Quest for the West Art Show and Sale at the Eiteljorg Museum @eiteljorgmuseum

“The Pathfinder” by Mark Maggiori.
Image provided by the Eiteljorg Museum and used with written permission.

By Bryan Corbin
Eiteljorg Museum

The Western art community will converge on downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, Sept. 7-8, 2018, when one of the top Western art sales in America, the annual Quest for the West^® Art Show and Sale, returns to the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, 500 West Washington Street in White River State Park.

The 13^th annual Quest for the West^® will attract art collectors from across the nation for the opportunity to meet important artists in the Western genre and purchase their work, including drawings, paintings and sculptures.

“Considered one of the leading Western art shows for the quality of the art, exceptional hospitality and engaging setting in the beautiful Eiteljorg building, Quest for the West^® has generated more than $12 million in art sales since its inaugural year in 2006,” Eiteljorg Museum President and CEO John Vanausdall said. “Quest has helped bring the Eiteljorg to national prominence, and we are pleased to be able to share this beautiful art with collectors and the public.”

At Quest, 50 artists will show approximately 200 recent works not exhibited previously. Returning artists from across the U.S. include longtime participants Robert Griffing, Michael Dudash, Gladys Roldan-de-Moras, Heide Presse, P.A. Nisbet and Logan Maxwell Hagege.

Four artists joining Quest this year include Brent Cotton, Donna Howell-Sickles, Terri Kelly Moyers and Mark Kelso, an Indiana artist. Collectors attending the Quest gala the evening of Saturday, Sept. 8, can meet the artists and bid on art in a “luck-of-the-draw” sale that opens and closes with the sound of a bugle.

After the sale weekend, the gallery of Quest art works then will open to the public Sunday, Sept. 9, and remain on exhibit at the Eiteljorg for another four weeks, giving museum visitors the opportunity to see world-class art. Pieces not sold during opening weekend will remain available for purchase until the exhibit closes Oct. 7.

Opening weekend registrants this year will enjoy a lunch and tour at the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site in Indianapolis on Friday, Sept. 7, followed by a Friday evening reception at the Eiteljorg and the opening of a special exhibition featuring art of the 2017 Quest Artist of Distinction, Howard Post.

Back by popular demand, a Quest Miniature Art Sale will take place Friday night, Sept. 7. Many of the Quest artists created at least one smaller work of art for the miniature sale, to appeal both to experienced collectors and new collectors seeking a piece that is more affordable. Unlike in the main Quest show the following evening, purchasers of the smaller art works Sept. 7 can take their new acquisitions with them that night.

Also Friday night, Sept. 7, will be a reception honoring Howard Post, the 2017 Quest for the West^® Artist of Distinction. For more than 40 years, Post has captured his distinctive vision of the West in paint, creating what he refers to as “ranchscapes.” A special exhibition of his work,Western Perspectives: The Art of Howard Post, will feature 18 of these works from the past two decades of Post’s career. From rugged mountains to dusty cowboys to resting horses to complex corrals, his paintings highlight the interconnectedness of land, animals and people in the American West. They also explore and delight in more abstract concepts such as light, line and color. The Post exhibition is open to the public from Sept. 8 to Nov. 25 in the Gerald and Dorit Paul Gallery at the Eiteljorg.

Reservations to the Quest sale weekend events Sept. 7-8 are $300 per person or $500 per couple for museum members (or $350 and $500 for non-members). The Saturday, Sept. 8, Quest gala dinner at the museum features fine dining by Kahn’s Catering. For those attending the Friday, Sept. 7, miniature art sale only, reservations are $75 per person and $125 per couple. To register for Quest events, contact Kay Hinds at 317.275.1341 or khinds@eiteljorg.com. Absentee buyers also can register for $150 and bid on art works. Preview the art works and find complete information on Quest for the West® at www.quest.eiteljorg.org.

After the sale weekend events conclude, the Quest for the West^® art exhibit featuring all the Quest art works will open to the public on Sunday, Sept. 9, and be on view through Oct. 7; the exhibit is included with regular Eiteljorg admission. A full-color catalog of Quest art will be available starting Sept. 7 in the Frank and Katrina Basile Museum Store.

The 13^th annual Quest for the West ^® Art Show and Sale is presented by Cardinal Contracting and the Western Art Society and is sponsored by Ice Miller LLP.

“Sensual/Sexual/Social” Exhibit opens Sept. 30 at Newfields @newfieldstoday

Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.
AroundIndy.com staff photo, (c) 2016, all rights reserved.

