Art Sinsabaugh's work on display at Art Museum

The IU Art Museum special exhibitions gallery is currently playing host to "American Horizons: The Photographs of Art Sinsabaugh" until Dec. 23. This distinctive collection highlights Art Sinsabaugh's incredible landscape photographs, which were captured by the artist's giant "banquet" camera, so named because it was originally intended to photograph large social gatherings. With this colossal piece of equipment, Sinsabaugh was able to produce 12-by-20-inch negatives, which he often dramatically cropped to evoke the massive sweep of the horizon. \nWith this in mind, visitors of the collection often remark on the size of the photographs.\n"The photographs are amazing; however, I thought they'd be bigger," said graduate student Robert Gilchrist. \nNanette Brewer, curator of works on paper, explained why Sinsabaugh's photographs deserve their monumental reputation. \n"Sinsabaugh's photographs are landscapes of monumental scope in very delicate presentation. We often forget in our age of digital scans that photographs of this size were the biggest of Sinsabaugh's time," she said.\nThe photographs are amazingly detailed, prompting Brewer to make portable magnifying glasses available to viewers. \n"The photographs offer an infinite amount of detail because it's a one-to-one ratio without enlargement," Brewer said. "Right down to the baseballs stuck in the gutters of houses close to Wrigley Field." \nIn their book "American Horizons: The Photographs of Art Sinsabaugh," made especially for this traveling collection, Keith Davis and Nanette Brewer describe what makes this collection so unique to IU and the Midwest. In the summer of 1962, Sinsabaugh headed to Bloomington for the final week of a photography workshop held at IU's School of Fine Arts by Professor Henry Holmes Smith.\nThis trip proved significant not only in solidifying an important friendship between the two men, which eventually led to the IU Art Museum's acquisition of Sinsabaugh's archive in 1978, but it also served as the means by which he produced the images in his seminal Midwest Landscape Group, Brewer said.\nIt was on his excursions to and from Bloomington that Sinsabaugh shot many of his Midwest landscapes, traveling through Terre Haute, Paoli, Ind., Vincennes, Bedford and various small towns along the way.\nAmong Sinsabaugh's collection are the Midwest, Chicago, Baltimore and American Landscapes, as well as his lesser-known work in color and portraits.\n"The Landscape photographs beautifully portray Sinsabaugh's desire to create an all-encompassing census of the American landscape," Brewer said. "They don't focus on individual people or places, but rather the rhythms of human life and our relationship to the land through the formal elements — the buildings, silos, bridges, highways, homes, skyscrapers, trees and gravestones — that puncture our horizons."\nOne is left more with a feeling of the landscape, rather than an exact image or knowledge of the place. \nIn addition to Sinsabaugh's intimate ties with Bloomington and the Midwest, Brewer said a major motivator for this exhibit was the lack of knowledge and resources concerning Sinsabaugh's works. \n"People would ask, 'Where can I find more information about this artist?' and there were very few places to look," Brewer said. \nAccompanying the exhibit is a film documenting Sinsabaugh's development as a photographer and inspirations from the American landscape, as well as "American Horizons: The Photographs of Art Sinsabaugh," the first major retrospective publication of Sinsabaugh's work. Chase Potter, manager of the IU Art Museum Café, said they carry posters and note cards of Chicago Landscapes, hard- and soft-cover copies of "American Horizons," as well as discounts for buying a book and poster together. \nIn addition to Art Sinsabaugh's exhibit, the IU Art Museum played host to "Midwest Fest: A Celebration of Art, Literature, Music, and Food from the Heartland," said David Tanner, associate director for administration. Midwest Fest was held Sunday in the Special Exhibitions Gallery. It featured readings from Midwestern writers, a performance of original music inspired by the photographs of Art Sinsabaugh and a reception with samplings of locally- and regionally-produced food.