October 2005

North Carolina Artists Featured in Exhibition
NCMA; Master Print Exhibitiion at Ackland

FROM SCOOTERS AND BOOKS TO TEXTILES AND paintings, Crosscurrents: Art, Craft and Design in North Carolina displays the diverse work of 24 North Carolina artists. The exhibition, presented at the North Carolina Museum of Art in partnership with The Mint Museums in Charlotte, N.C., opens September 25, 2005.

Crosscurrents provides artists with a rare opportunity to have their work exhibited at the NCMA. The 67 works in the exhibition vary in media and size and exemplify the broad range of works currently being created across the state. Many artists use their work for political and social commentary; others critique modern culture.

In June 2004, curators from the NCMA and The Mint Museums issued a call for entries from artists working in the state. From the 550 artists who submitted work, 23 individual artists and one collaborative group of five (called EAT) were chosen to participate in Crosscurrents. The selected works include painting, sculpture, installation work, textiles, books, paper, photography and prints.

Crosscurrents includes three room-size installations, incorporating sophisticated technology and video, as well as humble furniture. Objects that fit in the hand—tea bowls, artist’s books—represent the other extreme of scale.

Crosscurrents presents lavish paintings by Page H. Laughlin and Maja Godlewska; fabric collages by Marguerite J. Gignoux; ink-jet prints by Michael Schultz; and stoneware by Greg Scott. Nylon used by Gwen Bigham, marble carved by David Finn, mirrored paint applied by Jimmy O’Neal, and aluminum hand-wrought by Nikki Blair all suggest the variety of materials employed.

Crosscurrents runs through January 8, 2006. The exhibition opens at the Mint Museum of Craft + Design on January 28, 2006, and runs through August 6, 2006.

For more information on Crosscurrents, visit the NCMA Web site at www.ncartmuseum.org or The Mint Museums Web site at www.themintmuseums.org, or call the NCMA at (919) 839-6262.

Submitted by Jennifer Bahaus of marketing at the North Carolina Museum of Art.

The Ackland Art Museum’s latest exhibition, “Three Sides to a Sheet of Paper: How Prints Communicate, Represent, and Transform (1482-2002)” showcases printmaking over more than 500 years – with techniques ranging from woodcuts to photomechanical prints.

“More than any other form of art, the print raises questions in the minds of museum visitors,” said Timothy Riggs, curator of collections. “Just what is a print? Why are some prints considered works of art and others not? What is the difference between an original print and a reproduction? This exhibition answers these and other questions.”

Some of the works in the exhibition are easily recognizable as art like Picasso’s “The Artist and the Child” that shows a woman painting what seems to be a self-portrait while a child plays on the floor. Others are less obvious examples of fine art prints like “The Sopranos, Fourth Season” poster by Annie Leibovitz, in which the characters from the popular HBO drama pose in a cryptic configuration against the backdrop of an Italian restaurant.

As multiple images, prints have been able to reach mass audiences that might otherwise have limited access to painting and sculpture. In order to communicate, a print must represent what it is communicating, and prints techniques have evolved over the centuries to represent a world of shades and colors through networks of lines and constellations of dots. The special requirements of the print media mean that a print inevitably transforms what it represents. The artists who have made the best use of the print have not tried to make their prints look just like their drawings or paintings; instead they have responded to the character of woodcut, etching, or whatever particular form of printmaking they have chosen.

The exhibition includes masters of the hand-made print from Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) to Picasso (1881-1973), alongside rare works by less familiar artists including Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533), Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617), Jacques Callot (1592-1635), and Rodolphe Bresdin (1822-1885).

As an adjunct to the exhibition, there is an installation about print techniques in the Ackland’s Education Resource Center. Here visitors can see a lithographic print next to the lithographic stone that created it. A commissioned series of prints using different techniques ranging from woodcut to aquatint are on view alongside the plates and tools that were used to print them.

“Three Sides to a Sheet of Paper” will be on view through Nov. 13. The Museum, on South Columbia Street near Franklin Street, in Chapel Hill. There are a series of event presented in conjunction with the exhibit. For program details call 919-843-3676. For museum hours and additional information, call 919-843-1611 or visit www.ackland.org.

Submitted by Maria Bleier, director of communications, Ackland Art Museum