Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
editThe Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) is an exhibition space and resource center located at 56 Broadway in downtown Asheville, NC dedicated to preserving and continuing the legacy of educational and artistic innovations of Black Mountain College (BMC). BMCM+AC achieves its mission through collection, conservation, and educational activities including exhibitions, publications and public programs.
History
editBMCM+AC was founded in 1993 by Mary Holden Thompson to pay tribute to BMC (1933-1957) and to acknowledge the College's role as a forerunner in progressive, interdisciplinary education with a focus on the arts. The museum and arts center existed as a nomadic organization from 1993 until 2003 when it moved to its current downtown Asheville location, just 15 miles from the both BMC campuses at Lake Eden and the Blue Ridge Assembly in Black Mountain, NC.[1] BMCM+AC was first based out of founder Mary Holden Thompson's house in Black Mountain, NC. It expanded to Zone one contemporary, a gallery in downtown Asheville from 1991-2000 owned by long-time BMCM+AC board member Connie Bostic. The museum then moved to the Kellogg Conference Center in Hendersonville, NC followed by Warren Wilson College and finally 56 Broadway.
- 1993 – Mary Holden Thompson founded the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
- 1995 – The organization of a Black Mountain College reunion attended by over 100 alumni.
- 1997 – The launch of an ongoing oral history program dedicated to documenting Black Mountain College alumni.
- 2002 – A regional festival called Under the Influence[2], which explored the legacy of Black Mountain College through music, education and performance.
- 2003 – The opening of the present gallery space in downtown Asheville.
- 2009 – The first annual international ReVIEWING Black Mountain College conference, organized in partnership with the University of North Carolina at Asheville (UNCA).
- 2010 – The first annual {Re}HAPPENING, an experimental art event featuring over 100 artists held on the former grounds of Black Mountain College.
- 2010 – The establishment of a partnership with UNCA to provide digitization and archival storage for the growing BMCM+AC archives.
- 2011 – The implementation of an NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture grant.
- 2011 – The creation of a new online publication, the Journal of Black Mountain College Studies.
- 2012 – The state of North Carolina moved BMC records to the Western Regional Archives in Oteen, NC, which further established Asheville as a center for BMC studies and strengthened our partnership with the Archives.
- 2013 – The 80th anniversary of BMC’s founding, and the 20th anniversary of BMCM+AC’s founding—including a logo redesign and marketing campaign.
- 2014 – The founding of a new educational initiative under BMCM+AC’s auspices and in partnership with UNCA’s Howerton Distinguished Professorship, IDE+A, the Institute for the Study of Democracy, Education and the Arts.
- 2015 – The Grand {Re}Opening of the newly redesigned and renovated 56 Broadway gallery space.
Expansion
editIn Summer 2014 BMCM+AC received a major grant from the Windgate Charitable Foundation (Siloam Springs, AR) in support of a three-year plan to expand its facilities and public programs. In a building owned by The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design (CCCD)— located diagonally across the street—BMCM+AC will open an additional gallery at 69 Broadway and create storage space for the growing collection of artwork and materials by faculty and alumni of Black Mountain College.
Asheville-based and internationally recognized artist Randy Shull designed and fabricated the overall expansion project including the two related gallery spaces in the BMCM+AC’s facility at 56 and 69 Broadway in downtown Asheville.
Collection
edit- BMCM+AC Collection
The BMCM+AC collection includes items with dates of creation ranging from 1931-2004. All items in the collection have a direct connection to the history of BMC, such as original college publications and other primary source materials. Components of the collection are photographs (24%), ephemera (22.5%), paintings (12%), drawings/prints (12%), poems/books/monographs/magazines/articles (11%), writings/correspondences (6%). The museum owns a variety of objects, including ceramics/clay (4%), furniture/wood (1.5%), sculptures (1%), weavings/fiber (1.5%), collages and mixed media pieces (4%), broadsides/artists’ books (.3%) and music/album covers (.2%).
In addition, the collection features a full set of the poetry journal, The Black Mountain Review, which formed the group of writers known as the Black Mountain Poets. In Summer 2013, the museum acquired a 1971 work by BMC alumnus Robert Rauschenberg, Opal Gospel, 10 American Indian Poems, comprised of 10 moveable silkscreened acrylic panels of American Indian stories and imagery. Other noted pieces in the collection are furniture from the original Black Mountain College campuses: two benches from the Quiet House, a place for contemplation, meditation, and observance of special occasions at the Lake Eden campus and a desk designed by Josef Albers. BMCM+AC has an original Black Mountain College directional sign from the Lake Eden Campus, which is displayed in the 56 Broadway Space reception area. The collection features many other works by various alumni, faculty and key figures of Black Mountain College including, among many others, Ruth Asawa, Ray Johnson, Kenneth Noland, Charles Olson, M. C. Richards, Dorothea Rockburne and Susan Weil. [3]
The museum has been facilitating oral history documentation since 1999, resulting in a collection of recorded interviews with 55 BMC alumni to date. The BMCM+AC also has a research library, which includes approximately 400 BMC-related resources in audio, video and book form. These resources, in addition to the aforementioned oral histories, are available to museum visitors and members as a part the museum’s publicly accessible resource center. The BMCM+AC collection serves as a resource in a variety of contexts, on a regional, national and international level.
