Indianapolis Museum of Art

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.

As a leading printmaker of the twentieth century, German artist Käthe Kollwitz advocated for social change through her images of grief, poverty, uprising, and the effects of war. Käthe Kollwitz: Visions of Solidarity and Resilience examines the life, artwork, and technical skill of Kollwitz through the IMA’s diverse range of prints by the artist, spanning the early and later years of her work. Inspired by events from Germany’s past as well as her own experiences with loss and political turmoil during World Wars I and II, Kollwitz’s compelling subject matter continues to appeal to audiences of today through her expressive style and mastery of printmaking.

Beginning this summer, guests will be welcomed into the Indianapolis Museum of Art by a newly commissioned piece from artist Shinique Smith. Smith’s multi-sensory installation will be suspended in the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion and will combine banners of printed and painted textiles, found objects, and the sounds of racing, speed and motion. Using her signature calligraphic and gestural style, this site-specific piece underscores Smith’s wonder at the depth and breadth of Indianapolis’s racing history, and the fashions and patterns surrounding speedways and pathways to freedom. Torque is inspired by the city’s central role in the world of motorsports while acknowledging the history of segregation in racing on the 100th anniversary of the Gold and Glory Sweepstakes at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.

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 2024.

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

Welcome home! The long-awaited exhibition Home Again features three brand-new sculptures centered around the notion of home and shelter. Brooklyn-based artist Heather Hart’s canary yellow interactive rooftop Oracle of Intimation appears as if it has fallen from the sky. Climb through the windows, make the roof your stage, and catch spontaneous and planned performances, workshops, and community discussions on and near the sculpture. Art and nature collide in the Pollinator Pavilion by New York-based artists Mark Dion and Dana Sherwood. The colorful gazebo is designed for humans and insects alike to slow down and become part of nature. Pakistan-born, Indianapolis-based artist Anila Quayyum Agha’s beautiful and contemplative white filigree house-shaped structure features Agha’s signature laser-etched floral patterning inspired by Islamic art and architecture. This is NOT a Refuge illustrates the hope, humor, challenges, and heartbreaks of dozens of refugees who are living in Indianapolis.

Home Again is the first new exhibition in The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park since it opened in 2010. Home Again is the first installation of The Hawryluk Collection of Art in Nature, a new series of outdoor public art installations in The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park, made possible by a $3 million gift by Kent Hawryluk, a longtime Newfields patron and philanthropist.

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.