz creates sculptures and installations that explore the basic elements of the physical world—light, gravity and space—using commonplace and industrial materials such as piano wire, glass beads, straight pins and mirrors. Geometry of Light is Shotz’s response to the question: “What would it look like to see light stopped in time?” The work is composed of circular forms hand-cut from plastic Fresnel lenses (magnifying lenses ridged with concentric circles to focus light), which Shotz has strung on stainless steel wire and interspersed with silvered glass beads. This exhibition marks the U.S. premiere of Shotz’s digital animation Fluid State (2011-2012), created in collaboration with animator Todd Akita, with a newly created sound track by composer Simon Fisher Turner. Additionally, Shotz created a new series of large-scale stills captured from the animation, which are printed on graphic film and attached to a series of panels on the walls of the Entrance Pavilion. The sequence of stills from Fluid State creates a kind of time lapse landscape image that wraps around the space.
FILMS
New Cinema from the Middle East: The White Meadows
Saturday, December 8
1 p.m.
DeBoest Lecture Hall
$5 public, $3 IMA members
(2009, dir. Mohammad Rasoulof, 92 mins., NR)
Sample a selection of films that take the cultural pulse of the Middle East. Films are shown in conjunction with the exhibition Beauty and Belief: Crossing Bridges with the Arts of Islamic Culture.
The White Meadows is worth seeing if only to witness the filmmaker’s impressive display of courage: both the film’s director Mohammad Rasoulof, and collaborator film editor and director Jafar Panahi, were arrested and sentenced to six years in prison in December 2010 for their work. But the film itself, incredibly rich in allegory to dodge censors looking for blatant critique of Iran’s political situation, is also filled with beautiful and fascinating imagery. The dreamlike film chronicles the journey of Rahmat, who sets out on his boat to collect the tears of the grief-stricken. Although Rasoulof employs indigenous folklore to frame his social commentary, the film succeeds in tapping into viewers’ familiarity with the universal and multifaceted nature of humankind’s frailty and irrationality.
This film is part of the series New Cinema from the Middle East, presented in conjunction with the exhibition Beauty & Belief: Crossing Bridges with the Arts of Islamic Culture; made possible by a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Other films in the series included: Noises of Cairo (November 3), and Koran by Heart (November 17).
World AIDS Day: How to Survive a Plague
Saturday, December 1
2 p.m.
The Toby
$9 public, $5 IMA members
(2012, dir. David France, 109 mins., USA)
Silence = Death is one of the most powerful and recognizable phrases from the 1980s. During a time when the very mention of AIDS created waves of terror and an HIV diagnosis was seen as a certain death sentence, two coalitions – ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group) – rose up to fight fear with research and action. These courageous activists took on the federal government, the pharmaceutical industry and an uninformed public to demand and help find a cure. Packing an emotional wallop with stirring interviews and riveting archival footage, How to Survive a Plague stands as an essential document of the battle to find an effective treatment for HIV. Co-presented by Indianapolis LGBT Film Festival.
Beauty is Embarrassing
Thursday, December 27, 4 p.m.
Friday, December 28, 7 p.m.
Saturday, December 29, 1 p.m.
The Toby
$9 public, $5 IMA members
(2012, dir. Neil Berkeley, 88 mins., USA)
Beauty Is Embarrassing is an irreverent documentary on the life and times of artist Wayne White—cartoonist, puppeteer, artist and folk hero. Raised in the mountains of Tennessee, White found success as one of the creators of the TV show Pee-wee’s Playhouse. His sardonic pastiche paintings then made him the darling of the fine art world. Beauty Is Embarrassing chronicles the vaulted highs and the crushing lows of a commercial artist struggling to find balance. Whether he’s parading a twenty foot tall puppet through the Tennessee hillside, romping around Hollywood in his LBJ puppet suit or watching his children grow up much too soon, Wayne White life is a lesson in passion and playfulness. Wired called Beauty Is Embarassing “frantic, sentimental, surreal, and very funny.” Shown in BluRay.
Chasing Ice
Thursday, December 27, 7 p.m.
Friday, December 28, 4 p.m.
Saturday, December 29, 3 p.m.
The Toby
$9 public, $5 IMA members
(2012, dir. Jeff Orlowski, 76 mins., USA)
In 2005, National Geographic photographer James Balog was dispatched to the Arctic on a tricky assignment: to capture images of the Earth’s changing climate. Surpassing skepticism and sparked by the challenge, soon the photographer conceived a bold expedition: the Extreme Ice Survey. With a band of adventurers in tow, Balog deployed 30 time-lapse cameras across the brutal Arctic to condense an epic, multi-year record of the world’s changing glaciers into minutes of film. This documentary of breathtaking beauty follows the indomitable photographer as he faces his own mortality to gather images of Earth’s climate change in action. The film won the Excellence in Cinematography Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Shown in BluRay.
TALKS
Graphite Brown Bag
Friday, December 7
Noon—1 p.m.
