Gabriel de la Mora, 1,102 II, 2020. Pigmented turkey feathers on museum cardboard, 16 7/8 x 16 7/8 x 1 9/16 in.
North Carolina Museum of Art Announces Fall Exhibitions, Including Alphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau Visionary
Fall 2021 exhibitions also include North Carolina artists and an exhibition of contemporary artists drawing on traditional art making techniques to tackle timely subject matter
May 19, 2021
MEDIA CONTACT
Kat Harding | (440) 759-8148 | kat.harding@ncdcr.gov
Raleigh, N.C.— The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) announces its fall 2021 exhibitions, with artists from both around the world and around the state, including Alphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau Visionary, opening October 23, 2021, and on view through January 23, 2022. Focused on the influence of craft on artists working nationally and globally, Break the Mold: New Takes on Traditional Art Making features world-renowned artists like Gabriel de la Mora, Yasumasa Morimura, Shinique Smith, Hank Willis Thomas, and more. In N.C. Artist Connections, three North Carolina–based artists (Stephen Hayes, Hong-An Truong, and The Beautiful Project) will enter into a dialogue with the NCMA’s collection, presenting work that speaks directly to the Museum’s works of art.
Czech-born Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939) was one of the most influential and celebrated artists in turn-of-the-20th-century Paris. He is best known for his graphic work, such as theater posters for superstar actress Sarah Bernhardt and decorative panels and advertisements featuring graceful women. Mucha created a distinctive approach characterized by harmonious compositions, sinuous forms, organic lines, and muted colors, which became synonymous with the decorative style called art nouveau.
“This fall the North Carolina Museum of Art is pleased to present a series of exhibitions that span the 19th to the 21st centuries and offer insight into art made in different parts of the world,” says Valerie Hillings, Museum director. “Our fall season features internationally beloved and recognized work by Alphonse Mucha alongside local, national, and international contemporary artists who explore a range of techniques and social and cultural histories.”
Despite the powerful impact of Mucha’s style, his ideas behind its development are less well known. Alphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau Visionary draws on the latest research to examine the theoretical aspects of his style, which evolved as a language for communication with the wider public. Featuring some 100 objects from the Mucha Trust collection, including rarely seen works from the artist’s family, the exhibition looks at Mucha’s contributions to the artnouveau style and how he later used his visual language to express his vision for an independent Czechoslovak nation.
The international scope of Mucha’s aesthetic, influences, and impact are elaborated in the exhibition and accompanying catalogue through the addition of works from the North Carolina Museum of Art collection and new research on their relationship to Mucha’s art and times.
Member tickets will go on sale Wednesday, June 30. Nonmember tickets will go on sale Wednesday, July 21.
Break the Mold: New Takes on Traditional Art Making
September 25, 2021–February 6, 2022 East Building, Joyce W. Pope Gallery
The North Carolina Museum of Art will present Break the Mold: New Takes on Traditional Art Making. Break the Mold will showcase contemporary artists who are using traditional modes of art making to tackle timely subject matter. Innovative approaches to embroidery, ceramics, quilting, furniture, interior design, and fashion accessories serve to explore diverse topics such as gender inequality, prison reform, racial justice, memory, and loss, as well as how objects encapsulate, transmit, and transform social and cultural history.
As daily life becomes more digitized and technology-dependent, artwork evoking or involving traditional craft assumes new significance and provides an avenue for interrogating and critiquing social and historical contexts. In this exhibition historic objects will be presented alongside contemporary artworks to explore the making and meaning embodied by both. In addition artistic technique will be considered—and a commitment to choosing labor-intensive modes of working—as another layer of meaning in these contemporary pieces.
Artists to be included are Lucas Samaras, Gabriel de la Mora, Yasumasa Morimura, Hank Willis Thomas, Elizabeth Brim, Sanford Biggers, Rachel Meginnes, Elizabeth Alexander, Rodney McMillan, Shinique Smith, Thomas Schmidt, Maria Britton, Julie Cockburn, Do Ho Suh, and more.
