AFA Autumn 2018

2018 Antiques & Fine Art 93 The new Design Gallery features a Materials Wall where visitors can touch materials represented in the gallery and learn more about them. Rendering by Lara Huchteman © Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. Herbert von Thaden, designer (American, 1898– 1969), Thaden-Jordan Furniture Company, manufacturer (American, 1946–1952), Lounge Chair, 1947, plywood, birch, brass, 42½ x 19¾ x 23½ in. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Design Arts Society Fund, 2017.68 © Herbert von Thaden. Paintings from our European and contemporary art departments, as well as Native American, African, and Japanese pottery, basketry, and other functional objects, are interspersed with our design collection to amplify the gallery’s themes. I’ve experimented with interdisciplinary displays in the past, and found that viewers love the surprising dialogues created between seemingly disparate objects (Figs. 5-6). Other themes addressed in the gallery include nature, form archetypes, memory, technique and mak ing, form versus function, and irony and humor, the first of our rotating “spotlight” themes. Located on the ga ller y’s centra l platform, the spotlight section will change annually, allowing the space to continually refresh and provide guests with ever-evolving perspectives on design’s past, present, and future. Shelley Selim is the associate curator of design and decorative arts at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields and a former curatorial assistant at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.