Indianapolis is getting a new contemporary art museum
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The future home of Indianapolis' contemporary art museum. Photo: Arika Herron/Axios
Indianapolis is just months away from the opening of a new contemporary art museum.
Why it matters: The new space, on Big Car Collaborative's Tube Factory campus, will more than double the local museum space dedicated to contemporary art.
State of play: It's been five years since the city's last dedicated contemporary art museum — Indianapolis Contemporary, formerly known as iMOCA — closed during the pandemic.
- Big Car's galleries have been plugging that hole, though with only around 5,000 square feet of display space.
The latest: Big Car bought the empty warehouse that sits just behind the Tube Factory and raised nearly $5 million to turn it into a 40,000-square-foot art museum.
- Grants from the Lilly Endowment, the Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, the Efroymson Family Fund, and the Herbert Simon Family Foundation have covered much of the cost.
- Work on the museum — which for now they're calling Big Tube — is expected to be completed by the end of the year, said Big Car co-founder Shauta Marsh.
Zoom in: It will have five exhibition spaces, including a large-scale spot for immersive installations.
- Plus: Several smaller galleries and 18 studio spaces will be part of the museum experience.
- Marsh will commission new work from local artists that may range from sculptures to paintings along with sound and video art.
- Also inside will be a café, a kitchen, a learning lab and an event space.
The intrigue: The building will also feature five small storefronts meant for artisans looking to make the jump from farmers markets and pop-ups.
Flashback: Big Car opened the Tube Factory on its 6-acre Garfield Park campus in 2015.
- Today, it encompasses the factory building with its coffee shop, community space and three galleries.
- Plus: Big Car has 18 houses that it either co-owns with artists or rents to them at a subsidized rate.
The big picture: The campus is an attempt at something like an artistic utopia.
- After watching artists and their organizations get priced out of other neighborhoods, Big Car is doing things differently here by owning the land.
- "It's going to be always about art and the artist," Marsh said.
What they're saying: The closure of Indianapolis Contemporary had a "destabilizing effect on the arts ecosystem," said interdisciplinary artist Bryn Jackson, who was supposed to have the next show at the museum before it closed.
- "There is absolutely a need for a contemporary art space in Indianapolis. Big Car is doing a lot to reimagine what a museum can be."