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Midwest Modern Art Roadtrips

By Jack Cantey

Fort Wayne Reader

2006-06-20

So here you are—a modern art passionista in Northeast Indiana. It's almost summer and you've a growing thirst for visual work that is new, confrontational, incisive, and alive. You also know that the handful of Fort Wayne exhibitions and art fairs over the next two months may leave you dehydrated without proper supplementation. Allow me—an unlicensed arts nutritionist—to prescribe these refreshing, Midwest modern art roadtrips. (Drink two Modelos and call me in the morning.)

Chicago
It always makes sense to start with Chicago, the Midwest cultural mecca. Many art lovers beeline to the Art Institute, but I recommend a destination a few blocks away—literally and figuratively. The Museum of Contemporary Art (one block east of Michigan Ave. on Chicago Ave.) consistently offers viewers the fiercest, tightest, and best of the current international artworld. This summer's exhibitions are no exception. Two, in particular, stand out to me.

Chris Ware (closes August 27) presents works from the alternative cartoonist's recent series, Building Stories, as well as the earlier Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. The Chicago-based artist has gained notoriety for his meticulously-designed works that exist in a sublime limbo between comic books and graphic novels.

Also on view at the MCA is Wolfgang Tillmans (closes August 13), the first major American retrospective of the German photographer, which features approximately 300 photographic works, as well as video and installation-based works. The 38 year-old artist challenges entrenched notions in both his multi-genre images and installations featuring motley wall montages.

After you leave the MCA, do yourself a favor and hoof it south on Michigan Ave. to Millennium Park (at the corner of Randolph St.). After just one glance, you'll find out exactly why Chicago is known as the “museum without walls.”

Milwaukee
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Or is it the Milwaukee Art Museum?

While it may look like it is preparing for take-off over Lake Michigan, it is most definitely the MAM's stunning, five year-old expansion highlighted by the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion. The museum's interior offers something just as superheroic this summer: Masters of American Comics (closes August 13), a series of retrospective exhibitions featuring 15 of the form's most important artists.

In this first-of-its-kind show, early twentieth-century pioneers Winsor McCray and George Herriman share gallery space with such artists as funny pages icon Charles M. Schulz, underground legend R. Crumb, and contemporary cartoonists Art Spiegelman, Gary Panter, and Chris Ware (see above). A wide array of works are on view from each artist, including such behind-the-scene materials as conceptual sketches, finished drawings, printer's proofs, and tear sheets. Enjoy, bub.

Indianapolis
“Bar.” “ATM.” “Lotto.” “The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths.”

Eh? Neon signs have become so ubiquitous that we do not see them; we may look at them, but rarely do we see or deeply consider them. Fort Wayne native and verteran artworld maverick Bruce Nauman is the exception to this rule. Since the late 1960s, Nauman has experimented with the communication of ideas through the mediums of neon signs and fluorescent light environments. Elusive Signs: Bruce Nauman Works with Light (closes August 6), on view at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, features 15 of these works.

Nauman's earlier neon signs revolved—sometimes literally—around language. Life, Death, Love, Hate, Pleasure, Pain (1983) is one of the most successful of these. In the mid-1980s, though, Nauman moved away from the text-based signs in favor of pictographic works. Hanged Man (1985) is a powerful example of this change in direction.

Columbus
When I heard that the Wexner Center for the Arts would be exhibiting “extreme textiles” this summer, images of X-Games competitors bedecked in Amish quilts came to mind. Needless to say, I was a little off the mark. Instead, Extreme Textiles: Designing for High Performance (closes August 6) features highly-engineered materials, many of which play significant roles in our everyday lives. The installation—the first of this show's outside of New York—was specially designed for the Wexner Center by architect Kivi Sotamaa.

These high-tech, revolutionary textiles are used in a myriad of areas, including aeronautics, medicine, apparel, sports, agriculture, transportation, and civil engineering. One example is Superline. Touted as the strongest rope in existence, this mass of 36.5 million polyester filaments has a breaking strength of 4.4 million pounds. Or, for those of you unable to achieve flight on your own, there is Alban Geissler's Skyray. This attachable wing system made of a composite of Kevlar and carbon fiber will let you take a pleasant, Sunday glide through the air at a gentle 250 mph.

I hope these suggestions are helpful to you this summer. Drive safely (please stay under 250mph) and remember to drink plenty of fluids.