Art Reinvented With New Contemporary Arts Museum Of Indianapolis

CAMi is bringing contemporary back. Indianapolis hasn’t had an organization dedicated solely to contemporary art since the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art in Holy Cross shut down in 2020 due to the pandemic.   

Big Car is the driving force behind the project. Founded in 2004 by husband-and-wife team Jim Walker and Shauta Marsh, the nonprofit arts organization initially operated out of the Murphy Arts Center in Fountain Square as a shared studio for artists and writers. The collective settled into its Garfield Park digs in 2016. Walker and Marsh oversee a 5-acre spread that claims two repurposed industrial buildings, 18 studio spaces, and nine galleries. Volunteer-run at the start, Big Car now employs a staff of about a dozen.

The building has an unusual pedigree. The former barn that houses the new 40,000-square-foot expansion was originally built by the Weber Dairy Company in the late 1800s. Vestiges of the past still remain. “We’ve kept the beams and wood posts in place to preserve the patina; you can still see the rope marks where the horses were tied up,” Walker points out.

Adaptive reuse was a top priority. Inspired by similar projects around the country that have reimagined disparate, underutilized properties as imaginative arts venues, Big Car worked with Jungclaus-Campbell general contractors and Blackline Studio (both of Indianapolis) to bring the ambitious vision to life. “Pittsburgh has Mattress Factory. Bentonville has The Momentary [a decommissioned cheese factory turned creative hub]. Detroit has MOCAD [in an old car dealership],” Marsh says. “Indianapolis now has CAMi.”

The Tube Factory has become the Tube Gallery. Perhaps the most recognizable structure on campus, the funky purple building with the pencil graphics most people associate with Big Car, is still the nonprofit’s headquarters. The name honors the building’s former tenant: the Tube Processing Corporation, an aerospace and engine parts manufacturer.

The Artists will benefit from CAMi’s unique model. Big Car’s business structure pays artists directly to produce shows instead of forcing them to rely solely on gallery sales for compensation. First up in CAMi’s Jeremy Efroymson Gallery is Campo de Resonancia, an immersive exhibit by Puerto Rican mixed-media painter Ivelisse Jiménez. Other early exhibitions include Drafts, an experimental documentary by Indianapolis-based artists Jess Dunn and Sylvia Thomas; The Speedway’s Attic, local journalist Will Higgins’ offbeat tales from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway expressed through signs and quirky artifacts; and You’re Standing Inside the Instrument: A Score for 19 Buildings, a collaborative sound and video installation in the new Listen Hear Gallery.

The line between modern and contemporary is clearly drawn. Contemporary art and modern art are often conflated. Walker and Marsh define contemporary art as work in active conversation with artists’ experiences in relation to the forces that shape their current world. Typically, it dates from the 1970s to the present day. “Contemporary artists don’t make work in a vacuum; they build on history,” Marsh expands. CAMi also presents modern art, which is work from the late 19th century through the 1970s. “The modern works provide context, lineage, and deeper meaning for the commissions and exhibitions that are at the center of our program,” adds Marsh.

Big Car has its own community radio station. The DJ at 99.1 WQRT FM sits at the front corner of the new building, greeting guests in lieu of a receptionist and broadcasting an eclectic mix of music throughout the campus.

Expanded viewpoints are actively encouraged. The venue was created with makers in mind, but CAMi is ultimately intended to function as a gathering space for the greater community, challenging local residents and tourists alike to evaluate their definition of art. “Art is so much more than just going to a museum and looking at paintings on a wall,” Walker says. “Art could be a garden or a bee sanctuary.” CAMi has those and more. Established attractions—Terri Sisson Park, Sam Van Aken’s hyper-grafted Tree of 40 Fruit, and the idiosyncratic Chicken Chapel of Love—remain popular. Sunny reading nooks, an on-site cafe and bar, an open-kitchen culinary classroom, five retail storefronts, and a performance area with a movable stage and projection capabilities are new amenities.

Walker and Marsh aren’t the new kids on the block. When the pair first moved into Garfield Park in 2011, 10 of the 20 houses on Cruft Street were boarded up. Intent on turning the community around, the couple worked to procure a Community Development Block Grant and funding from local entities to purchase, renovate, and occupy several of the dilapidated vacant houses. Today, they manage 18 neighborhood properties as affordable housing for visiting and resident artists.

They’re rethinking what a museum is. Marsh recently spoke with a Chicago writer who described Indy as a city of arts campuses. “Newfields has 100 Acres. The Indy Art Center and White River State Park each has its own campus,” she notes. “I thought that was an interesting way to think about what sets our city apart. And now CAMi gets to be part of that.” 

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