By Mattie Lindner
Newfields

Explore the artistic legacy of renowned American photographer George Platt Lynes through this exhibition of photographs from the collection of the Kinsey Institute, Indiana University. Sensual/Sexual/Social: The Photography of George Platt Lynes runs from September 30 through February 24, 2019 at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, 4000 Michigan Road, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Lynes’ visionary work catapulted him to notoriety as a New York-based commercial fashion and ballet photographer, but he drifted from the spotlight when it was revealed that he also photographed male nudes. Lynes also turned his lens on his social circle, many of the artistic and literary minds of the mid-20th century, who accepted him as a gay man during a period of harsh anti-LGBT oppression in America.

“This timely exhibition explores the life of an artist who was marginalized by society for being gay and places him where he should be, at the forefront of the history of photography, alongside his more famous peers,” said Dr. Charles L. Venable, The Melvin & Bren Simon Director and CEO. “We at Newfields are passionately driven by efforts like this that add context and depth to art and the world we live in today.”

George Platt Lynes (1907-1955) grew up in New Jersey and attended boarding school in western Massachusetts where he first met Lincoln Kirstein, who later co-founded the New York City Ballet. In the early 1920s, Lynes traveled to Paris where he connected with members of the Parisian avant-garde, including the couple Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, who welcomed him into their social circle. During this time Lynes started to photograph his new friends and their shared life experiences.

After returning to the United States in the late 1920s, Lynes inherited a friend’s photographic equipment, which inspired him to spend more time photographing. Many important figures in the art world, several of whom were his close friends, agreed to sit for portraits including artists Paul Cadmus, Pavel Tchelitchew and Marc Chagall.

In 1935, Lynes became the first photographer for the American Ballet, later renamed the New York City Ballet, and remained their primary photographer for 20 years. The photographs that resulted from the personal and professional relationship between Lynes and Lincoln Kirstein are considered some of the finest ballet photographs ever made. Lynes was passionate about beauty and refinement and proved to be incredibly skillful at documenting dancers’ bodies in light and space.

The following year, Lynes was invited to participate in the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition, Fantastic Art, Dada, and Surrealism. His surrealist photograph, The Sleepwalker, was exhibited alongside his peers and fellow modern masters, such as Salvador Dali, Max Ernst and René Magritte.

Lynes was a rising star in New York City’s photography scene, celebrated for both his fine art and commercial work. He photographed for renowned fashion magazines such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar and created ad campaigns for Barneys and Henri Bendel. As a Vogue photographer, Lynes had the opportunity to create portraits of numerous writers and performers, including author/entertainer Kay Thompson (creator of the Eloise children’s books) and playwright Tennessee Williams.

During a time of restricted societal norms and repression of homosexuality, Lynes and his gay friends created a tight-knit community where they could express themselves. Support from this community allowed Lynes to explore his interest in the male nude as a photographic subject, something that was considered radical, as the female body was generally the only acceptable subject in the nude at this time. When Lynes began photographing nudes in the 1930s, he understood how the male form had historically been represented in fine art. His interest in Greek classical representations of the male body grounded these photographs and presented the male form as beautiful and desirable.

Lynes was fully aware of the personal risk he took during this time and took measures to protect the identity of his subjects and body of work. Outside of the relative safety of his social circle in New York City, the country was not a safe place to live life as a gay man or to be a male nude model. Lynes and the men who modeled for him took considerable risks to produce these photographs during a period when those who engaged in perceived gay activities, like male nude photography, risked imprisonment and rejection from mainstream society.

In the late 1940s, Dr. Alfred Kinsey was working on his 1948 book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male at Indiana University, in Bloomington, Indiana. Kinsey was in the process of building his research institute and its art collection and wanted examples of the male nude, particularly photographs that illuminated gay lifestyles. It was Lynes’ nuanced photographs of the male form that brought the artist and Kinsey together. Kinsey was a crucial supporter of Lynes and the two men coordinated the donation of many of Lynes’ photographs and negatives to the Kinsey Institute.

The simple act of sending the photographs and negatives to Indiana from New York City was extremely risky. At this time, the law prohibited sending materials deemed obscene through the United States Postal Service. Kinsey and Lynes took extreme measures to ensure that his male nude photographs in particular were not transferred through the USPS by arranging numerous cross-country trips. The transfer of photographs to Indiana was successful and Lynes’ legacy and work has been preserved at the Kinsey Institute for nearly 70 years.

