Indianapolis Museum of Art provides a treat for the mind and eye . . .

Recently, my friend and colleague Alyce Barry, Shadow Work facilitator and author, discovered some interesting art in the Midwest and agreed to share. – Rosemary Carstens -

"Though I lived in the Chicago area most of my life, I had never visited nearby Indianapolis until this past December. I was there to give a speech, owing to the efforts of a friend who lived in the area. The following morning, my friend drove me around the city and, learning of my love for art museums, took me to the Indianapolis Museum of Art .

We found the featured exhibit on Chinese art rather dull and went looking for something more provocative. We found it in the Contemporary Art gallery on the second floor.

Upon entering, we were confronted with a wall-sized scene of a riverside in the Old South cast upon the opposite wall from the entrance by a small projector. The scene, titled They Waz Nice White Folks While They Lasted (Sez One Gal to Another) and conceived by Kara Walker, consisted of a variety of silhouetted figures, cut from black paper and fixed to the wall over the projected image, watching a riverboat go by. Though the figures are clearly human, their shapes are not entirely normal (see image).




In the next room was Mobius Ship by Tim Hawkinson, an old-fashioned sailing ship existing, as if it could, as a Mobius strip, and constructed entirely from materials found around the artist's house (see image). For more about Hawkinson: http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/hawkinson/index.html

In an adjoining space was The Floor, a sturdy glass floor built several inches above the gallery's floor. Sandwiched between the two surfaces are thousands of tiny plastic human figures with their arms in the air, palms up and faces looking up at you as you stand on the glass above them (image not shown). This installation is the work of Korean artist Do-Ho Suh. Korean artist Do-Ho Suh. To learn more about him, go to the Art 21 site on PBS: http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/suh/index.html

I was most captivated, however, by the large piece in the final room. The Donkey, the Jackass and the Mule by artist Allison Smith began as a parade/performance evoking the issues of slavery and the civil rights movement. The three animals stand on carts, though these are animals that usually pull the carts rather than being passengers. The thick ropes lying at their feet subtly suggest both the lynchings and the hard menial labor of slave and freed blacks in the South. The enigmatic expressions on the animals' faces could be interpreted in any number of ways. More of Smith's work can be seen at http://www.allisonsmithstudio.com/ ."

The Indianapolis Museum of Art was a great discovery—don’t miss it if you’re in the neighborhood!

ALYCE BARRY is a Shadow Work facilitator in Longmont, Colorado, and the author of Practically Shameless, more than 45 weeks on Amazon.com's bestseller list of books about Jungian psychology. Alyce writes three blogs, on shadow in the news, publishing, and her own issues, among other topics. To access her blogs and other websites, visit AlyceBarry.com.