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| Bench Around the Lake by Jeppe Hein One of 15 undulating yellow-painted steel benches placed around the park's lake. This one is located on the east side of the Lake, with a view of Indianapolis Igloo, by Andrea Zittel |
A few years ago, I was visiting one of the contemporary galleries
at the Indianapolis Museum of Art when I turned a corner
and started laughing. What had caught my eye was one of those
creations about which one might hear, "That ain't art.
Shit, my kid could do better than that."
Yeh, well, say what you want but the damn thing worked.
It was (and remains) a length of red cord, anchored with a thumb tack
at a point on the floor of the gallery and stretched to a
point on the window at just about the horizon line of where the
trees in the distance meet the sky. That damn red line
defines the space in which it exists and carries your eye outside,
to the trees beyond. It's a thing of dumbfounding beauty.
The other thing that amazed me was that the IMA had
somehow managed to maintain a view outside
the west side windows of the building,
one without the visual corruption of cheap-ass
housing developments, apartments and strip malls;
I knew what was on the other side of the trees and it
was nothing like the idyll that the red cord
pointed towards.
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| A couple enjoys a spring afternoon picnic lunch on The Meadow near the lake. |
As it turned out, what I had seen was a 100-acre parcel of land
consisting of woods, wetlands, a meadow and a 35-acre lake
which was developed and opened in 2010 as
It is one of the largest museum art parks in the country and, so far,
the grounds contains ten site-specific works designed by
artists from around the world.
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| View of a portion of Stratum Pier by Kendall Buster, 2010. Steel and fiberglass viewing platform overlooking the lake. The stacked layers suggest a topographical map. |
The Museum grounds consists of three distinct areas,
all of them beautiful and lovingly tended by landscape designers
and gardeners: the Museum grounds; Oldfields, the country mansion
and estate that belonged to Josiah K. Lilly, Jr.; and the 100 Acre Park.
During the day, I explored some part of all three areas,
concentrating my time in the Park. Of course,
I took an awful lot of pictures, so you can expect related
posts over the coming days. Unfortunately, however,
it was not permitted to take pictures of the
red string that pointed me towards
my "hunnert acre wood" a few years back.
Humph.
