I try to be balanced in my critical approach, but this year I wasn’t. If you weren’t making or showing work that was relevant to political or social resistance, I didn’t much bother with it. That said, plenty of exhibits this year stayed with me. I keep thinking about Nina Chanel Abney’s work since Royal […]
Chris Vitiello
Bio: Chris Vitiello lives in Durham and writes for INDY Week on art, music and hockey.Twitter: http://twitter.com/chrisvitiello
Posted inArt
In the New Gregg Museum of Art & Design, N.C. State Finally Gets a Nasher of Its Own
GREGG MUSEUM OF ART & DESIGN GRAND REOPENING Saturday, Aug. 26, 10 a.m.–3 p.m., free N.C. State, Raleigh www.gregg.arts.ncsu.edu Roger Manley can finally talk about art again. For more than three years now, the director of the Gregg Museum of Art & Design at N.C. State has been discussing ducts, lighting, and rock drills, ever […]
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Victor Ekpuk’s Divine Mural at the North Carolina Museum of Art Heralds New Life for Its African Galleries
One of the best ways to see the Washington, D.C.-based Nigerian-American artist Victor Ekpuk‘s large chalk mural at the North Carolina Museum of Art is to turn your back on it and look around the rest of the gallery it’s in. Ekpuk’s work covers a thirty-by-eighteen-foot wall in one of NCMA’s new African art galleries, […]
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With Emoji-Strength Forms, Nina Chanel Abney Overpowers the Limits Placed on Artists by Identity Politics
NINA CHANEL ABNEY: ROYAL FLUSH Through July 16 Nasher Museum of Art, Durham www.nasher.duke.edu Nina Chanel Abney is an apt artist for this political moment. The ten-year span of work represented in Royal Flush at the Nasher, her first solo museum show, focuses on race, gender, and identity politics as well as criminal and social […]
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Artist Heather Gordon Makes Herself a Mirror for Justin Tornow to Dance Inside at 21c Museum Hotel
HEATHER GORDON & JUSTIN TORNOW: ECHO Thursday, Feb. 23, 7 p.m., free 21c Museum Hotel, Durham www.21cmuseumhotels.com/durham In recent years, local choreographers have made a lot of work about the challenges of maintaining individuality in an artistic community and in society generally. Dance artists like Anna Barker, Leah Wilks, and Ronald West have explored the […]
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An Epilogue for Unexposed Microcinema’s Bold, Meaningful Year of Holding Down a Stable Venue for Experimental Film
Not all art spaces are meant to last forever. You swallow hard and get them up and running on a shoestring. You host great programming and build an audience and sustain it as long as you can. There are triumphs, when you pack the house and get good coverage, and then there are the nights […]
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The Nasher Museum of Art Receives a Significant Gift, a Major Painting by Archibald Motley
“Hot Rhythm,” a major painting by Archibald Motley, has been donated to the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. Two of the artist’s heirs, Mara Motley and Valerie Gerrard Browne, have given the dynamic work to the Nasher in honor of Richard J. Powell, Duke’s John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History, […]
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The Most Essential Local Art of 2016 Punched Back at a Disgraceful Year
While this year felt like one long punch in the mouth, lots of great local art hit back. Several large group exhibits showed countless ways that artists are responding to contentious political times. At Raleigh’s Pink Building, FUHB2: NC Artists Respond to House Bill 2 was aggressive right when we needed it. It included Stacey […]
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Love Lump? Thank Kelly McChesney, Who Is Retiring Her Flanders Gallery to Save It.
Some people talk big about art and engagement, scheduling “public” guest talks in unfindable classrooms in the middle of the week. Others walk the walk, making art engaging across all channelsorganizing exhibitions, facilitating public projects, and bringing artists and their work together with corporate, governmental, and academic entities. Kelly McChesney, who anchored a burgeoning Raleigh […]
Posted inCulture
Art Preview: Step Inside Georges Rousse’s Illusionistic Installations Before They Turn Into Photographs
Georges Rousse installation viewing Saturday, Oct. 29, 5 p.m.–9 p.m. Durham Fruit & Produce Company 305 South Dillard Street, Durham Over the last week and a half, in a Durham warehouse space, Georges Rousse has managed a team of community members through many hours of painstaking art labor to produce a pair of illusionistic installations. […]