Indianapolis Museum of Art | TAP Me In

“Life has been rough with me, how it been with you?” Thornton Dial questions me through headphones as I enter the first room of Hard Truths. “Well, pretty rough too.” I think to myself, hoping Mr. Dial and myself can find more things in common. “Life is rough with everybody,” he says. “We all have […]

Indianapolis Museum of Art | You Light Up My Life

“The pieces are dense,” Carol Cody, the IMA’s Lighting Designer, and I look down at her lighting plan for Hard Truths. “Visually, physically, conceptually—they’re dense.” And it’s true. All of Dial’s paintings are 3-D so they present lighting challenges your average still life wouldn’t; but this exhibition makes no claims of being average and Carol has […]

Indianapolis Museum of Art | Dial-ing In: From Gallery Model to Model Gallery

I saw everything in miniature first. The model held the new exhibition in exact scale. Upstairs in Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial, our patrons were perusing the galleries but down here, in the IMA’s Design and Installation Department, I was towering over the same rooms’ diminutive sisters. I didn’t know a physical model […]