INDY'S WEEKLY ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTING ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Herron’s other retrospective

Like all cultural institutions, Herron Gallery at Herron School of Art has lived its ups and downs, had its days in the limelight and days of repose. Taking a look at the gallery over the course of the past 25 years, I can look at this trajectory fondly, having lived here for all of them — and written about them for the past decade. What is most impressive is that Herron Gallery, even in its downtimes, always found a way to persist, despite the climate of arts funding, despite the transitions between directors, despite whatever internal tensions may have occurred among the dean, the school faculty, the volunteers and the curators.

A retrospective exhibition of Herron Gallery exhibitions, Some Things Happening, on view at the Indiana State Museum, is testament not only to Herron Gallery’s contributions to the life of contemporary art in Indianapolis (often the gallery was the only place in town where it was alive and well), but it also reflects that Indianapolis has surpassed its reputation as a culturally backwards Midwestern city. Over the years, Herron Gallery has exhibited the works of Dennis Oppenheim, James Turrell, Donald Lipski, Jenny Holzer, Christo, Adrian Piper, Guerrilla Girls, Frances Whitehead, Gladys Nilsson, Robert Colescott, Buzz Spector, Alison Saar, Chuck Close, Christina Rambert, Vija Celmins and numerous others, either affiliated with Herron as faculty or former students and/or well-known throughout the Midwest or nation. Works by these artists are combined in Some Things Happening to create an impressive retrospective honoring the gallery as well as its curators: Carol Adney, Martha Winans Slaughter, the late Robert Roman, Liese Hilgeman and current curator David Russick.

It’s not just the names that Herron brought in, although many of these are impressive. It’s the dedication to supplementing one of the Midwest’s finest art schools and yet standing alone as a non-commercial contemporary art gallery, a smaller and lesser funded version, you might say, of the Whitney in New York or the Walker in Minneapolis. Today, Indianapolis can boast several commercial galleries showing contemporary art, as well as a growing permanent collection at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the world’s largest collection of contemporary Native American art at the Eiteljorg. Even the University of Indianapolis is doing its part to mount shows of regional and sometimes national art. But in the end, Herron may still be the darling of cutting-edge contemporary art. Herron somehow perseveres, and with the opening of Herron School of Art’s new home at 735 New York St., a bird’s-eye view across Military Park from the State Museum’s gallery in which the Herron Gallery retrospective now hangs, there’s an expectation of quality and consistency.

They’ve built it, to borrow the cliché; now will they come? Some Things Happening is on view through Sept. 5 at the Indiana State Museum, 650 W. Washington St. Call 232-1637 for information or visit www.in.gov/ism.