Fall 2020 Preview

PREVIEW FA L L | W I N T E R N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 0 – F E B R U A RY 2 0 2 1

virtual special exhibitions

A peek inside the Good as Gold virtual exhibition

The Virtue of Virtual Experience Special Exhibitions. Online!

At your leisure visit virtual versions of exhibitions now showing, including Good as Gold. The one-time subscription price is $8 for members (plus taxes and fees). subscribe here

visit.ncartmuseum.org/subscribe Learn. Explore. Enjoy Mindful Museum offerings to center yourself during turbulent times, tackle virtual art classes, or take part in lively conversations with our NCMA Film Club.

For Teachers, Students. Visit learn.ncartmuseum.org for a robust menu of virtual programs for teacher professional development, including online courses and webinars. Teachers can also request virtual field trips for grades K–12. c o v e r : Devorah Sperber, After the Mona Lisa 2, 2005, 5,184 spools of thread provided by Coats and Clark, hanging apparatus, aluminum ball chain, acrylic sphere, and metal stand, 85 × 87 in., Gift of the North Carolina Museum of Art Contemporaries, ©2020 Devorah Sperber/Devorah Sperber Inc.

preview : november

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Pandemic: North Carolina Artists Reflect

2020– february 2021

FROM TH E DI R EC TO R

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New Acquisition: Simone Leigh’s Corrugated

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Interchanges: Cross-Collection Conversations

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Reflections on Light

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What to Expect When I Visit the NCMA

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Drawing Connections across Cultures and Time

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Golden Mummies of Egypt

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Membership Matters

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Exhibitions at a Glance

Dear members, As we began welcoming visitors back to the Museum in September, I was struck by the energy they brought to our galleries. I spoke with families taking a break from their virtual-learning schedules, friends visiting on a socially distanced walk in the Museum Park, and couples revisiting old favorites and taking in new exhibitions and installations.

The critical support of our members in the spring and summer made these artful reunions possible. I want to thank you again for being a Museum member, especially as you endured uncertainties and challenges of your own, and I look forward to seeing you at the Museum soon.

In this season of change, you’ll continue to receive virtual events and exhibition offerings to complement and deepen on-campus experiences, like the highly anticipated opening of Golden Mummies of Egypt in February 2021. It showcases the outstanding collections of the Manchester Museum, unveiling the mysteries of multicultural Roman Egypt, where diverse Egyptian, Roman, and Greek communities and cultural influences were blended. Golden Mummies features over 100 objects of daily life, along with haunting painted panel portraits that preserve a rare corpus of ancient painting that literally and figuratively brings us face to face with the past.

With appreciation and my best, Valerie Hillings

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pandemic : north carolina artists reflect

pa n d e m i c

North Carolina Artists Reflect Preview caught up with local artists to ask how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected their work and their thoughts about art and art making.

Damian Stamer I’m thinking more about the role of art in society, and how I can do my part to encourage positive change and reflection. This includes acknowledging my many privileges and using the creative process to help me look for the things I still cannot see. I also feel an impulse to be bolder and more direct with my paintings by adopting a “no day but today” attitude. The pandemic slowed me down to focus on what is important in my life. So I’m spending a little bit longer talking with my parents on the porch every day, and I’m logging more hours than ever before in the studio.

Damian Stamer, South Lowell 18, 2014, oil on panel, 48 × 90 in., Purchased with funds from the William R. Roberson Jr. and Frances M. Roberson Endowed Fund for North Carolina Art; see more of his work at damianstamer.com; Photograph: Katrina Williams / Fifty Two Hundred Photo

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pandemic : north carolina artists reflect

Titus Brooks Heagins, Elian, 1998; printed 2004, inkjet print, 11 × 173/4 in., Purchased with funds from the William R. Roberson Jr. and Frances M. Roberson Endowed Fund for North Carolina Art; see more of his work at southboundproject.org; Photograph: Š 2018 Maureen D. Cullins, The Artist at Work

Titus Brooks Heagins I am a portraitist. I spent the entire month of February in Cuba photographing in the transgender community. A heartfelt project for the past five years. The world closed when I returned home. For me, the future remains uncertain as I self-sequester, understanding the importance of safety, and survival. I knew two people who were felled by the virus, and being African American, I have a health condition that gives me pause. Admittedly, I ventured outside to capture the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as the Open Up NC protests. Quickly, I realized how unsafe that was and retreated into my semi-solitude with my wife, Maureen, who is constantly working from home. As my cameras gather dust, my heart suffers mood swings and writing provides the only creative solace.

