Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center Saturday July 31, 2010 8:00 p.m. Jason Scott Furr and Vincent Wrenn present a collaborative performance based and constructed on the time and location of the performance itself, utilizing emerging data streams as well as live (temporal) composition and sonic cinema. Jason Scott Furr (modulation of audio and video data streams) - Vincent Wrenn (auditory variations on time and location)
$7/$5 BMCM + AC members and students w/ID 828-350-8484
KENNETH SNELSON: SCULPTOR/PHOTOGRAPHER/INVENTOR
June 25 - October
23, 2010
Opening reception:
Friday, June 25, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Free for BMCM+AC members and students w/ID / $3 non-members
Kenneth Snelson was
an art student at Black Mountain College in the summers of 1948 and 1949, where
he studied with Buckminster Fuller and Josef Albers. He describes his work as a
study of physical forces in three-dimensional space. Snelson made the original
discovery of the tension/compression principle, “tensegrity” which defines his
structural sculptures. Another of his works is a fifty year study, a multimedia
piece describing the artist’s invented architecture for the atom. This
exhibition will include small sculptures, panoramic photographs, digital
pictures and patent drawings.
PERFORMANCE
On Time and Place
Friday, July 23,
8:00 p.m.
Jason Scott Furr
& Vincent Wrenn
This collaborative
performance will be based and constructed on the time and location of the
performance itself, utilizing emerging data streams as well as live (temporal)
composition and sonic cinema. With Scott Furr (modulation of audio and video
data streams) and Vincent Wrenn (auditory variations on time and location.)
$7 / $5 BMCM+AC members + students w/ID
WORKSHOP
The Albers Color Course
Sat., August 7,
10:00 - 4:00 & Sun., August 8, 10:00 - 1:00
Fred Horowitz, a
former student of Josef Albers and Black Mountain College student Sewell
Sillman, will present a two-day workshop on the Albers color course. Initiated
at Black Mountain College, Albers’s course was a revolutionary method that
investigated how color behaves in context with other colors. Through hands-on
activities, participants will experience something of the magic and delight of
color as experienced in Albers’s course. Co-sponsored by UNC Asheville.
Pre-registration
required. Some materials provided.
$95 / $85 BMCM+AC members + students w/ID
PRESENTATION Towards a Poetics of Race, Space & Place: The Harlem
Skyrise Project Thursday, August 19, 7:00 p.m.
New York-based author, poet and professor Cheryl Fish will consider poet and
African-American rights activist June Jordan's collaboration with architects in
the 1960s and how her challenge to "slum clearance" was an early
example of environmental justice and the importance of connecting dwelling
space to the psychic and social well being of a community. What do these
findings mean for rethinking private and public spaces now?
Presented in collaboration with the French Broad Institute (FBI).
$7 / $5 BMCM+AC members + students w/ID
CONFERENCE
October 8 – 10 at
the University of North Carolina Asheville
2nd Annual Re-Viewing Black Mountain College
- The legacy of Black Mountain College continues to
influence contemporary culture in multiple realms. This conference aims to investigate
its history as well as the multiple paths of influence, actual and possible,
identifiable in the contemporary world and beyond.
Keynote Speaker: Kenneth Snelson
Kenneth Snelson is
an American artist with work in major museum and public art collections all
over the world. Known primarily for his gravity defying sculptures, Snelson is
also an accomplished photographer with a particular interest in panoramic
photographs. The recent publication Kenneth
Snelson: Forces Made Visible traces this important artist's five-decade
career.
Support for this project has been generously
provided by: Architectural Design Studio, Samsel Architects, MDS 10 Architects,
Henco Reprographics and UNC Asheville.
Food for Thought
A fundraiser for the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
YMI Cultural Center - 39 S. Market Street, downtown Asheville
Saturday, July 10, 2010
8:00 p.m.
Food for Thought is
a champagne and dessert party and live auction at the YMI
Cultural Center in downtown Asheville.
This exciting event will raise money for programming at the museum/arts
center. A wide variety of desserts will be served with champagne and
coffee along with a lively auction conducted by professional auctioneer
John Hill of Weaverville who is well known for his humor.
Items to be auctioned are unique
plates, platters, and bowls designed and decorated by some of the area's
most talented artists such as Alli Good, Taiyo la Paix, Linda Larsen,
Kevin Hogan and many others including a very well-known New York-based
artist. These works of art all feature a thought from a student or teacher
from the legendary Black Mountain College. Quotes inscribed on each
piece of dinnerware are from Black Mountain College poets, painters,
philosophers, architects, and scientists. The finished works can be
previewed upstairs at Blue Spiral 1 during their regular business hours.
Food for Thought will be held
at the historic YMI Cultural Center, 39 S. Market St., beginning at
8:00 PM on Saturday night, July 10. Tickets are $20.00 for members or
$25.00 for non-members at the door. For further information call Alice
Sebrell at 828 350-8484.
