Once the calendar page flipped to October, the fall announcements for exhibitions and art openings came happily flooding into my inbox, ushering in a season that’s chock-full of compelling new work from established museums, storied art spaces, and burgeoning new venues.
From a recently wrapped two-night pop-up presentation of protest quilts called Rage with the Machine, presented by members of the Triangle Modern Quilt Guild at Crawlspace Gallery, to Jason Lord’s Syllabary, on view at the Pullen Arts Center through October 25, there’s a lot to see and experience.
In Raleigh, Artspace is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a righteous ’80s-themed after-party at its annual Art Bash on November 14. Meanwhile, in Durham, at the newly opened Boardinghouse Arts, the venue’s debut exhibition, Art Lives Here, offers a rare glimpse into the personal collection of Boardinghouse founders Shirlette Ammons and Laura Ritchie.
Throughout the Triangle at large, the Click! Photography Festival, an annual monthlong event, is hosting a series of events at 45 locations. Highlights include The Fence, an outdoor portfolio presentation made for strolling and slow looking at the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham and Dix Park in Raleigh.
There’s plenty to look forward to—for now, here’s the INDY short list of the shows and events on our radar this fall.
Holding Space: The Art of Care | Through November 13 | Durham Art Guild
For caregivers—whether tending to children, aging parents, or their own personal recovery—creating art can be a catharsis, a temporary respite from the demands of the role. Presented by The Durham Art Guild, group exhibition Holding Space: The Art of Care features work that honors the unseen labor of those who dedicate their lives to nurturing loved ones, friends, and fellow community members.
This ambitious show of 170 works includes photography, sculptures, paintings, and mixed-media installations that serve as meditations, memorials, and tender testaments to the act of providing care. Show organizers Ash Lorusso and Paget Marion Blythe have assembled artworks that encourage reflection on the important role art plays in maintaining stability and balance—it also inspires awareness of the emotional and physical toll of an often invisible form of labor while celebrating the resilience and strength that caregivers demonstrate daily.
Clarence Heyward and André Leon Gray: SHIFT | Through November 7 | Craven Allen Gallery, Durham
At downtown Durham gallery Craven Allen, Heyward and Gray prompt a powerful dialogue through paintings and collages that incisively tackle questions of power and perception through the lens of child’s play and games of chance. Heyward’s portraits of childhood are rendered in green hues found in chroma-key editing technologies; in his new work, he layers familiar motifs with archival black-and-white photographs. These paintings play with the idea of the gaze, reinforcing complicated dynamics of perception and bias while also interrogating the internalized legacies that strengthen and, in some cases, harm us.
As Heyward’s visual language explores perception and distortion, Gray plays with logic, algorithms, and equations in collages that examine our assumptions on race and identity, flipping age-old maxims and truisms on their head. Here, Gray explores the legacies of colonialism and racism through gilded and bedazzled imagery juxtaposed with printed text and cutouts asking, “If I’m playing the race card, who invented the deck?”
Alexandre Arrechea: Orange Functional | Ongoing | Flowers Cottage at Dix Park, Raleigh
This week, Raleigh welcomes a towering, bright orange steel sculpture that playfully pushes the boundaries between art and sport. Orange Functional is Dix Park’s latest public sculpture by Cuban-born artist Alexandre Arrechea, who created the piece to take artwork out of the white cube and into the public sphere. The 23-foot basketball pole shaped like an orange tree branches into 23 individual, regulation-size basketball hoops—it’s an installation that will likely attract basketball fans and art aficionados alike.
Its location is near the newly opened Flowers Cottage coffee shop, which has already become a popular gathering place with outdoor seating and downtown skyline views. Arrechea attended the public unveiling on Wednesday, October 7, alongside community leaders, members of NC State’s men’s and women’s basketball teams, kids from the Boys & Girls Club, and members of Raleigh Parks and Recreation’s Youth Athletics Program, who were all on hand shooting hoops.
Jean Gray Mohs: Stilhet | October 8–30 | Frankie G. Weems Gallery, Gaddy-Hamrick Arts Center at Meredith College, Raleigh
In her latest show, opening this month at Meredith College, artist Jean Gray Mohs combines materials and shapes in abstract sculptural works that turn wood, metal, and leather into meditations on support, healing, and transformation. Her works take on the characteristics of puzzles and mosaics through pieces attached using woven cords that prompt us to notice the structures holding us together that we often overlook or take for granted.
Her latest work reflects the evolution of her practice as one informed by her health journey and her latest role as the codirector of VAE in Raleigh. On Thursday, October 15, at 5:30 p.m., Mohs will discuss her work during a gallery talk at the Gaddy-Hamrick Arts Center.
Jamaica Gilmer: Reverence: Hair Memory Through Images | Through May 31, 2027 | UNC-Chapel Hill’s Robert and Sallie Brown Gallery and Museum
Reverence is the first solo photography exhibition by the Durham-based artist Jamaica Gilmer, who has spent the last two decades leading The Beautiful Project, an organization committed to inspiring and supporting Black youth’s creative expression through photography and the arts.
Since 2020, Gilmer has also returned to her own fine-art photography practice and curatorial work, which melds image creation and storytelling. Her latest exhibition explores the multifaceted culture of Black hair through large-scale portraits that provide a glimpse into the sacred spaces of the hair salons, barbershops, and homes where hair is styled and maintained—and beauty ideals are created and nurtured.
Bonus: NCModernist Pop-Up Bookstore | October 16–November 20 | Boxyard RTP, Raleigh
If you’re holiday shopping for your favorite architecture-and-design enthusiast, nonprofit NCModernist recently acquired a treasure trove of 2,000 architecture, art, and design books from a private collector, and they are selling the gently loved books for a pop-up fundraising event.
These reference and coffee table books, which normally range in price between $60 and $150, are discounted by 50% or more. The bookstore will remain open on Fridays and Saturdays from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. until the shelves are empty or until November 20, whichever comes first. Proceeds from the bookstore will be used to support NCModernist’s mission of educating, promoting, and preserving residential modernist architecture throughout the state.
To comment on this story, email [email protected].
You must be logged in to post a comment.