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pandemic : north carolina artists reflect

Anne Lemanski With the onset of Covid and the shelterin-place order, I could not concentrate on anything for two months, so I didn’t force it. I always work alone, so that was nothing new, but the mental toll of the situation was palpable.

When I got tired of stewing, I decided to create a new series of collages/prints centered around a recently acquired hoard of vintage mineral images. That process got my juices flowing again! I am trying to remain optimistic about the future of the arts and artists, but, like many, have high anxiety about income over the next one to two years.

The only remedy I have for that anxiety is to just keep working.

Thomas Sayre The past six months have been an unexpectedly productive time for me in the studio. I have had time; the studio environment is safe; and, most importantly, this has been a time of provocation. Witnessing the world grapple with a plague and seeing my local community reeling in its wake, I have felt curiously called to respond with more narrative content in the work. Then, in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, this time of Covid took on even wider challenge. I am extremely lucky to be able to work, to make, and to wrestle with finding meaning in this swirling world. Without working, my life would be far more difficult.

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pandemic : north carolina artists reflect

Anne Lemanski, Furadan Feline: panthero leo leo (African lion), 2009, copper rod, archival inkjet print on paper, “shuka� fabric, and artificial sinew, H. 24 x W. 21 x D. 21 in., Purchased with funds from the William R. Roberson Jr. and Frances M. Roberson Endowed Fund for North Carolina Art; see more of her work at annelemanski.com.

Thomas Sayre, Gyre, 1999, three ellipses of concrete, colored with iron oxide, reinforced with steel, and mottled with dirt residue from earth casting, overall length 150 ft., Gift of Artsplosure, City of Raleigh, and various donors; see more of his work at thomassayre.com; Photograph (left): Art Howard

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new acquisition : simone leigh 's corrugated

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new acquisition : simone leigh 's corrugated

new acquisition

Simone Leigh’s Corrugated Inspired by architectural elements and African diasporic art, Simone Leigh’s female figural sculpture is a commanding presence that portrays Black womanhood as a powerful experience constructed around themes of fortitude and persistence.

The piece’s wide, corrugated base emulates industrial materials and can be read as either a voluminous skirt or an abstracted body. Leigh further abstracts the figure by removing its eyes, resulting in an inwardly focused form that looks beyond the viewers rather than at them.

Through this sculpture Leigh examines the complexity of Black women’s identity at the intersection of racial and gendered cultural systems. These cultural complexities require Black women to remain composed and stable despite traditional ideas of feminine fragility. Leigh’s perspective on race, gender, and power celebrates Black women’s resiliency as a tool of self-reliance.

Simone Leigh has been selected to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale in April 2022.

Simone Leigh, Corrugated, (left: large detail), 2019, bronze and raffia, H. 81 x W. 73 x D. 401/2 in., Gift of Thomas S. Kenan III

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interchanges : cross - collection conversations

interchanges

Cross-Collection Conversations Recognizing the often-strict borders between art historical genres and time periods, NCMA curators are breaking boundaries by juxtaposing works of art in order to challenge and interrupt preconceptions. These “interchanges� face challenging histories head on, celebrating the legacy of art throughout time.

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interchanges : cross - collection conversations

Transforming Portraiture Devorah Sperber’s multimedia works incorporate everyday materials to reinvent famous works of art. She is interested in exploring the reproduction of images in the digital era, the links between art and technology, and visual perception. In this capsized portrait made of over 5,000 spools of thread, Sperber (b. 1961) takes a large detail from the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)—arguably the most recognized and reproduced image in the history of art—and transforms it with scale and materials. Viewing the work through the sphere turns the image right side up and shrinks it to a recognizable size.

At left is a painting, Portrait of a Young Woman Wearing a Floral Garland, by one of Leonardo’s students, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio (1467–1516), whose skilled rendering epitomizes his teacher’s revolutionary transformation of portraiture in the 15th century, capturing human emotion and expression similar to Sperber’s rendering of Mona Lisa.

Devorah Sperber, After the Mona Lisa 2, 2005, 5,184 spools of thread provided by Coats and Clark, hanging apparatus, aluminum ball chain, acrylic sphere, and metal stand, 85 x 87 in., Gift of the North Carolina Museum of Art Contemporaries, ©2020 Devorah Sperber/Devorah Sperber Inc. Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, Portrait of a Young Woman Wearing a Floral Garland, circa 1495–99, oil on panel, 15 3/8 × 11 3/8 in., Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation

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interchanges : cross - collection conversations

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interchanges : cross - collection conversations

Whose Golden Age? Almost as soon as their economy began to flourish in the 17th century during the Golden Age, the Dutch established colonies and entered into the slave trade, expanding their power through exploitation and occupation. Despite the progressive reputation of the Netherlands, these painful histories often go untold and are almost entirely absent from Dutch art. By 1675 the economic Golden Age had ended, and the Dutch had established more than a dozen colonies and transported more than 126,000 enslaved Africans to the Americas. By 1850 this total would climb to almost 600,000.