Hertha O. Horwitz
"Explore
your own possibility!" - Ilya Bolotowsky
Nava Lubelski
" I can't
understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.
" - John Cage
Margaret Curtis
"These days,
whatever you have to say, leave the roots on, let them dangle and the dirt,
just to make clear, where they come from." - Charles Olson
Kevin Hogan
"Josef!
Shut up and eat." - Anni Albers
Billy Bernstein
"more
more more more more more more more more more more more..."
Kate Bernstein
"Dog with
daisies for eyes/who flashes forth/flame of is very self at every bark"
- The Dog of Art, Denise Levertov
Connie Bostic
"Blackbird
hangs low in the sky
Sun and moon gone
south until solstice" - CK Holmire
Christopher French
"Art, like
life, is all about location."
Donald Sultan
HOT
DOG HOT DOG
Alchemist’s Rock
Tony Bradley
"the
artist begins with art, and through it arrives at reality."
- Robert
Motherwell
Terry Taylor
Follow
Ray's Instructions
1.
Draw Circle
2.
Add Ear
3.
Add Another Ear
4.
Add Eye
5. Add
Another Eye
6.
Add Nose
7.
Add Mouth
8. Moustache
Optional
Phil DeAngelo
"
I've been looking at this landscape for twenty years, and I've come to the conclusion that
there's only one tree out of place." - Nell Rice
Kristy Urquhart
"
Imagine inventing yellow or moving for the first time in a cherry curve."
- MC Richards
Jeff Kinzel
"Young
people don't know when to stop." - Fannie Hillsmith
Dana Irwin
"
abstract expressionism was the first American art that was filled with anger as well as
beauty." - Robert Motherwell
l
Brigid Burns
"the
Dog / of Art turns to the world / the quietness of his eyes"
- Denise Levertov
Michael Hofman “ There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly” – Buckminster Fuller
Alli Good “ But I found a lot of the artists at the Cedar Bar difficult for me to talk to.” – Robert Rauschenberg
Taiyo la Paix “ The naked musculature of the Rockies was overpowering and my painting responded.”
– Elaine DeKooning
Marcia Cohen “Abstraction is real, probably more real than nature.” -Josef Albers
Aimee Ellingsen “ Love is form and cannot be without important substance.” – Charles Olson
Karen Weihs “If I plant a tomato seed I will get a tomato plant out of it. Then I will get tomatoes from that. I LIKE THAT.”
– Ruth Asawa
Sally Bryenton “ There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly” – Buckminster Fuller
Linda Larsen “Art is always a personal moral adventure.” – Josef Albers
Charles Krekelberg “
When I spoke of flowers I was a flower, with all the prerogatives of
flowers, especially the right to come alive in the spring.” –
William Carlos Williams
Absentee bids will be accepted, please contact us for further information.
From BMC to NYC: The Tutelary Years of Ray Johnson (1943-1967)
February 19 – June 12, 2010
Opening reception: Friday, February 19, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Free for BMCM+AC members and students w/ID / $3 non-members
The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) will present the exhibition From BMC to NYC: The Tutelary Years of Ray Johnson (1943-1967) beginning February 19th, 2010, and running through June 12th. In addition, we will host related programs, including a guest lecture, a film screening of the popular documentary How to Draw a Bunny, a collage workshop by Washington DC collagist Krista Franklin and an opening-night performance by Graham Hackett and Poetix Lounge. An exhibition catalogue will be available for purchase.
A seminal Pop Art figure, Ray Johnson has been called the most significant "unknown artist" of the post-war period, a "collagist extraordinaire" who influenced Pop artists such as Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, as well as a generation of contemporary artists. Since his death, however, Johnson has emerged not only as a key member of the 1960's generation, but as one of the major artistic innovators of the second-half of the 20th century.
Black Mountain College—in particular, Johnson’s first teacher, Josef Albers—was a critical factor in Johnson’s development as an artist. Indeed, Johnson’s time at the college can be viewed in retrospect as a platform from which he dove into Manhattan and its vibrant art world. Our exhibition will explore the ways that many of Johnson’s early tutelary influences, both the people and the places, helped create his unique vision. Throughout his career, Johnson always found ways to engage those around him—mentors, friends and strangers alike—in a correspondence “dance” of collage, letter writing and interactive performance art. Following in Marcel Duchamp’s footsteps, Johnson, as one art critic put it, “introduced life into art.”
Through a carefully selected group of paintings, collages and early correspondence, From BMC to NYC: The Tutelary Years of Ray Johnson will explore the early transitions in Johnson’s career—in particular his graduation from high school in Detroit to his three years of serious study at Black Mountain College to his immersion in the Manhattan art scene of the 1950s and 1960s. From BMC to NYC, curated by writer and collage artist Sebastian Matthews, will trace a circle around roughly two decades of Johnson’s early art, creating a spotlight on his explosion from talented painter and master collagist to, by the 1960s, Grand Dean of Dada & Postal Art. The exhibition will provide an interactive, playful presentation of Johnson’s “tutelary” work, highlighting the people and places that influenced Johnson’s creations in order to give the viewer a roadmap of Johnson’s creative process.
