A New Look: The Permanent Collection Galleries Re-energized

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“That’s the museum with the dead guy in it, right?” This is what our art critic Chris Vitiello’s daughter used to ask him when he said he was going to the Ackland, according to his September story on the UNC-Chapel Hill museum’s plans to reimagine its space and reinstall its permanent collection (read Julie Hamilton’s November review of the exhibit Birthday Presents for more on that) on the occasion of its sixtieth anniversary. That effort comes to fruition in A New Look: The Permanent Collection Galleries Re-Energized. The new display of the collection includes a reconfigured space for global art after 1950 and an expanded African art gallery; it also highlights recent acquisitions, particularly in Asian art and works on paper. The body of the institution’s namesake is still entombed there, but this fall and going forward, the museum with the dead guy in it will be full of life. —Brian Howe