Paintings like Backhuysen’s show Dutch ships in such detail that they can often be identified: here we see the warships Hollandia in the right foreground and the Ridderschap (Knighthood) in the background. Beyond the dark storm we see calm skies to the right in a message of endurance and optimism. Such pride in Dutch maritime strength conceals the exploitation this strength necessitated and continued to support. The prosperity that also allowed artists and patrons to flourish in the Golden Age was built on the violent establishment of foreign colonies and the transportation by Dutch ships of thousands of enslaved Africans to the Americas.

Rather than simply documenting, paintings often present only a selective view into the past.

At left this headless representation of the world-traveling art collector Eleanor Hewitt, daughter of an American industrialist, towers above her surroundings. She is dressed in Dutch wax cloth, a type made in the Netherlands but popular across Africa starting in the 19th century. Yinka Shonibare’s sculpture embodies the global trade networks built on and supported by European colonialism.

We invite members to join the conversation on social media and debate the questions raised. Tag @ncartmuseum and use #NCMAinterchanges.

Yinka Shonibare, CBE (RA), Eleanor Hewitt, 2005, life-size Fiberglas mannequin, Dutch wax-printed cotton, wood, and steel, H. 150 in., Purchased with funds from the North Carolina State Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest) Ludolf Backhuysen, Ships in a Stormy Sea off a Coast, circa 1700–5, oil on canvas, 59 5/8 × 91 1/8 in., Purchased with funds from the North Carolina State Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest) and Arthur Leroy and Lila Fisher Caldwell, by exchange

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reflections on light: works from the ncma collection

R E F L E C T I O N S O N L I G H T: WORKS FROM THE NCMA COLLECTION Through February 14, 2021 East Building, Level B, Video Gallery Photography Gallery 1 (Julian T. Baker Jr. Gallery) and 2 (Allen G. Thomas Jr. Gallery) Featuring objects from 16 countries and spanning more than 2,500 years of art history, Reflections on Light celebrates the diverse collections of the North Carolina Museum of Art. Organized in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of the NCMA’s West Building, designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners to allow for an expansive experience of art in natural light, this exhibition showcases how artists across worlds and time—ancient Guatemala, 17th-century Netherlands, 20th-century Ghana, and more—responded to, used, and revered light. As these works demonstrate, light illuminates the darkest spaces, shines through the bleakest days, and bears witness to the miracles of human innovation.

Above, from Reflections on Light: Works from the NCMA Collection: Elliott Daingerfield, The Grand Canyon, circa 1912, oil on canvas, 36 1/4 × 48 1/4 in., Purchased with funds from the State of North Carolina

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What to Expect When You Visit

“Our top priority is keeping visitors and staff safe through expanded measures that encourage social distancing and follow state safety guidelines.”

—Director Valerie Hillings Next time you come to the Museum, you’ll notice we’ve made a few changes with safety in mind. We began welcoming visitors back to the galleries on September 9 with updated hours, required free timed tickets, and required cloth masks.

Our gallery hours are Wednesday to Sunday, 10 am to 5 pm. Free timed tickets are now required to access the collection. Reserve yours online at visit.ncartmuseum.org for a no-touch entry experience, or get one at the check-in desk in either building.

When you arrive you’ll see there’s just one door to enter, and a guard will be there to open it for you. Inside, there’s a one-way traffic flow, marked with stanchions and arrows. You may notice extra cleaning going on around you, and we’ve placed hand-sanitizing stations throughout the buildings.

Lockers are temporarily closed, so you’ll need to leave food, drink, and backpacks in your car—but don’t forget your mask!

Special exhibitions are open (see page 21), and as always, your first visit is free as a member!

The Museum Park is open every day from dawn to dusk, and you can even reserve a picnic lunch—or breakfast—through our partnership with Ashley Christensen Restaurants; visit ncartmuseum.org for details.

Amid these changes, one constant remains: our commitment to you, our members, and to the art in our stewardship.

And because life keeps changing, we suggest you check our website for the latest word on our response to the pandemic (ncartmuseum. org/covid19).

Please email our helpful Member and Visitor Experience team, help@ncartmuseum.org, with any questions before you visit.

We’re excited to welcome you back!

14 dr awing connections across cultures and time

Drawing Connections across Cultures and Time

In one corner of the Contemporary Gallery, two visitor favorites have been rehung near a new acquisition—offering a new perspective through a historical, and even religious, lens.

