Indiana Public Media: John Mellencamp Exhibit Opens At Eskenazi Art Museum

The Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art will display paintings from musician John Mellencamp through the fall semester. The exhibit officially opened Thursday afternoon. 

Crossroads: The Paintings of John Mellencamp features work solely by Mellencamp, a Hoosier who is a longtime Bloomington resident and grew up in Seymour. 

The exhibit’s paintings span several decades and come from a handful of private collections, as well as Mellencamp’s personal gallery. 

Mellencamp has always been an artist, but found music to be a more stable career. 

“Mellencamp has created works of art that express a conflicted and often dark view of America, especially the plight of Americans living in the Midwest who have felt abandoned and overlooked,” the exhibit’s description reads. 

Caleb Weintraub is an associate professor at the Eskenazi School of Art and is a co-curator for the exhibit. Last spring, he taught a handful of students who helped curate the exhibit. 

“It's a deeply human exhibit,” Weintraub said. “We're sort of in a time when a lot of creative work is being somewhat, like, outsourced to machines, and optimized and streamlined. I think John Mellencamp’s approach is very much in contrast to that.” 

Greg Morse visited the exhibit because he grew up listening to Mellencamp’s music. 

“I have a little bit of background in art history,” he said, “so I was wanting to see about his art, if it was on par with his career in music. It is.” 

The museum invited local bands Chorin and Six Foot Blonde to kick off the exhibit. Those free concerts will be at 4 and 6 p.m. Thursday at the museum. 

Weintraub will also give a lecture about his work with the gallery at the event. 

“His paintings aren’t prescribed,” Weintraub said. “There’s no recipe for them. He sort of feels his way through the paintings.” 

The collection will be on display at the museum through Dec. 15. 

The museum galleries are open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sundays from noon to 5 p.m., and are closed on Mondays.