Expedition Bogotá-Indianapolis

October 7, 2011 – November 19, 2011
Click here to see photos from the opening exhibition

Columbian artist Alberto Baraya and Herron School of Art and Design professor Danielle Riede are bringing Expedition Bogotá-Indianapolis to iMOCA, 1043 Virginia Avenue, Indianapolis, IN on October 7. Expedition Bogotá-Indianapolis is a collaborative exhibition that explores the migration of peoples, ideas and products. Riede met Baraya outside of a trinket shop in Venice in 2009. Baraya was looking for glass flowers to put in an installation he was making for the Latin American Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennial.  In their conversation, they realized that both collected materials and then organized them into installations as part of their art practice.

In 2010, Riede received an IUPUI Arts and Humanities internal grant to work with Baraya on the exhibition and the two started collaborating through e-mail and then in person when Baraya came to Indianapolis to work with Riede. The exhibit will run through November 19. The museum is open Thursday-Saturday 11 a.m.-6 p.m. An opening night reception will be held Friday, October 7, 6-11 p.m.

Baraya is fascinated by the history of European colonialism in the Americas and its ramifications today. He uses eighteenth century scientific methods to call Western authority and domination into question. For Expedition Bogotá-Indianapolis, Riede and Baraya are making a taxonomical inventory of artificial plants they found on walks and in second-hand stores, and others which were donated to the project. The project is very much an extension of Baraya’s expedition series in South America. Much of the collection of fake flora will be presented at iMOCA as if it were in a natural history museum.

Additionally, Baraya will introduce some of the artificial plant life to new locations in Indiana and the pair will photograph this process, pointing to the idea that any traveler can also have an influence on the landscape and how he or she chooses to document it.  As an extension of Riede’s typical working methods, she is dissecting some of the fake plants and reorganizing them to make new enigmatic forms. “I have been thinking about the human manipulation of landscape and story telling while making these forms,” says Riede. Her interests in this project include raising awareness of the history of the development of the Americas and the state of Indiana, encouraging dialog about responsible development and protecting our natural resources and parks, and bringing international perspective and art talent to Indianapolis.

“In the 1600s, Indiana was lush. Approximately 85% of it was covered with dense forests of giant hardwoods and the Kanawakee Marsh spotted the state with nearly two million acres of wetlands,” says Riede.In the end the project is also a catalog of kitschy fake flowers and plants.

“I have to admit, that I think a lot of them are beautiful and quite convincing replicas of the real plants they substitute.”

All our exhibitions are made possible through the support of The Efroymson Family Fund, the Christel DeHaan Family Foundation, the Indiana Arts Commission, Penrod Foundation, and HotBed Creative.

Danielle Riede is a mother, an artist and a teacher. She has been an Assistant Professor at Herron School of Art and Design – IUPUI since the fall of 2008. After completing her Bachelor Degree in Art and Art History at the University of Virginia, she lived in Italy for four years as an au pair and then an editor and translator for a film company translating films into 32 different languages for major Hollywood Film Houses and the Venice and Turin Film Festivals.  While working for this company, she also attended the figure drawing school at the Accedemia di Belle Arti di Firenze.  In 2003, she began studying with Daniel Buren at The Art Academy of Düsseldorf in Germany, as well as with Richard Roth and Mark Harris at Virginia Commonwealth University. In 2005, she earned a Masters of Fine Arts Degree from Virginia Commonwealth University. Riede has exhibited extensively at museums and galleries in Germany, France, Greece, Mexico and the United States. Some of the venues include the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece and Stux Gallery in New York.

Alberto Baraya (Colombia) has worked on Herbarium of Artificial Plants for a long time; it is a work in progress which reformulates the scientific journeys of the XVIII and XIX centuries. At the 53rd Venice Biennale, Baraya recreated an Expedition to Venice.

Posted on: 23.09.2011