Best known for his monumental portraits of young Black men, placed in historical poses and settings appropriated from Old Master paintings, Kehinde Wiley has consistently critiqued the racism of art history, while also commenting on contemporary street culture and identity. Wiley’s approach to reinventing classical portraiture brings new light to the conversation around the faces and voices represented in the portraits found in museums worldwide.

Judith and Holofernes, Wiley’s first series of paintings to feature female subjects, now resides alongside Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’s Village and Elsewhere: Thai Villagers and Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith and Holofernes. The subject in both works of art, which appears repeatedly throughout art history, is taken from the apocryphal Old Testament Book of Judith, in which a Jewish town is under attack by the Assyrian army led by the general Holofernes. Judith, a local widow, visits Holofernes under

Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, 2011, digital pigment print, 28 3/4 × 38 3/4 in., Courtesy of the artist and Tyler Rollins Fine Art; Kehinde Wiley, Judith and Holofernes (detail), 2012, oil on linen, 120 × 90 in., Purchased with funds from Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Hanes in honor of Emily Farnham, and with funds from Peggy Guggenheim, by exchange

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the pretense of helping him defeat the Jews. After he falls asleep, she cuts his head off with his own sword, and the town defeats the army. Wiley takes obvious artistic license with the story—Holofernes is represented by a woman’s head, and Judith wears a gown designed by Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy, who collaborated with Wiley on this series. This new rendition can be interpreted on many levels, including racial and gender identity and inequity, the representation of women throughout art history, and society’s ideals for beauty.

Recognized as one of the preeminent artists of Southeast Asia, Rasdjarmrearnsook similarly explores the connections and complications between Western art history and the cultural traditions of underrepresented cultures. She frequently presents framed reproductions of famous works of art—like Gentileschi’s baroque masterpiece Judith Beheading Holofernes, circa 1620—to rural Thai villagers, recording their reactions to works unfamiliar to them. The villagers then share a variety of responses as they decode the scenes in front of them, showing excitement, humor, dislike, and confusion. What results is a fascinating study in how and what we communicate through art and body language, how worlds collide, how context and location of works of art matter, if at all, and how disparate cultures have more commonalities than typically thought.

Featured in the foreground of these two works of art is Michael Richards’s Tar Baby vs. St. Sebastian, which commemorates the Tuskegee Airmen, African American pilots whose heroic contributions to World War II were recognized only in the past few decades. The sculpture, cast from the artist’s own body, represents a gold-painted airman penetrated on all sides by small airplanes, reminiscent of the arrows shot at St. Sebastian, an early Christian martyr.

In the context of the artist’s own death in the September 11 terrorist attacks, this work of art is a multilayered statement about loss and sacrifice.

Presented together, these works of art translate historical perspective into the language of today. This inspiring juxtaposition encourages visitors to reflect on how the past lingers in the present.

Center: Michael Richards, Tar Baby vs. St. Sebastian, 1999, body cast in resin and fiberglass, painted, and supported by steel shaft, with airplanes cast in resin and fiberglass, painted, and attached by steel bolts, H. 81 x W. 30 x D. 19 in., On loan from the estate of the artist

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GOLDEN MUMMIES OF EGYPT February 13–July 11, 2021 East Building, Level B, Meymandi Exhibition Gallery Ticketed

Golden Mummies of Egypt presents eight extraordinary mummies and explores beliefs about the afterlife during the era when Egypt was part of the Greek and Roman worlds (circa 300 b.c.e.–200 c.e.).

In a series of lavishly illustrated thematic sections, the exhibition uses the outstanding collections of the Manchester Museum in England to allow visitors to examine life for the wealthy in multicultural Roman Egypt, where diverse Egyptian, Roman, and Greek communities and cultural influences were blended. The exhibition journey traces expectations for the afterlife and introduces cultural constructions of identity, strikingly demonstrated by haunting, painted panel portraits. The practices of preservation and decoration of the body, and the transformation of the deceased into a god, are spectacularly shown by the mummies on display.

s ta r t i n g at member tickets presale

Questions about ticketing?

Email help@ncartmuseum.org.

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am

Wednesday, November 18 $20 Nonmembers $17 Seniors $14 Youth ages 7–18 f r e e Member's first visit

Golden Mummies of Egypt is developed and produced by Nomad Exhibitions.

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Egyptian, from Hawara, Mummy of a woman called Isaious, 1st century c.e., human remains, linen, plaster, and gold leaf, Manchester Museum, Š 2019 Manchester Museum / Michael Pollard Photographer

18 membership matters

m e m b e r s h i p m at t e r s

Tell Us Your Story Membership makes a difference in so many ways, and we want to hear your story.

