“Blurring the Lines: Art at the Intersection of Human and Artificial Creativity” at Grunwald

The Grunwald Gallery of Art at the Indiana University Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design presents the international exhibition, "Blurring the Lines: Art at the Intersection of Human and Artificial Creativity." Opening September 3, the exhibition showcases 15 projects that investigate the integration of human ingenuity and artificial intelligence.

The multi-media exhibition encompasses work that resembles Ming Dynasty ceramics and 17^th-century vanitas still-life to video pieces, digital simulations, and soundscapes. Installations that introduce biological robots, the role of AI in elder care, and surveillance technology within the art gallery setting further blur the traditional definitions of art, authorship, and artistic practice, while forcing a reckoning with the ethical and societal impacts of these technologies.

“Blurring the Lines” was curated by Associate Professor of Painting Caleb Weintraub and Grunwald Gallery Director Linda Tien. The exhibition opens with a reception Friday, September 6 from 6 - 8 p.m. at the Grunwald Gallery of Art, 1201 E. 7^th St. in Bloomington, and remains on view through November 16. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 12 - 4 p.m. The gallery will host talks by several of the exhibiting artists on Wednesday, October 30 from 10:30 a.m. - 12 with a roundtable discussion from 1:30 - 3 p.m. 

The pieces “100 Drawings” and “Memory” by Indiana University alum Sougwen Chung (B.F.A. ’07, Studio Art) occupy the Grunwald’s central gallery. Recognized in 2024 with a Time100 Impact Award for their artistic influence on the field of artificial intelligence, Chung trains a neural network on 20 years of their paintings, equips it with robotic arms and paint brushes, and then collaborates with the system (called D.O.U.G.) to create new work.

In “Generated Love,” Adam Chau uses AI to generate counter-factual artifacts: blue-and-white porcelain dishes bearing queer-coded images that suggest an alternate version of history. Dennis Delgado’s “Dark Database” and Johann Diedrick’s “Dark Matters” also mark absences of representation: the works expose the biases inherent in facial and vocal recognition systems, respectively. Similarly, the recurrent glitches in Jake Elwes’ “The Zizi Show – A Deepfake Drag Cabaret” reveal how AI reproduces gender bias.

About the Grunwald Gallery of Art

The Grunwald Gallery of Art in the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design presents contemporary works by professional and student artists in a special exhibition format. Exhibitions incorporate art from a variety of contemporary genres and approaches and can be experimental or traditional.  The Grunwald Gallery frequently collaborates with artists, scientists, and scholars to produce exhibitions that interpret visual art in a broader humanities and interdisciplinary context.

About Arts and Humanities AI + Digital Futures  

“Blurring the Lines” has been realized through the IU Arts and Humanities AI + Digital Futures initiative, launched by the IU Research Office in the fall of 2023 to investigate the impact of technology on a broad spectrum of programs. The initiative involves collaboration among the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, the Media School, the Eskenazi School, and faculty from the College of Arts and Sciences and IU Indianapolis.  

For more information please contact

Yaël Ksander
Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design
(812) 855-5512
yksander@iu.edu