"This year we celebrate 100 years of aviation and the qualities intrinsic to that inventiveness. These are the qualities that still inspire our communities, our businesses, and our individual lives--and the arts, which at once offer insight into our humanity and challenge our perspectives on the world." — Robert J. Greczyn, President and Chief Executive Officer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina

ABOUT THE CELEBRATION

Fasten your seatbelt and prepare for take-off with the North Carolina Museum of Art's year-long celebration of aviation and the imagination, Into the Blue. Presented by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Into the Blue commemorates the first powered flight of the Wright brothers a century ago on the North Carolina coast. The Museum celebrates this achievement through concerts, films, family events, workshops, lectures and more.

The festival, Into The Blue, culminates in the Museum's ambitious and provocative exhibition, Defying Gravity: Contemporary Art and Flight. The show features approximately 94 major works and several special commissions exploring how man's ability to fly has influenced contemporary art. The works, created by artists such as American pop masters James Rosenquist and Malcolm Morley and international art figures such as Alighiero Boetti, Andreas Gursky, and Panamarenko, explore the interaction between aviation and the imagination, and the timeless human desire to fly.

The exhibition embraces a wide variety of styles, approaches and media--including painting, sculpture, installations, photography, video and film--created during the last 25 years. Also featured is a commissioned three-dimensional sculpture consisting of 1,800 small Mylar butterflies, suspended from the Museum's three-story ceiling, that form an airplane with a 17-foot wingspan. Outdoors, a series of commissioned projects include a kinetic sound sculpture and a large camera obscura constructed with stone, wood and turf within the Museum Preserve. Click here for details about Defying Gravity.

Credit

Rosemary Laing
Australian, born 1959
flight research #8, 1999/2000
Chromogenic print, 23 5/8 x 23 5/8 in. (60 x 60 cm)
Courtesy Gitte Weise Gallery, Sydney, Australia