Caroline Marmon Fesler Gallery, Level 4
Free; registration required
Join Graphite artist Geof Oppenheimer and David Getsy, Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, for a lunchtime chat about Oppenheimer’s work. Order a boxed lunch from Nourish beforehand or bring your own bag lunch. Limited to 50. Register online at imamuseum.org or call 317-955-2339.
Emerging Voices in Indianapolis Design
Friday, December 14
6 p.m.
DeBoest Lecture Hall
Free
Join members of the IMA Design Arts Society for presentations by local designers who share their recent projects and aesthetic approaches. Presented by the IMA Design Arts Society.
FAMILY ACTIVITIES
Hold It! Family Activity
Saturdays, December 8 and 22
1:30–3:30 p.m.
Welcome Center on Floor 2
Free
Hold it! is a hands-on experience for visitors of all ages facilitated by docents. Discover carts filled with objects everyone can hold and see up close. In November, visit the Art Basics cart containing objects representative of those found in the IMA’s permanent collection. Stop by the Welcome Center on Floor 2 to find out where the Hold It! Family Activity is located on the day of your visit.
Star(lite) Art Cart: Build a Still Life
Saturdays
Noon–4 p.m.
Pulliam Family Great Hall
Free
Stop by the Star(lite) Art Cart to find art-making projects inspired by works of art on view at the IMA. Projects are designed to be accessible and fun for museum visitors of all ages and all levels of art-making experience. This month’s theme is Build a Still Life.Construct a still life using ornate building blocks. Then, create a large drawing of your structure to take home.
Arabic Calligraphy Demos
Sundays, December 2, 9, 16 and 23
2–4 p.m.
Free
Pulliam Great Hall
Meet Herron School of Art and Design’s Instructor of Arabic Calligraphy, Abdalla Ali, as he shares with visitors of all ages the art of Arabic calligraphy. Experience the exhibition, Beauty & Belief: Crossing Bridges with the Arts of Islamic Culture through January 13, 2013.Programming made possible by a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Christmas at Lilly House
Through January 6, 2013
11 a.m.–5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays
Noon–5 p.m. Sundays
Lilly House
Free
Lilly House will be decorated in the holiday style of the 1930s and 1940s, when Christmas cheer often had to overcome Depression-era budgets or wartime shortages. See how familiar motifs such as trees, wreaths and evergreens are enlivened with refreshing touches of new fashions in this historic home.
Christmas at Lilly House Open House
Thursdays, December 6 and 20
5:30–8:30 p.m.
Lilly House and IMA Greenhouse
Free
Hundreds of flickering luminaria in the gardens transform the landscape of Oldfields into a winter wonderland. Visitors can warm up inside Lilly house, an American Country Place-era home, featuring holiday décor from the 1930s and ’40s—and enjoy a hot beverage and pause to hear live seasonal music. At the Madeline F. Elder Greenhouse, attendees can shop for a special gift in a festive atmosphere.
Exhibition Opening: Graphite
Thursday, December 6
7–9 p.m.
McCormack Forefront Galleries
Free
Celebrate the opening of Graphite – the first major museum exhibition to explore graphite as a medium in works beyond drawings. Hip-hop MCs Mr. Kinetik, Tony Styxx, aLLEN iMAGERY will provide freestyle interpretations of the exhibition. Beats by A Squared Industries. Enjoy complimentary snacks and cash bar featuring Sun King beers.
IMA Community Day: Winter Solstice
Thursday, December 20
5p.m.–8:30 p.m.
IMA Grounds
Free
Celebrate the season with IMA’s annual Winter Solstice celebration. Step outside to view the ice carving demonstration, participate in community art-making and test out a drum that lights up as you play. Warm up in the Lilly House with historic holiday decorations and music by Jan Aldridge Clark, and then finish up your shopping at the Greenhouse Shop and Museum Store. Cozy up to the bonfire with hot chocolate and holiday treats available for purchase from Nourish Café. Free parking.
Member Night – Decorating Lilly House
December 6
5:30–9 p.m.
Check-in outside the IMA Store
Free (for IMA members only)
Every second Thursday of the month, bring your friends and family after work to unwind and enjoy all that the IMA has to offer. Stop in at Nourish Café for happy hour and take advantage of your discount. During Member Night, the IMA offers exclusive tours and talks to members and their guests. For the December event, members can learn more about the IMA’s festive tradition, Christmas at Lilly House. For reservations, email membership@imamuseum.org.
GENERAL ADMISSION
Indianapolis Museum of Art: Free
IMA HOURS
- 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays
- 11 a.m.–9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays
- Noon–5 p.m. Sundays
PARKING
Visitors are charged a flat fee of $5 to park in the IMA’s underground garage or in the large surface lot. IMA members receive free parking in the garage or on the large surface lot by showing their IMA membership cards. Visitors who purchase more than $50 worth of merchandise at the Museum Store or the Madeline F. Elder Greenhouse Shop also receive free parking. More than 170 free parking spaces are available in outlying lots at the Museum, including the 100 Acres parking loop.
WEBSITE
For regularly updated information about IMA exhibitions, programs and events, visit imamuseum.org.