The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center is an exhibition space and resource center in downtown Asheville dedicated to exploring the history and legacy of the world's most acclaimed experimental educational community, Black Mountain College. Over the course of its 24 year history, Black Mountain College attracted and created maverick spirits, some of whom went on to become well-known and extremely influential individuals in the latter half of the 20th century. Even now, decades after its closing in 1957, the powerful influence of BMC continues to reverberate.
Citation:
Ray Johnson
James Dean/Rimbaud
ca. 1956-58
Collage on cardboard
11 by 7-5/8 inches
Private Collection
Related Programming
OPENING NIGHT PERFORMANCE
Graham Hackett & Poetix Vanguard are spoken-word performers who deliver poems solo, as duets, in 3 parts, or as ensemble pieces. They will perform throughout the opening reception.
COLLAGE WORKSHOP
Saturday, February 27, 10:00 a.m - 2:00 p.m.
The Visual Poetry workshop, taught by Chicago-based poet and artist Krista Franklin, will engage participants in the creation of original work out of pre-existing text and images. Using the art of collage, workshop participants will engage in art-making exercises designed to expand one’s creative possibilities. Pre-registration suggested.
$20 / $15 BMCM+AC members + students w/ ID. Most materials provided.
FILM SCREENING
Thursday, April 8, 7:00 p.m.
How to Draw a Bunny
John Walter and Andrew Moore's award-winning documentary tells the story of collage artist Ray Johnson, whose death was cloaked in mystery and whose life and art remain enigmatic. As one of the seminal figures in the Pop Art era, Johnson is known as the founding father of mail art and as a collagist extraordinaire. Winner of the special jury prize at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival.
Fine Arts Theatre - 36 Biltmore Avenue, Downtown Asheville
$10 / $8 BMCM+AC members + students w/ID
GUEST LECTURE
Friday, May 21, 7:00 p.m.
Dr. Frances F. L. Beatty, Vice President of Richard L. Feigen & Co. and Director of the Ray Johnson Estate, will talk about Ray Johnson’s attitude towards exhibiting his work, the contents of the Estate and her relationship with the famously eccentric artist.
$7 / $5 BMCM+AC members + students w/ID
CLOSING NIGHT POETRY READING
Saturday, June 12, 7:00 p.m.
Earl Braggs teaches creative writing and African-American literature at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He is the author of five collections of poetry, including Hat Dancer Blue and In Which Language Do I Keep Silent: New and Selected Poems.
Keith Flynn is the founder and editor of the Asheville Poetry Review. His fourth book of poems, The Golden Ratio, and his first book of nonfiction, The Rhythm Method, Razzmatazz and Memory: How To Make Your Poetry Swing, have garnered Flynn national attention.
$7 / $5 BMCM+AC members + students w/ID
Support for this project has been generously provided by: the North Carolina Arts Council, Asheville Area Arts Council, Henco Reprographics and many generous individual sponsors.
What happens when you take
two things that seem unrelated—llke, say, visual art and writing,
collage art and poetry, non-fiction and creativity, Black Mountain College
Museum and Arts Center and the Thomas Wolfe Memorial site—and mix them
all up in a one week camp? We’re not sure, but we know it will be
something new and exciting.
We’re also sure it will help
all of us to enter into what Beat Generation novelist William S. Burroughs
called “the third mind”—where inspiring poems, short memoir pieces
or lively personal essays are born. Participants will begin the week
at the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center by exploring the
art of collage artist Ray Johnson, one of the seminal figures of the
Pop art Era and student at the Black Mountain college in the early 40s.
Tuesday through Friday will
offer time at both the BMCM+AC and the Wolfe Memorial, for writing, making
collage art, and having great conversations about creativity. Poet Sebastian
Matthews, curator of the Ray Johnson exhibition, From BMC to NYC:
The Tutelary Years of Ray Johnson, will take the lead on poetry,
beginning with his workshop, 7 Things Ray Can Teach Us About Poetry.
In the house that Asheville’s most famous novelist, Thomas Wolfe,
made famous with his barely fictionalized novel Look Homeward, Angel,
Janet Hurley and camp participants will explore the creative non-fiction
genre—where murkiness and clarity are inspirational.
To cap the week, participants
will share their writing and art in a public reading and art show at
the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Visitor Center.
How Much?
$170.
Where?
Thomas Wolfe House and Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center.
When?
Monday, June 14-Friday, June 19, 10:00 am-3:00pm
The workshop is limited
to 12 participants and scholarship assistance is available.
Collaboration with UNCA
The Black
Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and University of North Carolina
Asheville's Ramsey Library Special Collections are collaborating to digitize
and make available for study materials from the BMCM+AC archives and permanent
collection. This is an ongoing process that will continue to develop and grow
over time. It is also an invaluable learning experience for students at UNC
Asheville. Please click on the link below to see our progress.
