Evans Woollen: The Art of Architecture
by Dan GrossmanArticle Tools
- Dan Grossman
- The Marks-Vriesman house, 1958, by Evans Woollen.
Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (iMOCA)
Three stars
If you've ever been in the atrium of the recently expanded Central Library and haven't been impressed by the curving steel arches that seem to hold up the sky above you, then it's not likely you'd be impressed by anything at all in the way of architecture. Evans Woollen is the architect behind the Central Library addition and it's his six-decade-long career that iMOCA is celebrating in its current show. Particularly in the public buildings that Woolen has constructed over the past half-century, and sometimes in his private residences as well, you can see a sort of dialogue that he creates between his buildings and their surroundings. You can experience this dialogue firsthand by entering the old Central Library's reading rooms directly from the new atrium, for example, and it may feel as if you're stepping back 50 years in time. While there are fine photographs of the Central Library and his other renowned projects in this show (Woollen is also the architect behind Clowes Hall and the Milton-Capehart Federal Building), there isn't anything in the way of raw sketches or illustrations of his major public projects. I certainly would've liked to see this stuff to get a sense of how his projects evolve from idea to finished building. Also on display as part of this show upstairs in the Big Car/Mount Comfort Gallery (also in the Murphy Building) are 12 abstract paintings by Woollen featuring various geometric shapes in bold colors. "Woollen thinks about art the same way he thinks about architecture," says curator Brandon Judkins. But I didn't find these paintings to be either engaging or particularly well-executed. Is it a strange paradox that I found the paintings of this architect, who I admire so much for his poetry set in stone, to be so prosaic? Through July 24; 317-634-6622, www.indyMOCA.org.
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