Indy Airport Unveils Artistic Journey Across Time, Place

INDIANAPOLIS (July 17, 2018) – The Indianapolis International Airport (IND) will play host to an eclectic range of artists’ work in photography, painting and video this summer, fall and through early winter that represent a journey across time, space and place.

The Indianapolis Airport Authority and the Arts Council of Indianapolis have selected John Puffer, Barbara Stahl, Petronio Bendito as featured artists to exhibit their recent work from July 16 through Nov. 11, 2018. Toby Kaufmann-Buhler’s video will also be showcased through December 31. The IAA and Arts Council work collaboratively to review and select artwork reflective of Hoosier creativity and perspective.

“These four highly talented Hoosier artists remind us that we are connected across time and place through experience and thought – which makes the airport a perfect place to showcase their work because travel also connects people by expanding their experiences and their thinking,” said Mario Rodriguez, executive director of the Indianapolis Airport Authority.

Among talent includes John Puffer, a former Vincennes University photography and art history professor whose photography series Pompeii: What Remains captures images from the ancient city of Pompeii and tells the story of the lives of ordinary people who lived there long ago in their time and place, and ties that to today’s experience. Puffer’s work will be on display in the Concourse B exhibition case.

Indianapolis artist Barbara Stahl’s large painting, Dancing Strings, was specifically created for the Indianapolis airport. This work derives from the idea of string theory, in which both matter and energy are connected by the harmonies of physical “strings” that vibrate across space and bind all things in a universal symphony. Stahl’s painting will be displayed in the Ticketing Hall.

Purdue University Art Professor Petronio Bendito’s work, Global Citizen, will also be on display, which uses photography to experiment with color and pattern and capture his worldwide travels, including in his native country of Brazil. Bendito’s work is a reminder that we live in a globalized society. His work will be exhibited in the Ticketing Hall as well.

Lafayette-based artist Toby Kaufmann-Buhler’s video creation, 2 Fragments of Motion, will be on display through December, showcasing his work using Super-8 film to capture and convert brief quotations of published text from generations of his family members into a video masterpiece. The idea behind Kaufmann-Buhler’s work is to knit phrases from different origins into a sentence that almost makes sense, but requires imagination to fill in the blanks and create relationships between the phrases. The video can be viewed several times each hour through December 31, on the screen above the main escalator/stair between Civic Plaza and Baggage Claim.

“Barb, Petronio, John, and Toby are some of the region’s most interesting artists,” said Julia Moore, the Arts Council’s Director of Public Art. “It’s fun to show people that the idea of ‘travel’ can be in the mind as well as in physical space.”

To learn more about these artists and their work, visit www.ind.com/community/arts-program.