Indianapolis Museum of Art

ARTE CLUB Latin America is composed of more than twenty countries, each with distinct traditions and histories. Too often, though, Latino culture is perceived as a monolith, but individual Latinos respond to questions concerning the meaning of their identity in ways as varied as the region itself. Arte Club is intended to start the conversation about the complexity and multiplicity in Latino identity. This exhibition showcases artists of varying nationalities and artistic practice, and the works shown here demonstrate the wide range of talent and voices that make the Latino community so rich. Arte Club provides a stage for these artists to define their Latinidad and be proud of their heritage.

The Indiana Mexican Latino Artists Network is an initiative by Arte Mexicano en Indiana.

Latinoamérica está compuesta de más de veinte países, cada uno con tradiciones e historias distintas. Sin embargo la cultura Latina se percibe como un monolito, pero cada Latino describe su identidad en maneras igual de diversas como la región. La intención de Arte Club es empezar el diálogo sobre la complejidad y multiplicidad de la identidad latina. La exposición muestra artistas de diferentes nacionalidades y prácticas artísticas, y las obras de arte muestran la amplia gama del talento y voces que enriquecen la comunidad Latina. Arte Club ofrece un escenario a estos artistas para definir su latinidad y mostrar su orgullo por su herencia.

Indiana Mexican Latino Artists Network es una iniciativa por Arte Mexicano en Indiana.

In Newfields’ newest exhibition, Bold: New Voices in Contemporary Art, guests will discover thirteen works from the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields that highlight our ever expanding and globally relevant contemporary art collection. Featured in the exhibition are several newly acquired works from cutting-edge contemporary African artists including Wole Lagunju, Turiya Magadlela and Kimathi Mafafo. The artists in the exhibition push the boundaries of traditional painting, moving beyond oil and acrylic to create dynamic works that incorporate textiles, found objects, digital imagery, and handmade materials in electrifying unconventional compositions. 

In addition to nine works on view for the first time, the exhibition features beloved favorites from the collection including Vaughn Spann’s Rover, Carlos Rolón’s The person I was becoming and Samuel Levi Jones’ multi-medium piece, Untitled (2019). 
 
Bold presents an awe-inspiring line up of artworks and offers guests a deeper look into the artists behind them and while celebrating the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s boldly evolving contemporary art collection and its commitment toward a global, inclusive, relevant future. 

In honor of J.M.W. Turner’s 250th birthday, Newfields presents Luminous Horizons: Celebrating the Legacy of J.M.W. Turner, with works from The Indianapolis Museum of Art's important Turner collection.

Turner remains one of the most influential artists in history, revolutionizing landscape painting as a genre. His expressive brushwork laid the groundwork for the development of modernism, and he was among a group of artists who turned watercolor into a standalone art form. Luminous Horizons will present 17 landscape watercolors and drawings by Turner.

The museum began collecting watercolors by Turner and his contemporaries over a century ago, but its current scope and renown is due to the efforts of Kurt F. Pantzer (1892–1979), an Indianapolis attorney and collector who was devoted to all things related to Turner.

This exhibition is curated by Anna Stein, Associate Curator of Works on Paper.

Discover Artists Among Us: Season Four at Newfields, showcasing the diverse talents of our team members. This ongoing exhibition features a wide range of media, including paintings, sculptures, textiles, and more. Get a glimpse into the creativity and passion that drive the people behind Newfields' exhibitions and programs.

Resplendent Dreams: Reawakening the Rococo showcases work from three contemporary queer artists—Robert Horvath, Diego Montoya, and Anthony Sonnenberg—who were influenced by the Rococo period, a movement in European art, architecture, and design that developed over the first half of the 1700s. The artists draw on the Rococo period’s sense of frivolity and extravagance to create extravagant contemporary pieces, demonstrating how the past continues to resonate with their concerns and sensibilities today.

Guests will be captivated by a broad range of media and artistic practices, including an immersive watercolor room by Robert Horvath inspired by Rococo palace interiors, ceramic sculptures by Anthony Sonnenberg, and extraordinary gowns from Diego Montoya, who is known for his Emmy Award-winning designs for We’re Here and RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Outside, The Garden at Newfields takes inspiration from the Rococo period’s playful, opulent ornamentation in its summer plantings.

Beginning this summer, guests will be welcomed to the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion by larger-than-life dandelion suspended from above. The newly commissioned sculpture, Black Dandelion by Kori Newkirk plays with scale, light, and shadow on a familiar object to prompt guests to reconsider the beauty of the overlooked.  

Black Dandelion belongs to everyone who passes through, just as the familiar dandelion belongs to all the kinds of spaces which inspired Newkirk during his visit to Indianapolis—from the manicured gardens and lawns of Newfields and Crown Hill Cemetery to the parking lots of the nearby International Marketplace businesses and the yards of Butler-Tarkington homes. He transformed this humble yet resilient plant into an art experience with sparkling light and impenetrable shadow, or the seen and unseen. 

Be transported to the other side of the world at THE LUME Indianapolis featuring Connection: Land, Water, Sky – Art & Music from Indigenous Australians in this stunning exhibition that features 100 contemporary Indigenous Australian artists.

Through the interplay of art and music, Connection welcomes you to Country – the Indigenous Australian worldview that everything living is connected.