N.C. Artist Connections: The Beautiful Project, Stephen Hayes, and Hong-An Truong
September 4, 2021–February 13, 2022
Photography Galleries 1 and 2, Video Gallery
The NCMA has provided art education, inspiration, and access to generations. For artists the Museum has been a particularly special place for burgeoning careers, especially as a space for study, experimentation, and guidance. The NCMA will present new and/or reconceived works of art by two North Carolina–based artists and an art collective that link to important artworks in the Museum collection. Framed through themes of their choosing, these artists’ presentations will offer fresh perspectives on the NCMA’s collection and will highlight the important relationship between the Museum and living artists. Stephen Hayes’s work is concerned with historical depictions of African Americans as these images relate to social justice, and his contribution will involve a large gallery-hung installation of Museum collection works. Hong-An Truong’s art connects to issues of communication (and misunderstandings) between disparate cultures. The Beautiful Project grapples with ideas of memory and ritual through portraiture.
Image Captions (top to bottom):
Alphonse Mucha, Daydream (Rè‚verie), 1897, color lithograph, 28 5/8 × 21 3/4 in., Mucha Trust Collection, © 2021 Mucha Trust
Elizabeth Alexander, The Great Enemy of Truth, 2019, hand-cut set of Confederate commemorative porcelain plates, paper packaging, glass, wood, and brass wall mounts, H. 260 x W. 60 x D. 5 in., Courtesy of Hodges Taylor and the artist
Hong-An Truong, Reflection: Anti U.S. War in Vietnam in San Francisco, 1969, 2018, carbon single transfer print on mirror, 7 x 10 in.; Photograph: Seth Miller
Winnie Okwakol, Self Portrait, 2021, digital photograph, Courtesy of The Beautiful Project
About the Exhibitions:
Alphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau Visionary is co-organized by the North Carolina Museum of Art and the Mucha Foundation, Prague. This exhibition is 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 this exhibition was made possible by Ann and Jim Goodnight/The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fund for Curatorial and Conservation Research and Travel.
Break the Mold was conceived in collaboration with the Mint Museum in Charlotte which provided critical loans and curatorial support. It is organized by the North Carolina Museum of Art. This exhibition is 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 this exhibition was made possible by Ann and Jim Goodnight/The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fund for Curatorial and Conservation Research and Travel.
N.C. Artist Connections is organized by the North Carolina Museum of Art. Generously supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this exhibition is 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 this exhibition was made possible by Ann and Jim Goodnight/The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fund for Curatorial and Conservation Research and Travel.
About the North Carolina Museum of Art
The North Carolina Museum of Art’s permanent collection spans more than 5,000 years, from antiquity to the present, making the institution one of the premier art museums in the South. The Museum’s collection provides educational, aesthetic, intellectual, and cultural experiences for the citizens of North Carolina and beyond. The 164-acre Museum Park showcases the connection between art and nature through site-specific works of environmental art. The Museum offers changing special exhibitions, classes, lectures, family activities, films, and concerts. The Museum, located at 2110 Blue Ridge Road in Raleigh, opened West Building, home to the permanent collection, in 2010. It is the art museum of the State of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, governor; an agency of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources under the direction of Secretary D. Reid Wilson; and led by Director Valerie Hillings.
About the Mucha Foundation
The Mucha Foundation is an independent, non-profit charity based in the Czech Republic with an international scope of activity founded in 1992 by the artist Alphonse Mucha's grandson John Mucha and the artist's daughter-in-law, Geraldine Thomson Mucha. The aim of the Mucha Foundation is to protect and preserve the family collection, which is the largest and most comprehensive collection of Alphonse Mucha’s works worldwide, and to promote Alphonse Mucha's artistic heritage. Over the years, the Mucha Foundation has held more than 50 exhibitions across the world, at which more than 6,500,000 visitors have become acquainted not only with the work of Alphonse Mucha, but also with Czech culture. The Mucha Foundation is internationally recognized as an authority on the life and North Carolina Museum of Art Announces Fall Exhibitions, Including Alphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau Visionary work of Alphonse Mucha. The Chairman of the governing body of the Mucha Foundation is John Mucha.