INDIANAPOLIS — To look up in the courtyard of the Indianapolis Museum of Art's newest reinstallation is to be transported into another world - as outdoor scenes filmed on the grounds of Newfield's or paint abstractions dance across the ceiling.
The state-of-the-art LED digital screen at the center of the courtyard in the Clowes Pavilion: Reimagined pavilion is just the start of what museum curators hope marks a new chapter for the museum.
The Clowes Pavilion closed in 2018, and reopened last March with several changes. Prior to 2018, the Clowes Pavilion was separated from the rest of IMA. Guests had to wind through several galleries to access the artwork inside. Now, the galleries inside Clowes Pavilion are more easily accessible through two entrances.
The museum's Chief Operating Officer Kathryn Haigh told 13News that designers hope the courtyard draws guests into the heart of the pavilion and the Clowes Collection.
"One of our goals of the project was to drive more people here, and then engage them a little bit more so they stayed a little longer once they found the Clowes Collection, because it's really worth diving into in a significant way," Haigh said.
Furniture in the courtyard will allow guests to relax in the courtyard at their leisure.
The digital screen component marks the second type of digital experience at IMA. But while the LUME is an immersive gallery highlighting the works of Vincent Van Gogh, the digital elements implemented at Clowes Pavilion did not necessarily draw upon that installation for inspiration.
"We do have digital artwork in the LUME, but this is a permanent collection gallery. This is really highlighting, and the focus really, is the Clowes Collection," Haigh said. "The digital ceiling was really the last component."
The Clowes Pavilion: Reimagined project took about five years of research and planning, according to Haigh.
IMA is currently undergoing a broad transformation in how guests engage with artwork at the museum.
At the start of April 2022, IMA began undertaking a series of reinstallations around the framework of "global thematic displays" as the main organization tool for arranging works of art within a gallery.
The framework dictates artwork would be grouped together according to specific themes, rather than time period or aesthetic.
IMA's first reinstallation within that framework was 'Embodied: Human Figures in Art', which leads to the Clowes Pavilion galleries.
Time periods take a back seat to themes within both galleries which are supposed to allow visitors to view common threads between works of art across cultures and aesthetics.
"The way the works are installed or hung in the galleries—at least one Clowes work ... in conversation with a non-Clowes work. And, those are kind of in the most prominent positions in each gallery, so you're really focused on those when you walk in. So that opens up the larger thematic discussion that's taking place in the galleries," said Dr. Kjell Wangensteen, who is the associate curator of European art before 1800 at IMA.
Popular works within the new Clowes pavilion remain. These include Rembrandt’s 'Self-Portrait' and the Raphael-designed tapestry 'The Miraculous Draught of Fishes,' which are now displayed alongside sculptor El Anatsui's Duvor (Communal Cloth).
One gallery in the pavilion pays homage to the different facets of womanhood, another to the persistence of Greco-Roman aesthetics within modern society, and several more give odes to nature.
Pieces from the Indianapolis Museum of Art are placed alongside those in Clowe's Collection in order to cater to those specific themes.
Dr. Annette Schlagenhauff, a curator of European art after 1800, designed the gallery centered on women and said they took special care to include as many women artists as possible within that space.
"In Europe, that was not very frequent before a time period. But we were able to bring other things from other areas of the museum to demonstrate that. We also definitely wanted to bring it to a contemporary sense where the role of women is still sort of tenuous society, but gaining in voice and influence," Schlagenhauff said.
IMA curators said they hope the innovation within this new pavilion mirrors what guests can expect in other galleries as reinstallations continue.
Tickets to the Clowes Pavilion are included with IMA tickets, which can be found here.