FOLLOWING AN EXTENSIVE array of events over its opening weekend, the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields has unveiled its most recent exhibition and undergone a notable transformation in the process. Titled Giants: Art From the Dean Collection of Swiss Beatz and Alicia Keys, the showing, on tour in collaboration with the Brooklyn Museum, offers Indiana residents a chance to see some of the most sought-after pieces of contemporary Black art in the world.
Acquired over decades by Alicia Keys, a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, and Kasseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean, a notable producer, DJ, and rapper, the showing features over 130 pieces. While comprehensive, comprised of everything from classically inspired portraiture and plein-air landscapes to abstract and conceptual works, the ethos of this assortment of art is summed up in Deans’ maxim: “by the artist, for the artist, with the people.”
The last portion of that saying truly came alive this past weekend, with Newfields hosting a number of commemorative events, including a block party, a series of conversations with the Deans and artists from the show, and, of course, the museum’s highly anticipated, stylish opening night celebration. “Fine art is all of us,” said Keys, before walking down that evening’s red carpet amid the swell of strings played by The Trap Orchestra’s ensemble.
The significance of community is also a central concern of the art itself, with great attention being given to the numerous manners in which Black people live their lives. While Black portraiture often orbits certain realities and themes, Giants shows Black culture to be by no means monolithic.
Historically, to make a portrait of something is to exalt it. The artists in the Dean collection are not only deeply aware of this fact, but are cognizant of how to implement it in ways that are respectful of the innumerable manifestations of Black existence. It is such that sees the subjects of Amy Sherald’s Deliverance (2022), an exuberant depiction of dirt-bike riders from the streets of Baltimore’s racing scene, afforded the same grace and dignity as the Black ballerinas in Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s oil-on-linen Stone Arabesque (2018). Though they show two different lifestyles, the subjects’ bodies, their poised limbs unfurling like sails, allude to the presence of the same beautiful freedom.
That all these images can be seen so seamlessly is perhaps what led Swizz Beatz to declare that this “is the best show to date.” Though Newfields is but the latest stop in a long line of the couple’s displays, the Indianapolis Museum of Art appears to have had a distinct impact on the collectors, with both the Deans noting that they learned powerful new things about some of the paintings they own due to the institution’s unique layout and lighting. For while some local audiences may miss The LUME, whose popular immersive displays of Monet, Van Gogh, and Dalí made for many an Instagram-ready selfie, the museum has returned the fourth floor to the sovereignty of true art.
Inaugurating the Penny and Jock Fortune Suite of Contemporary Galleries, the top floor and its tens of thousands of square feet are capable of displaying the Dean collection’s more monumental works in their entirety. Notably, the work of artist and Yale professor Meleko Mokgosi has one room all to itself. His colossal, 21-panel Bread, Butter, and Power (2018), an oil-on-canvas epic, envelopes the space in a profound meditation on feminism, equality, and power. In doing so, it facilitates an intimacy with the art and its implications, ultimately allowing new realizations to emerge. “It’s different every single time,” says Keys.
Filled with truly world-class art, and exhibited in conjunction with the issuing of a catalogue and the inauguration of new galleries, the exhibition will undeniably be one of Newfields’ most popular. The museum has not only brought compelling new works to the state, but has connected Indiana’s own robust Black art scene with important global narratives. Alicia Keys remarked that “art is a love language” for her and her husband. Born from that love, this showing creates art in its own right, as it works to inspire thoughtful contemplation and creative conversations.
