NUVO: Visual Arts: Arts + Entertainment Blog

Crosscurrents at the 2013 Stutz Open House

Dan Grossman — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:36:00 -0400

One complaint about the Stutz that I've offered up in the past is that in some of the studios - if you attend the open house on an annual basis - you'll see the same paintings hanging year after year. I've also noted that some of the less-inspired shows in the Stutz Art Gallery (the Stutz' showcase gallery) have shown the same work by the same artists over and over again.…

Last Fri at Wug's, First Fri at M10 and Litmus

Dan Grossman — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:00:00 -0500

This past First Friday was the last First Friday art show for Wug Laku's Studio & Garage. This gallery, located in the Circle City Industrial Complex, has hosted many of Indy's best artists over the past five years.…

Wine and poses: Figure drawing in Carmel

Dan Grossman — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 15:30:00 -0400

At 7:00 pm, white sheets went up over the windows of the French Bleu Gallery.

Here, in this gallery on Carmel’s Main Street, seven artists met last Tuesday for a three hour session of painting and drawing from a nude model—and for a glass of wine or two.…

Inmates seek to enhance art programming

Susannah Sharpless — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 12:00:00 -0400

Art is flourishing at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Carlisle, Ind., where inmates are creating as a means of self-expression and self-investigation. And if inmates and supporters have their way, it will continue to flourish.…

Review: Katrina Murray at Wug Laku's

Dan Grossman — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 16:00:00 -0400

Katrina Murray lost her son in war, and her new series of paintings is a record of her struggle to come to terms with this loss. She does so through deeply metaphorical work portraying the natural world.…

A Visit to Installation Nation

Dan Grossman — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 17:00:00 -0400

I went to Installation Nation - held last weekend for the first time at Big Car's Service Center, and for the third time overall - hoping to see some great installation art. I wasn't disappointed.…

Scenes from the 2012 Stutz Artists Open House

Dan Grossman — Tue, 01 May 2012 15:23:00 -0400

When I arrived at the Stutz Artists Open House Friday night, the event was already well underway and the ground floor was packed with revelers. Singer Cynthia Layne was on full throttle in Bearcat Alley and other musicians on all four floors were doing their thing.…

Thoughts on a crumbling grain elevator

Dan Grossman — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:32:00 -0400

Walking back to my car from a reading on the Butler campus week, I passed by the deceptively demure box office of Clowes Memorial Hall, one of the signature buildings designed by Hoosier architect Evans Woollen. The elegant, yet unpretentious, functionality of this 50-year-old structure makes it one of Indy's underrated architectural treasures.…

Midwest Fashion Week's The Art of Fashion

Paul F. P. Pogue — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:28:00 -0400

The week-long traveling couture roadshow that is Midwest Fashion Week ran headlong into two-dimensional art Thursday night at the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art for “The Art of Fashion.”

“We wanted to improve fashion in Indiana by combining art with fashion,” said MFW guru Berny Martin at the event’s opening. “Now, fashion is already art, but this was bringing together two specific fields.…

Fun with found objects

Dan Grossman — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:00:00 -0500

“Chairs are not just chairs when they’re broken into components and reassembled,” Wes Janz tells me as we watch a group of students and faculty breaking down steel frame chairs to reassemble them into sculpture. Janz, a professor of architecture at Ball State University, is leading a found object workshop at the Herron School of Art & Design on this Friday morning.…

Fred Wilson sculpture scuttled

David Hoppe — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:28:00 -0500

"E Pluribus Unum," the Fred Wilson sculpture proposed for the City-County Building Plaza as part of the Cultural Trail, will not be built or installed in Indianapolis.

Brian Payne, president and CEO of the Central Indiana Community Foundation and leader of the Cultural Trail project, made this announcement today at a noon press conference at 37 Place (formerly IPS School 37) on the near Eastside.…

Big Car to leave Murphy Art Center

Dan Grossman — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:36:00 -0500

Big Car will close doors on its Murphy Art Center gallery next week, ending a seven-year run during which the organization hosted a variety of programming in the space, including art openings, music performances, film screenings, readings, parties. But they won't drive off under cover of night: Big Car will celebrate its legacy — and preview the road ahead — with a closing party on Wednesday, Dec. 14, from 7-9 p.m.

