IU Art Museum tours offer insight into gallery

Students stressed with midterms looming overhead need look no further than the IU Art Museum for a change of pace.\nMany fine arts students know this, but many others do not know that any group of students can arrange a free tour of the museum. Sophomore studio art major Carly Park has spent hours appreciating the IUAM's offerings, both in class and independently. She said she finds the museum is more than just an academic resource.\n"As a student, it's nice to identify things you may have read about in classes for yourself in the museum," she said. "But it's very calm and relaxing and fun to just go walk around too."\nThe IUAM opened in 1982, and includes over 30,000 artifacts and pieces of art, including masterpieces by such artists as Claude Monet, Jackson Pollack and Pablo Picasso.\nDesigned by the architectural firm, I.M. Pei and Partners, the building boasts a complete lack of 90 degree angles, other than where the walls touch the floor. As any passerby might attest, one of the building's most defining characteristics is the three-story glass atrium entrance. \nIU Web site said the IUAM is one of the top five University art museums in the nation.\n"I really liked going to the art museum for class tours," sophomore Laura Lindquist said. "But I didn't know you could actually see all the exhibits on all the floors until recently." \nJoanne Cross, tour coordinator at the IUAM, finds that many students fare like Lindquist and are unaware of the many opportunities that lie within the art museum. \nShe said many students don't realize how easy it is to become acquainted with the art museum and its collection. \n"We have extremely well-trained docents (museum tour guides), who are wonderful at building one-on-one rapport," she said. \nCross said one of the most valuable resources at the IUAM for students is the tour service. Any group of any size with any number of unique interests in art can arrange for a free tour with the IUAM, or individual tours. \n"We customize the tours to what the group needs," she said. "They're interactive tours, focusing on looking at and talking about the art and what the viewers perceive."\nFor those time-crunched students who prefer a more structured tour, the IUAM offers a free public tour of the general collection from 2 to 3 p.m. every Saturday. Thematic tours focused on specific nuances of the collection are scheduled for the first weekend of every month.\n"November's thematic tour will highlight 'Art and the Eye' and will deal with some of the more technical and scientific aspects of perceiving art," Cross said.\nThough taking a tour can be as simple as showing up, some students, perhaps feeling the pressure of a heavy load, have no time to tour this semester. \n"Though at times I feel pretty stressed taking 19 credit hours, I know it's still really important to take breaks," sophomore Vivek Chandrasekhar said. "If nothing else, it's relaxing to spend at least a few moments every now and then at the art museum."\nFor more information on tours, call Tour Coordinator Joanne Cross at 855-1045 or visit www.indiana.edu/~iuam..\n--Contact staff writer Chris Sommerfeld at csommerf@indiana.edu.