INDIANAPOLIS, IN.- Following the success of the U.S. Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia, the 54th International Art Exhibition, the Indianapolis Museum of Art will bring works by the collaborative team Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla to Indianapolis in Spring 2012. The IMA is acquiring Delta (Body in Flight), which will be presented with scheduled performances in the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion March 8, 2012, through April 22, 2012. The artists’ Vieques Series, including Half Mast\Full Mast from the Pavilion, will also be shown in its entirety for the first time as part of the exhibition Allora & Calzadilla: the Vieques Series, on view March 8, 2012, through October 14, 2012, in the Holeman Video Gallery.

Body in Flight (Delta) and Half Mast\Full Mast are among the six commissioned works that comprise the U.S Pavilion exhibition Gloria, on view in Venice, Italy, through November 27, 2011. Organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the exhibition employs a variety of artistic practices including sculpture, performance, video, and sound elements that destabilize existing narratives around national identity, global commerce, international competition, democracy, and militarism. To date, more than 280,000 visitors have seen Gloria at the Venice Biennale since it opened in June, and another 69,000 have viewed the exhibition online.

“We are thrilled to be adding Body in Flight (Delta) to our collection. Presenting this sculpture and Half Mast\Full Mast in Indianapolis allows us to make these internationally acclaimed works more accessible to our local and regional audiences by bringing part of the Venice experience to Indianapolis for a few months,” said Lisa Freiman, Senior Curator and Chair of the IMA’s Department of Contemporary Art and Commissioner of the U.S. Pavilion at the 2011 La Biennale di Venezia.

In Body in Flight (Delta), Allora & Calzadilla appropriated the form of a state-of-the-art elite business class airline seat and reproduced it in full-scale. When activated by a female U.S. gymnast in her red, white, and blue competitive unitard, the painted, wooden airline seat replica becomes an unlikely gymnastic apparatus reminiscent of a balance beam. The female gymnasts perform a routine developed by Olympic gymnasts, Allora & Calzadilla, and choreographer Rebecca Davis. This routine, which emphasizes flexibility and fluidity, is an unexpected combination of gymnastic skills and modern dance techniques. Sadie Wilhelmi, who performed in Venice throughout the run of the Biennale, will inaugurate Body in Flight (Delta) with a special performance on March 8, 2012. Wilhelmi will also train female athletes from clubs affiliated with Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics who will participate in regularly scheduled performances in the IMA’s Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion through April 22, 2012.

Additionally, the IMA will open Allora & Calzadilla: the Vieques Series, an exhibition of short films that the artists filmed on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. This island was controlled primarily by the U.S. Navy until 2003, when military exercises ceased and environmental remediation began. The videos, which have never before been presented together, include Returning a Sound (2004), Under Discussion (2005) and the U.S. premiere of Half Mast\Full Mast (2011).

Returning a Sound is the first in the series, and documents a symbolic reclaiming of the land by local activist Homar, who travels by an adapted moped in areas that were forbidden to the residents of Vieques for decades. A trumpet has been affixed to the muffler of the moped, which emits a call that varies in pitch due to the land’s terrain and the speed of the bike. This “anthem”— created by an instrument typically used for military ballads—recalls abrasive sounds, such as the bombs that were deployed by the U.S. Navy on Vieques for over sixty years. Under Discussion follows Diego, the son of a local fisherman, as he circles the island on a boat made from an overturned conference table powered by an outboard motor. The video depicts coastlines riddled with deployed bombs, and luxury resorts that have been constructed on land previously occupied by the U.S. Navy. By literally mobilizing the conference table, Diego’s actions symbolize the need for a democratic process of discussion, rather than mandate from the U.S. government or wealthy investors to determine the fate of the land.

Half Mast\Full Mast, which premiered in June at La Biennale di Venezia, is a two-channel video consisting of two projected videos, one stacked above the other. Each depicts a different landscape on Vieques, but both share a common cinematic framing of a flagpole in the center of the image. The result of the two images together creates the appearance of one single flagpole connected between the two screens, despite the images’ otherwise obvious disjunctive backgrounds. One gymnast at a time enters one of the two screens and takes the position of a human flag. Depending on which screen the gymnasts appear, top or bottom, the flag seems to be flying at full mast or half mast, in sites that symbolically mark places of victory or setback in the island’s 60 year struggle for peace, decontamination, ecological justice, and sustainable development.