- The Jargon Society
In 2012, BMCM+AC was chosen as the receiving institution for the remaining publications and archive of The Jargon Society, a small-press publisher founded in 1951 by Jonathan Williams. The archive currently includes over 70 titles out of the total 115 Jargon titles. Of the 115 originals in the Jargon catalogue, approximately 85 are books and another 30 are broadsides, pamphlets and other publications.[4]
- UNC Asheville Ramsey Library Special Collections
The BMCM+AC 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. [5] UNCA Special Library Collection
Publications
editThe BMCM+AC has published numerous dossiers, exhibition catalogues and books about Black Mountain College, its teachers, and alumni.
- Journal of Black Mountain College Studies
Black Mountain College Studies is an online peer-reviewed publication of The Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center, which sponsors an annual conference along with the University of North Carolina Asheville. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis.
- Catalogues
- Dan Rice at Black Mountain College: Painter Among The Poets
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2014
- Black Mountain College: Shaping Craft + Design
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2013
- John Urbain: No Ideas But In Things
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2013
- Pat Passlof: Selections 1948 - 2011
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2011
- In Site: Late Works by Irwin Kremen
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2011
- From BMC to NYC: The Tutelary Years of Ray Johnson 1943-1967
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2010
- The Shape of Imagination: Women of Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2008
- Emerson Woelffer: At the Center + At the Edge
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2008
- Breaking New Ground: The Studio Potter + Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2007
- Books
- Backpacking in the Hereafter
Poetry chapbook by M.C. Richards. Edited by Julia Connor, 2014
- Cynthia Homire: Vision Quest
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2014
- Hazel Larsen Archer: Black Mountain College Photographer
Essays by David Vaughan, Connie Bostic, and Erika Zarow
- Black Mountain Days
Michael Rumaker, Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center, 2003
- Remembering Black Mountain College
Mary Emma Harris, Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center, 1995[6]
- Dossiers
The Dossiers focus on specific BMC alumni and serve both as exhibition catalogues and critical studies. To date, the museum has published eight dossiers, featuring BMC alumni including Joseph Fiore, Fannie Hillsmith, Lore Kadden Lindenfeld, Ray Johnson, Susan Weil, Michael Rumaker, Gwendolyn Knight and Gregory Masurovsky.
Exhibitions
editAt the 56 Broadway location, pieces from the permanent collection are featured via a rotating schedule of temporary exhibitions, which are on display for an average of four months at time. In addition to these rotating exhibitions at the museum, BMCM+AC curated exhibitions of selections from the permanent collection from 2009-2011 at the University of North Carolina at Asheville (UNCA) in concurrence with their annual conference, ReVIEWING Black Mountain College. The center has also co-curated exhibitions with a variety of regional institutions, including the Hickory Museum of Art, Western Carolina University, the Western Regional Archives, and the Smith-McDowell House. In addition to the museum’s regional use of the collection in exhibitions, the collection is also accessed nationally and internationally by means of traveling exhibitions and loans to other institutions.
- Past Exhibitions
*Dan Rice at Black Mountain College: Painter Among the Poets
- INTERLUDE: A Look at the Collection
- Jacqueline Gourevitch: Site Reconstruction
- Cynthia Homire: Vision Quest
- Black Mountain College: Shaping Craft + Design
- Harry Seidler: Architecture, Art and Collaborative Design
- John Urbain: No Ideas but in Things
- Looking Forward at Buckminster Fuller's Legacy
- David Weinrib: Bridging
- Pat Passlof: Selections 1948 - 2011
- John Cage: A Circle of Influences
- JACK TWORKOV: The Accident of Choice
- In Site: Late Works by Irwin Kremen
- UNC Asheville Hosts Exhibit
- Dorothea Rockburne: Astronomy Drawings
- PAST PRESENCE
- From BMC to NYC: The Tutelary Years of Ray Johnson (1943-1967)
- In Site: Late Works by Irwin Kremen Article
- Emerson Woelffer: At the Center + At The Edge
- SIGNS OF LIFE: Robert Rauschenberg Posters
- Jorge Fick: Journey of a Restless Mind
- Thinking Ahead: Progressive Design + Black Mountain College
- Hazel Larsen Archer / Black Mountain College Photographer
- Joseph Fiore: Painter/Teacher
- IDEAS + INVENTIONS: Buckminster Fuller and Black Mountain College
- Asheville Collects Black Mountain College
- Leo Krikorian / Implied Space
- A Radical Vision / Black Mountain College
- Gregory Masurovsky: A World in Black and White
- Jonathan Williams: Visions of Wonderment + Affection
- The Shape of Imagination: Women of Black Mountain College
Programs
edit- {Re}HAPPENING
The {Re}HAPPENING, an annual multidisciplinary art event, honors the interdisciplinary nature of Black Mountain College and pays tribute to the innovations of that community of artists. Hosted on the former BMC campus at Lake Eden, NC, the site-specific event launches a contemporary platform for artists and attendees to experience creativity in the present day. The event has been co-organized since its inception in 2010 by the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and the Media Arts Project.
