Michelle Grabner’s The Temporary Suburban, 2015, at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Photo: Nathaniel Edmunds Photography

Catch this footloose suburban gallery before it goes

The Suburban has shown Björk, Matthew Barney and Pierre Huyghe and now it's at the Indianapolis Museum of Art

Plenty of Americans take the opportunity to enjoy a road trip when relocating from one city to another. Fewer drop off their own mobile gallery 300 miles south of their new home. However the artist and Phaidon author Michelle Grabner is no ordinary homeowner. Since 1999 the Akademie X contributor and her artist husband Brad Killam have used a single-storey, 10-feet square annex beside the garage of their home in the Chicago suburbs as an artist-run gallery. And this is no dilettante folly. Over the past 16 years, The Suburban has hosted exhibitions by Sarah Lucas, Olafur Eliasson, Pierre Huyghe, and even a blockbuster Matthew Barney and Bjork co-residency.

 

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Now, as Grabner and Killam relocate from their old home to their new place in Milwaukee, they've taken The Suburban on the road, with a month-long residency beside the Indianapolis Museum of Art. 

 

Michelle Grabner with Nathaniel Russell in his Book Room, installed in Grabner’s The Temporary Suburban, 2015, at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Photo: Nathaniel Edmunds Photography
Michelle Grabner with Nathaniel Russell in his Book Room, installed in Grabner’s The Temporary Suburban, 2015, at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Photo: Nathaniel Edmunds Photography

The Temporary Suburban's relocation also coincides with Grabner's solo exhibition at the museum, Weaving Life into Art. Inside the IMA viewers can take in Grabner's beautiful, intricate abstract paintings, drawings, video and photography, while, in the grounds they can enjoy smaller, intimate solo presentations from a selection of other artists. The Temporary Suburban has already hosted shows by Nathaniel Russell, Marco Querin and Emily Kennerk, and this Friday local artist Kris Komakech will open his exhibition there.

 

Installation view of Michelle Grabner’s The Temporary Suburban, 2015, at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Photo: Nathaniel Edmunds Photography.
Installation view of Michelle Grabner’s The Temporary Suburban, 2015, at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Photo: Nathaniel Edmunds Photography.

Komakech is painter, illustrator, sculptor and installation artist who examines ideas of local community and public art. Find out more here, and get more on Grabner's solo show here. Locals should also look out for the forthcoming show at the IMA from the brilliant British artist and fellow Akademie X contributor, Richard Wentworth, which opens 25 September; and to learn how you might also weave your life into art, get Akademie X, an inspirational and practical guide on how to live a creative life written by the world's most thought-provoking artists.