The Big Car nonprofit organization and collective will live on and continue to serve Indianapolis in multiple ways and in multiple venues, including its recently opened Service Center in Lafayette Square.…

Indianapolis Art Center's ARTSPARK residency

Scott Shoger — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:20:00 -0500

A couple days after the IMA opened up their Indianapolis Island for rent, the Indianapolis Art Center has announced that it will launch a one to two week residency, funded by a $20,000 NEA grant, in its outdoor sculpture park. The lucky artist will create a site-specific permanent or semi-permanent sculpture in the Indianapolis Art Center's ARTSPARK during late summer or fall 2012.…

Apply to live on Indianapolis Island!

Scott Shoger — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:38:00 -0500

We may have called it a "floating trailer park" once upon a time (in Hoppe's review of the opening of the IMA's 100 Acres), but most of us have since come to love Indianapolis Island, Andrea Zittel's 20-foot-diameter living space moored in the 35-acre lake at the center of the 100 Acres grounds. We spent plenty of time with 2011 Indianapolis Island resident Katherine Ball, who spent her residency on the island working a sort of environmental triage on the lake, including her introduction of myco-remediation techniques to try to clean up pollutants.…

Teach the kids well...about Seurat and Chihuly

Katelyn Coyne — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 13:00:00 -0400

Artist, educator and filmmaker Nate Heck first cultivated a taste for visual art in third grade. Now an elementary school art teacher himself, Heck is on a mission to reach similar kids at an impressionable young age — perhaps, with an episode of his TV show about the Impressionists.…

Anderson steps down as IMA CEO

Scott Shoger — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:58:00 -0400

The Indianapolis Museum of Art announced today that its CEO and director, Maxwell L. Anderson, will vacate his position December 31. Anderson has been appointed the director of the Dallas Museum of Art, a position that he will assume Jan. 9, 2012.…

Video: A Taste of First Friday

Chris Pennell — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 09:30:00 -0400

October's First Friday was a massive event. Take a look at a small selection of galleries and expositions from Indy artists at the Harrison Center and beyond.…

Art Center announces McKinney Fellowship winner

Rachel Hollingsworth — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 07:30:00 -0400

The Indianapolis Art Center, in conjunction with the Robert McKinney family, presented the first-ever Skip McKinney Faculty of the Year Fellowship this week. The award was presented to Art Center faculty member Sofiya Inger.

The $20,000 fellowship awards an Art Center faculty member who exhibits a high degree of excellence in artistic talent, community building and teaching prowess.…

Video: Brian McCutcheon's 'Out of This World'

Chris Pennell — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:00:00 -0400

Brian McCutcheon has a new gallery and installation at the Indianapolis Museum of Art detailing his transformation and journey with his son through images of the 1960's space program and hot-rod culture. He talks with NUVO about how he approaches his art and how Indianapolis inspired him.…

FoodCon II at the Harrison Center

Jim Poyser — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 09:52:00 -0400

This First Friday event was — to my experience — the most massive and complex and wondrous Harrison Center event of all time.

The outdoor tent featured all-things-local-food, from beekeeping to chicken-raising to gourmet marshmallows.…

Naplab gives Indy neighborhoods a map

Dan Grossman — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 07:30:00 -0400

Newscasters don’t usually refer to particular Indy neighborhoods by name when they talk about the incidents and events that happen within their boundaries. Instead, they use designations like “Indy’s Near Eastside” that tend to be overly broad.…

Slideshow: Shelby Kelley's Revolucionary art

Dan Grossman — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 13:00:00 -0400

You may recall the murals in the La Bamba restaurant in Broad Ripple before they were painted over and replaced by sober looking early 20th Century photos of Mexican villagers. Since then, the interior of La Bamba’s been a lot more, well, sober.…

Slideshow: IndyFringe's Mass Ave unveiling

Daniel Axler — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 14:00:00 -0400

As is traditional with Indy Fringe Festival, a work of art is created by a local artist to hang in the Mass Ave Lightbox on the corners of St. Clair, College Avenue and Mass Ave. This year’s work, by William Denton Ray, was unveiled on Friday at 9 p.m., with dozens of Fringe and First Friday revelers in attendance. Among the delights were beer by Flat 12 and fire dancing and, of course, conversations that anticipated this year’s Fringe Festival, beginning Aug. 19.…

First Friday Field Guide: July

Carrie Gavit — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:16:00 -0400

Start your Fourth of July weekend by celebrating and supporting local Indy artists at this month's First Friday events. Come out from 5-9 p.m. to see, and hear, a variety of exhibitions and collections.…

Report from Venice: IMA's Venice Biennale

Flounder Lee — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:07:00 -0400

Opening weekend of the Venice Biennale is a pilgrimage for art aficionados. Once every two years the art world floods this city of canals to see what work each country has to offer.…