The beautiful Indianapolis Museum of Art is where to find the Fairbanks Art and Nature Park that is one of the largest museum art parks in the country. What makes this art park even more unique is that it is the only one to feature the ongoing commission of site-specific artworks. The Art & Nature Park site is also bordered by the White River and runs contiguous to the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s current 52-acre campus, a large portion of which is comprised of historic landscapes and gardens.
One of the works
of art to be featured within the Fairbanks Art & Nature Park is Eden II - Tea
Mäkipää: Mäkipää is creating a sculptural profile of a large, dark ship emerging
from the lake in 100 Acres. The ship’s name, Eden II, is painted on each side.
An unexpected sight in the idyllic natural environment of the Park, the ship is
a modern-day ark seemingly filled with human passengers from an unknown
homeland.
A guard house on the shore nearby will allow visitors views of
Eden II and access to footage of the ship’s passengers, imagined as refugees
displaced by the ecological impact of climate change. Eden II will function as
an anomalous and thought-provoking vision in the Park, a curious and forewarning
presence that brings the crises of the wider world to this corner of
Indianapolis.
The architecture of the visitors pavilion at the Fairbanks
Art & Nature Park was inspired by a deteriorating leaf. Parents can point to the
ceiling that was designed with alternating planks of wood and acrylic allowing
sun to shine through and explain the architect's vision of sun gleaming through
the veins of a leaf. And what kid wouldn’t giggle with glee at the chance to sit
on “Funky Bones”.
Don’t worry, these skeletal pieces of art are not of
the human variety. It is actually a grouping of 20 benches that will form the
shape of an enormous skeleton when looking at it from above.Atelier Van Lieshout,
Kendall Buster, Alfredo Jaar, Jeppe Hein, Los Carpinteros, Tea Mäkipää, Type A,
and Andrea Zittel, will create temporary, site-specific works that explore and
respond to the varied environments of the Park. These eight artists will be the
first in a series of ongoing commissions.
Encompassing 152 acres of
gardens and grounds, the Indianapolis Museum of Art is among the 10 largest
encyclopedic art museums in the United States, and features significant
collections of African, American, Asian, European and contemporary art, as well
as a newly established collection of design arts. The IMA offers visitors an
expansive view of arts and culture through its collection of more than 54,000
works of art that span 5,000 years of history from across the world’s
continents. The collections include paintings, sculpture, furniture and design
objects, prints, drawings and photographs, as well as textiles and costumes.
Come discover your art at the the Indianapolis Museum of Art and Lilly
House, which are located at 4000 Michigan Road in Indianapolis. Both are are
open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday and Friday, 11 a.m.
to 9 p.m.; and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. The IMA is closed Mondays and
Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s days.
By Melody Schubert
Getting There:
To learn more about present and upcoming exhibits, events, the summer evening movie series and the artists within the beautiful Fairbanks Art & Nature Park visit www.imamuseum.org.