The themes of land, water and sky take us on a journey through Australia, where over 500 paintings, stories and photographs come together to create a singular experience celebrating the oldest continuous tradition of art-making in the world. Set to a score of Indigenous Australian music, Connection comes to life with a powerful soundtrack comprised of both legends and modern musicians.

Ellsworth Kelly’s eleven Panels will transform Davis Lab into a dynamic exploration of color, form, and perception. A pioneer of hard-edge abstraction, Kelly sought to distill visual experience into its purest elements, using bold geometric shapes and vibrant hues to activate space. His practice, rooted in observations of nature and architecture, embraced chance and intuition, resulting in compositions that engage the viewer’s movement and spatial awareness.

Kelly’s influence extended beyond his own work, shaping the trajectory of postwar American art. His close relationship with Robert Indiana, another key figure in the rise of geometric abstraction, was instrumental in the creation of Indiana’s iconic LOVE sculptures. Indiana credited Kelly’s insistence on pure color and form as a defining inspiration for the stacked letter composition, which would become one of the most recognizable images in contemporary art. In this installation, Kelly’s panels resonate with that legacy, emphasizing the power of abstraction to transform space, perception, and meaning helping us celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the IMA’s most important acquisitions.

The Message is the Medium: Contemporary Art is now open featuring contemporary pieces from the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s permanent collection.

The Message is the Medium traces the evolution of contemporary art history from the early 20th century through today, with an emphasis on experimental works beyond painting and sculpture. Guests will see how contemporary artists innovate with new media, expanding the possibilities of art beyond historical categories.

The exhibition embraces the boundary-pushing spirit of contemporary art and will delight guests from the casual viewer to fanatics of the contemporary collection at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The exhibition will be on view in the Allen Whitehill Clowes Special Exhibition Space through 2026.

The Message is the Medium: Contemporary Art is curated by Michael Vetter, PhD, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at Newfields.

Immerse yourself amongst Japanese and Korean art treasures while learning about cultural interactions and influences and the importance of tradition and family lineage to artistic production. Ponder technical and stylistic innovations while examining contemporary and centuries-old artworks side by side.

This long-awaited reopening of the Asian art galleries will feature Japanese and Korean art from the IMA at Newfields' permanent collection. Highlights include paintings, ceramics, lacquerware, and metalwork, and with this refreshed gallery space come new works on view for the first time.

Be sure to visit exciting new acquisitions including a beautiful pair of folding screens by Mochizuki Gyokusen titled Geese and Reeds in Snow; an engaging sculptural piece titled Composite Memories by Japan's foremost female ceramicist, Kishi Eiko; a marvelous thirteenth-century celadon bowl from Korea's Goryeo dynasty (935–1392 CE); and the amazing fittings for a pair of long and short samurai swords.

The Indianapolis Museum of Art welcomes visitors to the Clowes Pavilion, newly reimagined after a multi-year renovation, 50 years after its inaugural opening date. The reinstalled space includes a state-of-the-art LED ceiling that evokes an outdoor space in the heart of the museum, surrounded by beloved works from the Clowes Collection. Favorites like Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait and the Raphael-designed tapestry The Miraculous Draught of Fishes are shown alongside objects from other parts of the IMA’s permanent collection, such as Duvor (Communal Cloth) by the Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui. The nearly 100 objects on view offer a fresh new perspective on significant social and art historical themes throughout the ages and are interspersed with innovative and engaging teaching elements.

The human form has been depicted in art for the past 40,000 years—over 30,000 years before the first known cities and written languages were developed. The universal impulse across time and culture to draw, paint, sculpt, and adapt our likenesses lies in art’s power to help us understand ourselves and our relationships to each other. Drawn from the Museum’s global collections, Embodied: Human Figures in Art addresses some of the countless motivations behind the artworks that depict our bodies and the garments that augment them. This exhibition features works from four continents that span nearly 4,000 years, and through themes including power, beauty, identity, gender, and remembrance, examines how representations of people in art allow us to explore what it means to be human.
Embodied: Human Figures in Art will be on view on Floor 2 and is the first of many reimagined permanent collection displays that will transform how guests experience art inside the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.

Work in Progress: Conversations about American Art is a refreshed installation of art from the United States on Floor 2 of the IMA Galleries which will provide new context to how artists, critics, and the public approached American art for over 200 years. The displays explore the limitations of visual art as a means of understanding United States history and culture, while incorporating stories that weren’t always included in historical American art.

The updated galleries will include several pieces from the museum’s beloved contemporary collection including works by Thornton Dial, Kara Walker, and Joan Mitchell, juxtaposed with historical objects. While the majority of this installation is currently comprised of work by artists with European heritage, this installation is a first step in telling more inclusive stories.

Sharing new stories means changing how we work and whose voices we include in the museum. As part of the reimagining of these galleries, the Indianapolis Museum of Art decenters the traditional curatorial voice and includes voices of people with various lived experiences. In order to accomplish this, staff reached out to several individuals from the Indianapolis area to create content around the artworks on display. While the updated interpretation brings in historical stories, the group—collectively calling themselves Looking Glass Alliance participants—brings both historic and contemporary experiences not previously told at the IMA.