In This Banner Year for Outdoor Art, Anders Ruhwald’s IMA Garden Installation is a Standout Favorite

Though people have begun venturing back inside — both to gallery-gawk (highly recommended) and to eat (honestly, we don’t get it) — there has never been a year in which we appreciated the ability to view art outdoors as much as this one. In Indianapolis, one of those opportunities took place this summer at Newfields, the gardens that surround the Indianapolis Museum of Art, where Detroit-based ceramicist — and longtime SU fave — Anders Ruhwald installed an exhibition of 10 large-scale ceramic works. Titled Century Garden, the sculptures — many of which are meant to hold plants — were tucked into the wilder, more overgrown parts of the garden; though the ceramic surfaces appeared almost tie-dyed, mottled as they were with yellows and blues, tangerine oranges and greens, they were camouflaged amongst the flowers and native plants, creating an uncanny effect. Of the sculptures, IMA curator Shelley Selim says: “Ruhwald’s bulbous, muscular sculptures are vaguely anatomical, as if the human figures they once represented are melting back into the earth. The artist felt a sense of alienation from the typical Greco-Roman statues that adorn many historic, European-style gardens, but through the process of creating these works, developed an affinity for them.” The exhibition closed earlier this month, but enjoy this trip down memory lane.

_10A6217 _10A6220 _10A8163 _10A9042 Anders Ruhwald Century Garden Grounds and Garden Summer 2020 Anders Ruhwald Century Garden Grounds and Garden Summer June 2020 Anders Ruhwald Century Garden Grounds and Garden Summer 2020 F-AR-MM1074 F-AR-MM1075 F-AR-MM1076