Painting is the family business for mother-son duo Yuko Nogami Taylor and King Nobuyoshi Godwin, who bring their latest joint exhibition to the historic Horace Williams House in Chapel Hill. Taylor has been making art professionally since she relocated to North Carolina from Japan, and Godwin recently had his colorful and intricately rendered paintings shown at the Outsider Art Fair in New York City.
Godwin has autism and a kind of numerical synesthesia that allows him to, in his own words, “put colors and numbers to speak my mind.” Plan ahead: King and Yuko ends on September 17 and, with the exception of a reception on the 10th, is open by appointment only. -Tasso Hartzog
CLICK! Photography Festival | Various venues across the Triangle | Sep. 23–Nov. 4
CLICK!, a sprawling celebration of photography that spans the Triangle for a month-and-change, contains many exhibitions and could make for many blurbs, so make sure to visit the festival website for the full listing.
In short, though, we’re especially intrigued by Murray Bognovitz’s “NPR Exposure,” portraits of the network’s cast of characters (which you can see at Chapel Hill’s Through This Lens) and Michael Gakinsky’s “The Decline of Malls Across America” (on display at Peel Gallery, also in Chapel Hill), work which “revisits a time when the Berlin Wall was about to fall and capitalism had won the cold war, partly through a relentless campaign of jeans and Coca-Cola diplomacy.” -Sarah Edwards
Amy Herman: until and then again | Peel Gallery, Carrboro | Through Oct. 1
Stop by Peel, Carrboro’s much-beloved multipurpose art space (gallery, bookstore, digital photography lab—you name it), for an exhibition by Charlotte photographer Amy Herman—and, while you’re there, maybe pick up a couple of local zines from the well-stocked racks. Herman’s portraits and self-portraits approximate, in what Herman describes as “surreal intimacy,” paging through a family photo album in a dream and half-remembering the experience the next morning. -TH
SLUMP | LUMP, Raleigh | Through Oct. 8
“Flop, clump, sag, dangle, droop,” maybe even bulge, keel over, and crumple: these are the words that curator Jerstin Crosby and artist Julie Torres had in mind when they developed the concept behind the Raleigh gallery’s latest group show. Local names like Bill Thelen and Jasmine Best share the walls with artists from as far afield as Colorado, California, and Georgia; all are united in their search for beauty and meaning in art that slumps rather than soars. -TH
Beginning in the 1890s, North Carolina’s hardwoods helped the state soar to the top of American furniture manufacturing, and by the midcentury, a full 60 percent of the country’s furniture was made within a 125-mile radius of High Point. Economic tides have turned since, but the state’s craftsmanship legacy continues apace (consider viral phenomenon the Nugget Couch, based locally and founded by a trio of UNC-Chapel Hill graduates). At this NC Museum of History (NCMH) exhibit, lose yourself in a sea of credenzas and wardrobes as you track style evolutions and learn more about the state’s rich furniture legacy. -SE
NC State University’s design program has earned a reputation as a trailblazer, laying the (sometimes literal) foundation for landscape architecture across the Triangle and the nation. The program has also been foundational in building up the university’s permanent collection, some of which will be showcased in this exhibit. Consider attending this alongside NCMH’s exhibition on North Carolina furniture and making it a Tar Heel design double feature. -SE
The phrase “AI-generated exhibition” gives us the willies, but the Nasher says this is an experiment, not a new era, so we’ll bite. The exhibit’s works are curated and captioned—but not created—by ChatGPT, allowing visitors and (human) curators to evaluate the ways in which artificial intelligence may service or aggravate future museum operations. Can AI be used to help prevent bias in curation? Can it get away with penning wall texts? -Lena Geller
The Outwin: American Portraiture Today | Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill | Nov. 3–Jan. 21, 2024
Named for a longtime National Gallery docent, the triennial Outwin Boochever Portraiture Competition selects around 50 finalists that represent the best American portraiture in any medium—painting, photography, video, and yes, even “used skateboards.” It’s been an eventful five years since The Outwin, now in its sixth edition, last visited UNC’s Ackland Art Museum.
In 2018, the competition’s winner was the painter Amy Sherald, who had just unveiled her portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama; this year, the first-place painting, by Alison Elizabeth Taylor, features a masked-up barber trimming hair on a Brooklyn sidewalk. Many things are worse now than they used to be, but rest assured: the portraits have only gotten better. -TH
BLOW UP II: Inflatable Art | Gregg Museum of Art & Design, Raleigh | Nov. 4–Jan. 28, 2024
It’s been 150 years since Laura Ingalls Wilder bopped around a blown-up pig’s bladder in an innovative moment from the children’s book series, and while inflatables have held up as a source of merriment, they haven’t always retained their viscerality. BLOW UP II, which features inflatable sculptures from nine artists and art collectives, aims to celebrate the form’s modern whim, furnisy while also underscoring its capacity for “uncanny human connection.” After gallery hours, the works will “deflate and await their resurrection the following day.” -LG
Luis Rey Velasco | North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh | Through Jan. 28
Captured in North Carolina and California around the turn of the century, this selection of immersive grayscale shots by Luis Rey Valasco explores intersections between labor, culture, and identity in migrant farmworker communities. A San Joaquin Valley native, Valasco has long centered his work around groups that are “largely hidden yet integral to the American economy.” -LG
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