ANNUAL REPORT 2007 CONTENTS FROM THE CHAIRMAN 2 FROM THE MELVIN & BREN SIMON DIRECTOR AND CEO 33 5 ANNUAL REPORT: HIGHLIGHTS OF 2007 85 EXHIBITIONS 1314 ART ACQUISITIONs 2415 LOANS FROM THE COLLECTION 2522 EDUCATION PROGRAMS 2723 DONORS 3025 OFFICERS, BOARD AND 30 TRUSTEES OF THE IMA 32 STAFF 3531 FINANCIAL REPORT 4033 Left: The Indianapolis Museum of Art, with Oldfields–Lilly House & Gardens at center right and 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park above. * I was privileged to serve as chairman of the For all of these accomplishments, we can Through a combination of principled deci- signification and uses other than simply IMA during two years of dramatic change, a credit the ongoing support of the IMA’s loyal sions by the IMA’s leadership and great being observed—is a tradition dating back time when the Museum took bold steps in patrons. The Museum was especially fortu- generosity from our supporters, the year only to the 18th century, a relatively recent new directions. nate in 2007, benefiting from the generosity 2007 was marked by significant changes blip on the screen of 5,000 years of of longtime donors who established substan- and steps forward in programmatic reach, human creativity. In 2007, we launched a department dedicated tial endowments. More details on all of these public service, and philanthropic support. to design arts, a first for the IMA and an gifts, which will ensure the IMA’s continued The second shift in museum practice is to area of collecting that has the potential to growth and financial health, can be found in The resumption of a free general admission yield on the subject of handmade versus bring new audiences to the Museum. We the report that follows. strategy and expanded evening hours yielded machine-made manufacturing processes. A continued the expansion of the contemporary a significant increase in public participation conventional collecting bias, still espoused by I also appreciate the IMA’s leadership—a art program by dedicating the Efroymson and put us back squarely in line with the leading art museums elsewhere, would segre- board and a director who welcome change Family Entrance Pavilion as a gallery space policies of most of our peer institutions in gate objects made by mechanical means from and innovation that are making the IMA for commissioned art as well as a welcoming the Midwest. Our choice to open the IMA’s museum collections, on the premise that such a better museum and Indianapolis a point for Museum visitors. We improved doors for free was based on principle: our objects are inherently inferior in some way to destination for art. Daniel C. Appel access to the IMA through innovative Maxwell L. Anderson strong endowment should allow for the those inflected by the human hand. Any orig- Chairman of the IMA technology, including the distribution of The Melvin & Bren Simon provision of free access to all. The arithmetic inal logic behind a distinction between two Director and CEO 2006–2008 audio and video content related to exhibi- behind the decision was, as expected, categories of creative acts—between those tions through a new Web site and through straightforward; with more than twice as whose ultimate incarnation is spawned in an Web outlets such as YouTube and iTunes-U. many 2007 visitors as in 2006, we were able artist’s studio and those generated on a factory By 2007, the IMA was out in front of other to attract new elective spending on exhibition floor—is fast fading. From the days of museums in its development of new media tickets, merchandise, and other sources of Walter Benjamin’s essay Art in the Age of Daniel C. Appel content. By late 2007, IMA bloggers were earned income. And by making the case to Mechanical Reproduction until today, the asking for feedback from Web visitors— our members and key supporters that their emergence of technological solutions to age-old and helping to transform the ways that generous help enabled us to take this step, problems, or in response to new opportunities, museums connect with their audiences. The we sought to encourage our patrons to has challenged mightily distinctions that new Web site also allowed for more trans- remain or become members, and to add to might once have seemed reasonable. parency through the innovative Dashboard, the pool of contributed income on which where the public can find data relating to we rely. Today, as artists canonized by the art market the Museum’s behind-the-scenes operations, increasingly use contemporary technology to and then judge how we are doing based on In April, in another matter of principle, the plan, devise, and create artworks, it is virtu- that data. IMA took a position of advocacy by declaring ally impossible to draw a virtuous circle a moratorium on the acquisition of archaeo- around one kind of creative practice