“We are excited to be working with an esteemed institution like Newfields to share the work of this wonderful artist, George Platt Lynes,” said Sue Carter, Kinsey Institute Director. “The Kinsey Institute Special Collections preserve art and artifacts that document the richness and variation of human sexual expression and relationships. Collaborations like this allow us to bring wider visibility to those artistic voices and life experiences that might otherwise be lost to history.”

In the exhibition guests are invited to explore Lynes’ personal and professional life through a multi-layered timeline. Midway through the experience, guests can learn about the large format printing process by viewing a 200 sq. ft. studio recreation, play a photo negative game, watch a step-by-step video and touch vintage darkroom tools. Guests will also have the opportunity to listen to a narration of the letters Alfred Kinsey and George Platt Lynes exchanged and craft their own letter using a typewriter.

Sensual/Sexual/Social: The Photography of George Platt Lynes is curated by Rebecca Fasman, of the Kinsey Institute, and Robin Lawrence and Anne M. Young of Newfields. Prior to Newfields, Young was the photographic archivist at the Kinsey Institute and worked on digitizing and condition reporting their collection of more than 2,300 George Platt Lynes vintage negatives.

Don’t miss the Opening Celebration of Sensual/Sexual/Social: The Photography of George Platt Lynes on September 27 at 7 p.m. The evening begins with Indianapolis Ballet performing George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments, followed by an exclusive viewing of the exhibition. On September 28 and 29, Newfields members can see the exhibition first at the Member-Only Preview. At the Members-Only Talk on October 14, members can connect with the exhibition curators Robin Lawrence and Anne M. Young as they share in-depth stories about Lynes’ life and experiences as a commercial and fine art photographer in mid-century New York City.

Sensual/Sexual/Social: The Photography of George Platt Lynes is on view in the Allen Whitehill Clowes Special Exhibition Gallery from September 30, 2018 through February 24, 2019.

Organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields and the Kinsey Institute, Indiana University. Support for this exhibition is provided by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Framing support for this exhibition is provided by The Great Frame Up. Studio photography equipment is provided by Roberts Camera.

Madison Ribberfest, Aug. 17-18, 2018 @madisonindiana

By Sarah Prasil
Madison Area Convention and Visitors Bureau

Happening this weekend, August 17 & 18, 2018, Madison’s riverfront will be filled with the soulful sounds of blues and the smoky aroma of sizzling barbeque during the 17^th annual Madison RibberFest Barbeque & Blues.

This two-day festival along the scenic Ohio River in historic Madison, features regional and national blues bands, barbeque competitions, boat rides and more. It’s a fan favorite and was a 2016 Award Winner for Best of Indiana – Best Music Festival!

Nine great blues bands are set to take the stage on Friday evening and all day Saturday, August 17 & 18 at Madison Ribberfest.  Friday night kicks off at 6:00 pm with the Junk Box followed by Dawn Tyler Watson and ending with headliner Walter Trout. On Saturday, music starts with the Jordan Wilson Coalition at 11:30 a.m. followed by King Bee & The Stingers, John Primer & The Real Deal Blues Band, John Nemeth & The Lovelight Orchestra, Eric Gales and headliner Ronnie Baker Brooks will close out the festival.

Barbeque lovers get to see 60 professional barbeque teams from around the country compete in the Indiana State Championship Barbeque Cook-Off for cash/prizes and a chance to represent Indiana at the Kansas City Barbeque Society’s world championship.  On Friday night, there’s a Backyard Blast cooking competition for amateurs and a Kidz “Q” for the youngsters on Saturday.

Riverboat cruises on the Queen City paddle wheeler will return, a 5K RibberRun/Ride on Saturday morning, the Pig Toss Corn Hole Tournament and the “Piglet Pen” children’s play area with games and inflatables, all round out the offerings for a great family weekend.  Check www.madisonribberfest.com for details & registration.

Whether it’s Barbeque, Barbecue or BBQ – don’t miss Madison RibberFest: Barbeque & Blues August 17 and 18 in Madison, Indiana.

Two day wristbands are only $30.   Gates open at 5pm on Friday, August 17 and 11am on Saturday, August 18.   Children 12 and under are free with a paid adult. On sale now through August 16^th at the Visitor’s Center – 601 West First Street (online through August 15^th). Wristbands are $35 at Gate. To order wristbands or for information, call 800-559-2956 or visit www.madisonribberfest.com, see The Rest of the Fest tab.