Two new installations may be spotted by sharp-eyed trekkers. First are three images by Maryland-based artist Dan Bailey for our popular Park Pictures series. As you may remember, our Pictures are three “billboards” installed along the paved walking trails, commissioned by the Museum and changing regularly, to encourage visitors to explore the art in the Park. For his images, as well as for his indoor mural in 0 to 60, Bailey chronicled the human activity on the NCMA campus over several months. He rigged a low-altitude weather balloon with a camera set to take a photograph of the grounds below every few seconds. The artist visited multiple times in the past year, capturing shadows, seasonal differences, and other time shifts. The final product is a digital collage combined with satellite photographs of the Museum grounds. It is a fascinating compression of a particular place at various points in time, joined into one single image.

A second installation is Tom Shields’s Forest for the Chairs, in which the artist literally brings his materials—found and discarded furniture, particularly wooden chairs—back to their source. By attaching the chairs to trees in the Park, he accepts that time and weather will affect their appearance and eventual stability. The bio-degradation of the chairs, part of Shields’s plan, is the final step in the lives of these chairs. Once functional and decorative, these seats are now simply memories, or imitations, of their former selves. Time rules here: its passage will determine the length of the art’s life.

0 to 60: The Experience of Time through Contemporary Art remains on view through August 11. Bailey’s billboards are on view through the fall, and Shields’s installation will be with us for the foreseeable future.

These works, made possible by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, are part of an ongoing series of outdoor art projects, Art Has No Boundaries, commissioned by the NCMA to encourage visitors to actively explore the Museum Park.

Image: Tom Shields, Forest for the Chairs, 2013, found chairs, dimensions variable

If Hank Willis Thomas is a familiar name for you, perhaps you remember him from our 2011 exhibition 30 Americans, which featured a roster of amazing African American contemporary artists. Thomas is a photographer whose primary interest involves linking race or racially charged images with advertising and popular culture. His correlations lead us, as viewers, to consider the present, as well as the past, in a new and sometimes shocking light. “Ultimately, my goal is to subvert the common perception of ‘black history’ as somehow separate from American history,” Thomas has said.

The Cotton Bowl presents a mirrored representation of a football player and a cotton picker—here, a post-slavery sharecropper. Nearly identical in pose and gaze, both men display the physical prowess necessary to perform their duties in agriculture and sports stardom. Yet as they are aligned, they face one other across their own invisible line of scrimmage, becoming tangible symbols of the struggle between current events and historical situations that some African Americans feel. Thomas often comments on African Americans in sports and the glory they can receive there, and the staggering economic differences between sports stars and their nonathlete peers.

What questions does The Cotton Bowl inspire about the economic positions of these characters? Is the football player in a better position than his sharecropping ancestor? And how does the play on words in the title—referring both to the classic college football bowl game and the protective covering for raw cotton before it is harvested—tie this image together?

Thomas creates images that are simultaneously accessible and symbolically loaded—and this one will bring lots of conversation and discussion to our galleries when it becomes part of the permanent collection. This is the first work by Thomas that the NCMA has acquired, and the Museum community thanks our Contemporaries for a great choice.

Image: Hank Willis Thomas, The Cotton Bowl, 2011, digital chromogenic print, 65 × 96 in., © 2012 Hank Willis Thomas

―Jennifer Dasal is associate curator of contemporary art at the NCMA.

In some ways Rhythms of the Heart: The Illustration of Ashley Bryan is an ideal exhibition for the NCMA, allowing viewers to make associations between it and El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa. Both are retrospectives of the careers of prolific men—one from North America, the other from Africa. Both El Anatsui and Ashley Bryan are true artistic masters with firm grasps of very different mediums. In El Anatsui’s case, visitors can explore wood sculptures, metal wall sculptures, and drawings, noting that the artist understands and has talent for each mode of creation; Ashley Bryan’s illustrations shine whether made from construction paper cutouts, linoleum prints, or poster paint. And finally, both artists share a deep connection to Africa, which comes across in the colors, subject matter, and design in each of their works.

While you’re visiting these exhibitions, don’t forget to ponder how these exhibitions connect to our permanent collection in West Building, too—the African Gallery and the Modern and Contemporary Galleries provide great starting points for comparison.

Have you visited Rhythms of the Heart yet? What other connections to our permanent collection or Spring–Summer 2012 exhibitions can you make? Leave us a comment below.

Jennifer Dasal is associate curator of contemporary art.

Rhythms of the Heart: The Illustration of Ashley Bryan is organized by the National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature. This exhibition is made possible, in part, by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources; the North Carolina Museum of Art Foundation, Inc.; and the William R. Kenan Jr. Endowment for Educational Exhibitions.

Image: Ashley Bryan, Mountain View, 1967, from Moon, for What Do You Wait? (Atheneum, 1967), linoleum print, 16 ½ x 8 in., Courtesy of the artist, © 1967 Ashley Bryan

Wait a minute, I can hear you say. An illustration exhibition by a children’s book author? But what about me—I’m a grown-up!

I’ve got a good answer for you. Rhythms of the Heart holds its own, allowing viewers of all ages to enjoy a colorful trip through Bryan’s inspirational and energetic illustrations. Works in this exhibition feature Bryan’s unique artistic style, combining references to poetry, rhythm, African storytelling traditions, and African American spirituality. And it’s free!

