Current

Now on view

Explore the shows currently on view in our three featured exhibition galleries! These shows include art from our permanent collection and from around the world.

Featured exhibitions are free and open to the public.

Featured Exhibitions

A diagram of an electric iron, with all the parts exploded out and numbered, is printed over a background of blue waves.

CURRENTS: Recent Acquisitions, 2019-2022

Thursday, September 29, 2022, 10 a.m.—Sunday, May 28, 2023, 5 p.m.

At the museum, history is kept in the present while the works of living artists are collected to look toward the future. Museums show how human history ebbs and flows like the tide, with current events washing over and echoing moments from the past. All the artists represented in Currents are people of color, women-identifying, or queer—identities that historically have been underrepresented in museum collections, including those of the Eskenazi Museum. Each of these newly acquired works supports the museum’s teaching and research mission.

Passage

Thursday, October 13, 2022, 10 a.m.—Sunday, June 04, 2023, 5 p.m.

In the Setswana language spoken by artist Mohau Modisakeng's family, life is thought of as a passage and is called botshelo, which means “to cross over.” Humans are called bafeti (voyagers), a word that acknowledges the transience of the human experience. To reflect on South Africa's complex histories of colonialism and 20th-century Apartheid, the South African Department of Arts and Culture commissioned Mohau Modisakeng to make Passage for the South African pavilion of the 57th Venice Biennial in 2017.

Direct Contact: Cameraless Photography Now

Thursday, February 16, 2023, 10 a.m.—Sunday, July 02, 2023, 5 p.m.

How does one experience a photograph that appears “unphotographic”? Focusing on the material and tactile properties of the medium, Direct Contact: Cameraless Photography Now is the first contemporary survey to examine cameraless photography across generations, cultures, and ideologies. Referred to as photograms or contact prints, cameraless photographs are made using analogue photography’s foundational elements: light, chemistry, and light-sensitive surfaces.

Focus Exhibitions

Looking at Form and Surface in African Ceramics

Thursday, November 07, 2019

5 p.m.

This Focus gallery exhibition explores the dynamics of African ceramics, with attention to different approaches to making ceramics and the roles of gender and women ceramicists in Africa. The exhibition includes a selection of ceramics from across sub-Saharan Africa donated or on loan from the collection of William M. Itter, Professor Emeritus of Fine Arts at Indiana University.

The Degenerate Art Exhibition: 85 Years Later

Sunday, September 18, 2022, 12 p.m.—Saturday, September 30, 2023, 5 p.m.

This focus exhibition features four art objects that offer a variety of insights the Nazis’ condemnation of German modernist art, their persecution of Jewish artists, and their looting of Jewish art collections.

This cloth is decorated with a light blue repeated block pattern of abstract geometric forms. Along the edges is the lettering 'ENIAFE LAMOSEREIBE' and at each end of that, with axis at right angles to the lettering, there is a man's face with a hand beneath it.

Designing with Dyes: Connecting Cloths and Ideas in West Africa

Saturday, March 18, 2023, 10 a.m.—Sunday, September 03, 2023, 5 p.m.

Textiles displayed in this exhibition explore the changing uses of dyes in cloth making during the twentieth century in West Africa. It features cloths made by Asante, Bamana, Fula, and Yorùbá artists including indigo-dyed textiles and “mud” dyed bògòlanfini cloth among others. Designing with Dyes explores how people have circulated materials, technologies, and knowledge through cloth.

Two people are seated near a large, shallow terracotta cup with handles, a tall stem, and decoration in red against a black background. The person on the right of the vase is leaning forward intently to look at the underside of the cup, holding a book open as he does so. The person on the left is slightly behind the cup, and is holding up a phone as if they might be taking pictures or reading from the screen.

Life and Legend: Storytelling and Greek Pottery

Thursday, May 04, 2023

10 a.m.

This student-curated focus exhibition explores the rich imagery of vase painting in ancient Greece. It is being developed by IU students in the Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Experience (ASURE) program, with the mentorship of Dr. Julie Van Voorhis and Ancient Art curator Juliet Graver Istrabadi.

Italian Renaissance Paintings from the Kress Collection

This focus gallery exhibition features works donated to the museum by one of our earliest benefactors, the collector Samuel H. Kress.

Current

Now on view

Featured Exhibitions

Focus Exhibitions

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