A few months ago, Beyoncé kicked off her highly anticipated Renaissance World Tour. And although she won’t officially be making a stop in Indy you can still see her in the new contemporary exhibition, The Message is the Medium: Contemporary Art in the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.  

How might you see her, you ask? She (multiple Beyoncés, actually) is featured on a piece entitled Atlantican Archives: A Group of Beyoncés Founded Earth Feminism. The piece was purchased at the BUTTER fine art fair last summer and has been awaiting its debut in the long-awaited reinstallation of contemporary art at Newfields. Michael Vetter, PhD, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the IMA said Bey’s piece was a clear stand out at BUTTER and he knew they needed to purchase it for this exhibition. 

April Bey is a Bahamian-born artist and art educator currently based in California. This textile is set in a fictional world she created called Atlantica. Atlantica is in the same universe as Earth but highlights what life could be like in the absence of suffering. Bey describes Atlantica as a world fueled by self-expression and personal fulfillment. Her work encourages reflection and provides a social critique of American and Bahamian culture, and this piece is no different.  

The large-scale textile features images of Beyoncé’s face overlaying a photo that nods to the women’s suffragette movement. You may notice the composition of the piece recalls suffragette posters of the early 20th century.   

Bey used a variety of techniques and materials to make the piece. Notably, Bey used a Jacquard loom to machine weave the textile from an original digital drawing. In the loom, black and white threads ran horizontally, and the colorful threads ran vertically, and were precisely woven together to create the textile. Other techniques including printed fabrics and hand sewing also appear in the piece.  

So, if you are bummed that you didn’t get tickets to the Renaissance World Tour, get your Beyoncé fix anyways. Atlantican Archives: A Group of Beyoncés Founded Earth Feminism is now on view in The Message is the Medium: Contemporary Art in the Allen Whitehill Clowes Gallery on Floor 2 of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.  

Exhibition Credits: 

Lead support for The Message is the Medium: Contemporary Art is generously provided by Alan and Sally Mills, Monna Quinn and David Spoelstra, Susan Jacobs and David Kleiman, Emily A. West, Phyllis Vernick, Links Creative Alliance, and Clayton Miller Law, P.C. 

Image Credits: 

Installation view of The Message is the Medium: Contemporary Art in the Allen Whitehill Clowes Special Exhibition Gallery, opened July 21, 2023. Artworks © their respective creators. 

April Bey (Bahamian, b. 1987), Atlantican Archives: A Group of Beyoncés Founded Earth Feminism, 2021, digitally printed and woven blanket with hand-sewn “African” Chinese knockoff wax fabric, 80 × 60 × 1/4 in. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, In memory of David A. Garrett and Deloris Brink Garrett, 2022.30 © April Bey.