The Indianapolis Museum of Art sits a good couple of miles from downtown, and while that may often work against it, not now: As you may know, the IMA opened its version of a sculpture park on Sunday — and I think the IMA is lucky to have such a large, wonderful site adjacent to the museum.
I was there last week, when the final touches were being made, after days and days of rain — well, that part wasn’t lucky. It was very muddy in parts, making the final days tricky.
I reviewed the park — officially known as “100 Acres – The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park” — for The Wall Street Journal, and it’s in today’s paper (here).
To recap, briefly, instead of buying monumental sculptures by names, the IMA under the curator in charge, Lisa Freiman, commissioned eight temporary pieces by emerging or mid-career artists and asked them to make “site-responsive” works. She chose well. I didn’t like one of the pieces, and I’m lukewarm about two others, but I respect the works that each artist turned out. They are thoughtful responses to the challenge given.
And there’ll be a new one each year: 100 Acres cost about $10 million to build (including a visitors center that I did not have room to comment in the review — but which looked to be, while unfinished at the time, well-suited to the park) and has a $15 million operations and art endowment (the final few millions are yet to be raised).
As I concluded in the review:
[The IMA] did well to devise a different kind of sculpture park, a relief from the tried-and true; a model in its way–but also, perhaps, sui generis.
I wish that weren’t so, and maybe more museums have more land than I realize. Creativity could abound.