Our complicated relationship with sugar goes back centuries. The closer one looks, the more clearly it appears as a pervasive cultural force. This new exhibition will explore the far-reaching consequences of international sugar trade and sugar’s journey from a luxury commodity to a pantry staple. Prints, drawings, photographs, sculpture, tableware and textiles from the IMA Collection will show guests to Sugar how this commodity has shaped our material culture and social conventions. Guests will see pieces created with sugar as well as renderings of classic treats and other artworks made possible by sugar in surprising ways. Sugar the exhibition will be accompanied by a culinary pop up where guests can sample products with historic sugar trade connections, but from modern companies that are fair-trade, employee owned and environmentally sustainable.

Image credit: Claes Oldenburg (American, born Swedish, b. 1929), Alphabet in the Form of a Good Humor Bar, 1970, color lithograph, 39-1/2 × 28-1/4 in. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Roger G. Wolcott Fund, 1984.14 © Claes Oldenburg.