Indianapolis Museum of Art

The Indianapolis Downtown Artists and Dealers Association’s monthly art tour has changed a lot in seven years, now boasting nearly 40 participating studios and galleries—plus a huge range of unofficial events.

It’ll be a while before these new favorite snapshots grow old.

“I think the American experience is best represented in the middle of the country,” he says, “and to talk about [that] through my work is an entry point to talking about who we are as people.”

“This highlights a major aspect of his work that hasn’t been seen in its entirety,” Robert Indiana historian John Wilmerding says.

Also: The IMA’s recently wed director, Charles Venable, announced his organization’s opposition this week to the proposed gay-marriage ban.

She hopes that The Art Assignment will help audience members broaden their own definition of art, demystify the art-making process, and prove that anybody can give it a try.

Discover the best of what Indy has to offer in the arts-and-culture scene with theater, books, design, and much more.

The IMA’s new Contemporary Design Gallery has the largest collection of modern design in the United States, boasting hundreds of pieces from three different eras.

The deadlines to garner tickets to the Nov. 1 events are at hand: Oct. 25 for the dinner and Oct. 30 for the artist’s talk and cocktail time. If you can’t make it, perhaps you’ll catch Pardo wandering through the Matisse exhibit at the IMA. He says he’s a fan.

Fan-favorite pieces and drawings that reveal the artist’s thought process are on display from Oct. 13 through Jan. 12, 2014, in one of the most comprehensive collections of his work to date.

“What didn’t happen is enough people showing up to populate the structure we had built,” Venable says. But “Art is not for everybody,” says one IMA critic. “Art is for anybody, which is very different.”

Will the value the IMA’s curators provide—challenging our thinking with shows like Ai Weiwei’s, telling us what art we should be clamoring for—continue as the museum is democratized?

The Wanderers: There is no escaping these free-range moviegoers. They need to keep their dirty Converse off of your picnic blanket.

Freiman’s impending evaporation from Indy is the latest move at the IMA, where relatively new director and CEO Charles Venable, who started in October 2012, has made an array of changes.

Ai’s works—more than 30—are on display in the world-famous artist’s exhibit, titled Ai Weiwei: According to What?