FACTS AT A GLANCE

Exhibition Description

On Dec. 17, 1903, the Wright Brothers made history at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, with the first successful powered flight. The impact of this event can hardly be overestimated. Flight not only radically revised perceptions of the world but pervasively altered everyday life, affecting politics and finance, diplomacy and war, society and the arts. Celebrating the centennial of the Wright Brothers' heroic accomplishment, Defying Gravity explores how aviation has influenced the visual arts. The exhibition features approximately 94 works of art created during the last 25 years. The exhibition focuses on art derived from the creative interaction between the imagination and aviation.

Contents

Approximately 94 objects created during the last 25 years. The objects embrace art in all media, including painting, sculpture, installations, photography, video and film created by 48 individual artists and four pairs of collaborating artists from more than a dozen countries on five continents.

Curators

Huston Paschal, NCMA associate curator of modern art, and Linda Johnson Dougherty, formerly of The Phillips Collection and the National Gallery of Art and now an independent curator and critic.

Organizer and Sponsors

The exhibition was organized by the North Carolina Museum of Art.
The presenting sponsor is Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina.

The exhibition is also supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as from state funds and private donations, which are administered by the North Carolina Museum of Art Foundation.

Exhibition Catalogue

Defying Gravity will be accompanied by a fully illustrated, color catalogue with entries on each artist in the exhibition and a contribution from the distinguished cultural historian Robert Wohl, professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. Wohl served as principal advisor to the project. Among his many publications is A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1908-1918, the first cultural history of the pioneering phase of aviation. This highly regarded book has influenced the way historians perceive the impact of flight on art and culture. (The successor volume, The Spectacle of Flight: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1920-1956, will be published by Yale University Press in 2004.)

The catalogue also includes essays by the co-curators and Anne Goodyear, a curator and scholar who will receive her Ph.D. in art history from the University of Texas at Austin this year, and who has a particular interest in the relationship between art and technology. Paschal's essay celebrates the Wright Brothers' inventiveness, showing how the exhibition's themes—the timeless human desire to fly, the impact of flight on our perception of the world, the dark and destructive side of flight—interweave, enriching the metaphor of creativity. In her essay, Dougherty focuses on the concept of flight in contemporary art and its value as a symbol for transcendence. Goodyear's essay provides a historical overview of aviation-related art of the 20th century, and in addition she has prepared a two-track chronology tracing events in art history and aviation history throughout the century. While the show concentrates on contemporary art, the contributions to the catalogue by Wohl and Goodyear will help provide valuable context. The catalogue features an entry on each artist along with a color illustration of every work in the show.

Educational Resources

A slide program, Defying Gravity: Contemporary Art and Flight, is available for loan to school groups and other organizations. Contact: (919) 839-6262, ext. 2144.

Speakers Bureau

If you would like someone to present a slide show presentation and talk about the exhibition to your organization or group, contact (919) 839-6262, ext. 2140.

Tours

Docent-led tours and self-guided tours are offered for groups of 10 or more. Make a tour reservation at least four weeks in advance by contacting (919) 839-6262, ext. 2144.

Credit

Panamarenko, Belgian, born 1940; lives Antwerp
Raven's Variable Matrix, 2000
Artist-designed and -built airplane with body of polycarbonate, aluminum, steel, and felt; rubber wings; and motor, wingspan approximately 17 ft. 7 in. (5.4 m)
Courtesy Mianko, Belgium