Mega-Gem

Mega-Gem

Outdoor Sculpture

Email: llord@indyarts.org

Website: http://imamuseum.org

 (317) 631-3301 ext. 214

 902 West New York Street, Indianapolis, IN, 46202

Mega-Gem, owned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art but lent to Indiana University/Purdue University at Indianapolis, represents an oversized, faceted gemstone with several “rosette” gems of various colors inserted into the facets.  The sculpture was part of a gemstone series done by the artist that played with the idea of the preciousness of art, in which he created the form associated with something valuable in materials that were more ordinary.

The sculpture first appeared at the Chicago International Art Exposition at Navy Pier in 1989, exhibited by the Carl Solway Gallery of Cincinnati, and remained there until 1994 when it was loaned by the gallery to the Indianapolis Museum of Art for three years.  In 1997, the museum’s Contemporary Art Society raised funds to purchase it.  It was moved to the IUPUI campus in 2009 for safekeeping during the construction of the museum’s 100 Acres (the Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park), one of four sculptures owned by the museum to be relocated on campus.

The artist, John Torreano (b. 1941), was born in Flint, Michigan.  He attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art and then Ohio State University, where he received his M.F.A.  Torreano has worked in a variety of mediums and methods including paint, sculpture, relief, furniture and hand-blown glass. As of 2016, he is the director of the MFA program at New York University and a professor of studio art at NYU’s Steinhardt School.  His work betrays an obsession with gemstones.  Read more about his work at http://www.johntorreano.com/ 

Learn more about this artwork at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega-Gem 

Medium type: Aluminum - Paint

Date created: 1989

Location Info

902 West New York Street

902 West New York Street, Indianapolis, IN, 46202