Whether the NCMA was your first-date destination, is your favorite place for a quiet morning walk, or you are simply moved by the art or music you’ve experienced, let us hear about it. What has been your favorite “NCMA Membership Moment?” Submit a brief paragraph (100 words or less) and a photo (optional) with the subject line “NCMA Membership Moment” by December 1, describing your favorite moment, and we will send you your very own NCMA collection-inspired face mask as a thank-you for sharing your story. Submissions of NCMA Membership Moments can be emailed to help@ncartmuseum.org.

Giving the Gift of Art and Culture Make 2021 the year of possibilities for those special to you with the gift of NCMA membership. Open the door to a year of great art, amazing performances, and endless opportunities for all ages to participate in programs that inspire and enrich learning. Gift membership includes a host of benefits, including free, first-time exhibition visits; advance-ticket purchasing opportunities; member-only openings; and discounts in the Museum Store. If the recipient of your gift will be traveling next year to museums far and wide, consider a Patron-level membership or above, giving them free access to an additional 1,000 museums through the North American Reciprocal Museum program. This offer includes a special NCMA welcome gift that can be delivered directly to your recipient or picked up by you to personally deliver at a time of your choosing. For more information visit ncartmuseum.org or call (919) 715-5923.

NCMA Retirements In August Chief Conservator Bill Brown retired after a remarkable 32 years of service, caring for the priceless treasures in the NCMA collection. Head Librarian Natalia Lonchyna retired in October after 22 dedicated years of facilitating public and staff research on art and art history. In December the Jim and Betty Becher Curator of Modern and American Art, John Coffey, will be retiring after 32 years of stewarding and growing the NCMA collection with integrity. We thank them for their commitment to the Museum and wish them all the best in their future endeavors. Their lasting legacies help propel us forward. membership

(919) 664-6754

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in memoriam : noelle ocon

In Memoriam

The NCMA family mourns the loss of a beloved colleague, Senior Conservator of Paintings Noelle Ocon, who passed away in late October. Noelle continues to be deeply missed by family, friends, and coworkers who remember her colorful, inclusive, witty, and friendly personality. In 2017 she won the Governor’s Award for Excellence for her starring role in Actual State, a fivemonth exhibition in which she conserved an Old Master painting live in the galleries. The exhibition plugged into some of her greatest loves: teaching the public about art and conservation, and putting her charisma and humor to work. She was perhaps most proud of her research and treatment contributions for the NCMA’s Dutch and Flemish catalogue. Her restorations—since 1997—of some of the most cherished works in the Museum’s collection are her enduring gifts.

“One of the most important things we do,” said Noelle, “is preserve artwork for the future.”

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Docent Dedication Any NCMA docent today will tell you that Botticelli’s The Adoration of the Christ Child (circa 1490–1500) is one of the first stops on a tour of Museum highlights.

Pictured (left) is Margaret Steed before the NCMA’s Botticelli and wearing the docent uniform instituted in the 1960s and (right) holding up her uniform in June 2020. Discover more on site and online in Miracle on Morgan Street: The Foundations of the NCMA.

Admission to the Museum’s collection is free. The NCMA is a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Susi H. Hamilton, secretary.

Exhibitions in Preview are made possible, in part, by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources; the North Carolina Museum of Art Foundation, Inc.; and the William R. Kenan Jr. Endowment for Educational Exhibitions. Research for these exhibitions was made possible by Ann and Jim Goodnight/The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fund for Curatorial and Conservation Research and Travel.

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at a gl ance : ncma exhibitions

at a g l a n c e

NCMA Exhibitions Good as Gold: Fashioning Senegalese Women Through January 3, 2021 Leonardo Drew: Making Chaos Legible Through January 3, 2021 Christopher Holt: Contemporary Frescoes/Faith and Community Through February 7, 2021 West Building and the Architecture of Light Through February 7, 2021 Front Burner: Highlights in Contemporary North Carolina Painting Through February 14, 2021 Reflections on Light: Works from the NCMA Collection Through February 14, 2021 Miracle on Morgan Street: The Foundations of the NCMA Through April 11, 2021 The Story of a Sculpture: The Bacchus Conservation Project Through June 27, 2021 Golden Mummies of Egypt February 13–July 11, 2021 EXHIBITION TICKETS Reserve exhibition tickets at visit.ncartmuseum.org HOURS Wednesday to Sunday, 10 am–5 pm Visit ncartmuseum.org/covid19 for the latest word on our response to the pandemic. Please email our helpful Member and Visitor Experience team, help@ncartmuseum.org, with any questions.

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