Art of Architects - Woodburn and Westcott - June 11, 2003 - 4 stars

This exhibition, conjured up by gallery owner and curator Doris V. Hails, makes good sense. Local architects make our immediate environments beautiful places to live and work. Architectural design is public and visually engages community in the arts. It’s utilitarian, its our heritage, it is art and deserving of being given a gallery venue. Artwork in the stylistically diverse show ranges from books and nudes, to annoying nonsense machinery. Kipp Normand’s architectural reliquaries, which, he says, “Are all about dead buildings,” sentimentally preserve the stories of notable demolished Indianapolis buildings. History and neighborhoods tend to die, too, when buildings are lost, but tearing down culture to create culture was once the irresponsible Indianapolis way. Original black and white images or the represented buildings lay next to their boxes. Fractured pieces of wood and the unlikeliest of salvaged bits contained in his pieces successfully and sincerely demonstrate the fragile balance and importance of these places better than the Indiana State Museum’s entire School 5 façade “save” which screams of guilt. Through July 26; 317-916-6062. – Mary Lee Pappas