Taking its name from what is widely considered to be the first ‘Happening’ in the United States—from John Cage’s emphasis on chance and the observer as vital components in artistic creation—the {Re}HAPPENING reimagines BMC’s tradition of Saturday night parties and performances. Cage’s proto-Happening took place at BMC in 1952 and featured Cage reading Meister Eckhart, Charles Olson and M.C. Richards reciting poetry, Robert Rauschenberg showing his White Paintings and playing recordings on an old victrola, and Merce Cunningham dancing.
Each year, the {Re}HAPPENING features over 80 local, regional, national, and international artists collaborating on 30+ visual art installations, new media presentations, and performances dependent upon wildly innovative visual and participatory components. As with Cage’s 1952 event, the {Re}HAPPENING is a democratizing art experience, participatory and interactive rather than hierarchical.[7]
- Conferences
The ReVIEWING Black Mountain College Conference is annual academic event which engages a variety of humanities disciplines. Hosted on the campus of UNCA, the conferences of the past have included film screenings, musical and dramatic productions, hands-on workshops and lectures by new and established scholars. A full list of past conferences and schedules is located on the museum website.
- IDE+A
The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center's Institute for the study of Democracy, Education and the Arts aims at investigating and continuing the college's legacy in experiential education, democratic practice and artistic innovation both separately and in combination. The Institute's activities focus on educational activities and include internships, visiting fellowships, publications and public programming.
IDE+A is directed by Dr. Brian E. Butler, Thomas Howerton Distinguished Professor of Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Former Chair of the Board of the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Butler is a scholar in politics, legal philosophy and aesthetics. He has degrees in art (BFA, Otis College of Art and Design and MFA, Claremont Graduate University), philosophy (MA and PhD, Claremont), and law (JD with honors,University of Chicago).
Board
editOfficers
- Rick Gruber, Chair - Director Emeritus, The Ogden Museum of Art
- Sydney Green, Vice-Chair - Community Volunteer and Small Business Owner
- Don Carson, Treasurer - Gen. Manager, RFA Management Co, LLC, Singer, Musician
- Amanda Wiles, Secretary - Artist
Other Members
- Helga Beam - Community Volunteer
- Connie Bostic - Artist
- Brian Butler, Chair - Professor of Philosophy, UNC Asheville
- Andrea Clarke - Photographer, Community Volunteer
- Curt Cloninger - Assistant Professor of New Media,UNC Asheville
- Brenda Coates - Artist, Community Volunteer
- Marcia Cohen - Assistant Professor of Art, SCAD Atlanta
- John Cram - Owner of Blue Spiral 1, New Morning Gallery, Fine Arts Theatre, Bellagio
- Todd Fowler - Accountant, Todd and Company Accounting
- Mary Lynn Kotz - Writer, Author of a comprehensive book about Robert Rauschenberg
- Leigh Maher - LMM Business Consulting, CFO Leaf Festival and General Manager Lake Eden Events
- Dave Peifer - Professor of Mathematics, UNC Asheville
- Carol Pennell - Real Estate Broker
- Micah Pulleyn - Artist, Teacher, Event Planner
- Jane Anne Tager - Human Resources Director
- Samer Traboulsi - Associate Professor of History, UNC Asheville
Advisory Board
- Emoke B'Racz - Owner of Malaprop's Bookstore
- Jeff Davis - Poet, Computer Network Specialist
- Gene Felice - New Media Artist, Teacher
- David McConville - President of the Buckminster Fuller Institute and co-founder of the elumenati
- Susan Rhew - Graphic Designer / Susan Rhew Design
- Glen Shults - Attorney
- Fred Turner - Associate Professor of Communication and Director of the Program in Science, Technology and Society at Stanford University
BMCM+AC Staff
- Katherine de Vos Devine, Executive Director
- Alice Sebrell, Program Director
- Lydia See, Development + Outreach Coordinator
- Sarah Bonner, Website Master
References
edit- ^ Black Mountain College Museum+Arts Center http://www.blackmountaincollege.org/about/history. Retrieved 2-17-15.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ Black Mountain College Museum+ Arts Center http://www.blackmountaincollege.org/programs/past/155-under-the-influence-festival. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ "BMCM+AC Collection". BMCM+AC. Retrieved 2-27-15.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ "The Jargon Society". BMCM+AC. Retrieved 2-17-15.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ "UNCA Special Collections". BMCM+A. Retrieved 2-27-15.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ "BMCM+AC Publications". BMCM+AC. Retrieved 2-27-15.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ "{Re}HAPPENING". Retrieved 2-27-15.
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