and We are also proud of all the efforts we have logical material and ancient art if it lacked anoint it as inherently superior to another made in conserving energy and other resourc- provenance after 1970. With that declaration, that ends the manual involvement of a maker es at the IMA, not only in daily operations, we accepted the challenge of doing thorough earlier in the creative process. It is indefensible but in the ongoing care and intelligent and research on prospective acquisitions, whether to argue that the process of digital photogra- creative use of the 152 acres that the by gift, exchange, or purchase. phy is inherently superior to the process of Museum is so fortunate to have. In 2007, digitally modeling a chair. progress was made on the ambitious plans A notable change in curatorial direction for 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art was marked in 2007, when the decision The key issue is that there is nothing “inher- & Nature Park, which will eventually offer was made to assimilate responsibility for the ently” superior or inferior in a manufactur- contemporary art in a setting that is unlike decorative arts into the respective depart- ing process; the curator’s judgment about the anything else in Indianapolis. ments of European and American art, and virtue and value of the end result is what to create a new Department of Design Arts. matters to a museum. And so the Indianapolis This change speaks of two shifts in museum Museum of Art has elected to return to a practice. The first is the growing acknowledg- point of view espoused at the time of its ment that no great art is purely decorative; if founding in 1883: that the best examples an object is an artwork, it has a place in life of what was once called the “applied arts” and society that elevates it above mere deserve to be collected and encouraged decoration. The segregation of these art- alongside what used to be called the works—which may have both iconographic “fine arts.” 2 3 With these shifts in mind, the Museum hired R. Craig grant from the The Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Miller to lead our efforts in building a distinguished Trust and a $600,000 gift from Myrta J. Pulliam for department of design arts by assembling a collection, the park’s nature trails. publishing its contents, staging exhibitions in the field, HIGHLIGHTS OF Generous patrons continued to build the IMA’s and fostering a wide variety of programs to introduce endowment, including philanthropist Ruth Lilly, who our audiences to the premise that a talented curator provided a $2.2 million gift to endow the position now can make the Solomonian choices about what mass- known as the Ruth Lilly Deputy Director of produced objects are worthy of a museum collection. Environmental & Historic Preservation. The under- This change will greatly alter the IMA’s mandate and 2007 signed was highly privileged to become the first mission, allowing for insightful interpretive connec- Melvin & Bren Simon Director and CEO, through a tions with utilitarian objects from other cultures and gift of unparalleled generosity. The $10 million gift ages throughout our holdings, from Europe, Asia, from philanthropists and longtime Museum supporters Africa, and the Americas. Melvin and Bren Simon instantly made the director The year 2007 was also notable for our exhibition and CEO’s position among the nation’s most coveted, calendar. Roman Art from the Louvre, the largest not only for the financial security it affords the exhibition ever sent abroad from Paris, had its debut Museum, but also for the prestige accruing to the in Indianapolis. It was ground-breaking in many person fortunate enough to be the incumbent. respects: its unprecedented scale, new scholarship In furtherance of historic preservation, IMA first about both familiar and long-ignored masterworks in lady Jacqueline Buckingham Anderson directed the the Louvre’s collection, and the strong public response renovation of Westerley, the official residence of the that it evoked. Melvin & Bren Simon Director and CEO, with the The midcareer retrospective María Magdalena support of an $800,000 grant from the Allen Whitehill Campos-Pons: Everything Is Separated by Water Clowes Charitable Foundation and a gift from an offered original insights into this remarkable artist’s anonymous donor. oeuvre. Other significant exhibitions and installations Two other areas outlined in this report are of particular on a smaller scale in the field of contemporary art, note: the IMA’s emergence as an internationally including Maya Lin’s site-specific installation Above recognized leader in the use of new technology and and Below, funded through a gift from William L. and its fresh commitment to environmentally sound Jane H. Fortune, were joined by a new space for the business practices.