Don’t let the subject matter fool you: though aimed at families and children, this exhibition can be enjoyed by all ages. Come explore over 60 energetic works of art that will surely add a bit of levity to your day. Just a “children’s book illustrations” exhibition? Check it out for yourself—this show, and its diverse subject matter, might surprise you.

Have you visited Rhythms of the Heart yet? What did you enjoy most? Did anything surprise you? Leave a comment below.

Jennifer Dasal is associate curator of contemporary art.

Rhythms of the Heart: The Illustration of Ashley Bryan is organized by the National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature. This exhibition is made possible, in part, by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources; the North Carolina Museum of Art Foundation, Inc.; and the William R. Kenan Jr. Endowment for Educational Exhibitions.

Image: Ashley Bryan, Hen and Frog, 1980, from Beat the Story-Drum, Pum-Pum (Atheneum, 1980), tempera on paper, 7 x 10 ½ in., Courtesy of the artist, © 1980 Ashley Bryan

Last fall UNC grad Carolyn Janssen created three billboards featuring digitally manipulated worlds filled with marauding Amazons, in environments that were both strange and appealing. This spring we’ve opted to do something entirely new: we invited college students to submit images and ideas for billboards. And what a response we received! After sorting through all the entries, we chose three artists: Sydney Cobb (Alamance Community College), Isaiah Johnson (St. Augustine’s College), and Cindy Kohnen (Meredith College).

Cobb’s billboard, Fireflies, refers to a favorite Southern pastime. “This piece portrays a childhood memory of catching mystical fireflies in one of my grandma’s mason jars,” Cobb says. “I always loved opening the jar and watching them fly away.” Cobb notes that our current exhibition, El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa, provided inspiration. “My piece is a free-flowing and natural piece, much like his artwork.”

Johnson’s winning entry, One Brick, One Seed, is a photographic manifesto about the linked urban and natural landscapes. “I didn’t want to be literal with nature and all the beautiful aspects of it, but to show the evolution of today’s world through one brick and one seed,” Johnson says. “This piece was inspired by the beginning of life itself, the buildings we live in, and the hands that built them. From that first hammer or screw, their constructions offer limitless inspiration. The components of this piece are the forest and the cityscape. The trees were placed above the buildings to highlight the line between two different worlds that are also closely related.”

Kohnen’s Cycles presents, in her words, “the different stages of life after death.” Kohnen explains, “I chose the white and pink petals to show the beauty in life but paired these elements with dirt to convey the sense of a fallen petal to the ground. As spring turns to fall, leaves also observe the remaining life in nature’s dying elements. The third [segment] shows the reincarnation of the dead petals and leaves through the image of live mushrooms and their roots. The repetition of the circular formation created with grass embraces earth’s life cycle. I used color throughout this series to depict and stages of human life, starting with birth, softness, and purity, and ending with wisdom, age, and decomposition.”

Congratulations to our three winners, and thanks to all our participants! Be sure to explore our Museum Park to view these billboards, and come back in the fall to experience a new round of Park Pictures.

This work, made possible by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, is part of an ongoing series of outdoor art projects, Art Has No Boundaries, commissioned by the NCMA to encourage visitors to actively explore the Museum Park.

Images and captions:

Top: Sydney Cobb, Fireflies, 2011, digital print on vinyl, © 2011 Sydney Cobb

Cindy Kohnen, Cycles, 2011, digital print on vinyl, © 2011 Cindy Kohnen

Isaiah Johnson, One Brick, One Seed, 2011, digital print on vinyl, © 2011 Isaiah Johnson

It’s that time of year again, dear readers! With the change of the seasons comes a new edition of our billboards project, Park Pictures. We’ve been promoting Park Pictures here on Untitled for more than two years now, and we’re still going strong! As you may recall, our Pictures are three “billboards” installed along the paved walking trails, commissioned by the Museum to encourage visitors to explore the art available in the Museum Park. These billboards change regularly to feature new works by different artists, both from North Carolina and elsewhere.

Last spring Anthony Goicolea created three billboards in conjunction with his solo exhibition Alter Ego: A Decade of Work by Anthony Goicolea. This time around we’ve commissioned three works by California-based artist Carolyn Janssen, who completed her master of fine arts degree at UNC–Chapel Hill in spring 2011. Janssen’s works are digitally crafted worlds created by the expert superposition of images from Janssen’s own daily environment, including multiple representations of herself. This consistent layering allows the artist an element of control as she focuses on the process itself. “I used individual objects in the same way I would use a single brushstroke,” Janssen notes, “building each scene mark by mark.” Janssen’s knowledge of art shines through in her works, which are reminiscent of traditional landscape painting as well as the complex scenes of Bosch and Breughel. The images also refer to video game worlds and science fiction tableaux, which keep Janssen’s works rooted in pop culture.

The subject matter of Janssen’s billboards pertains to an imaginary dystopic society populated solely by Amazon-esque women who, the artist notes, “question and commandeer the landscape, engaging in narratives and mini-dramas, in which they build, fight, kill, and rest. At times calm, at times acting in apprehension to a present or past disaster, the figures reflect on a landscape broken, uncertain, and strange.”

This work, made possible by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, is part of an ongoing series of outdoor art projects, Art Has No Boundaries, commissioned by the NCMA to encourage visitors to actively explore the Museum Park.

In commemoration of the anniversary, numerous galleries and art centers have come together as part of a citywide event, titled “Remembering 9/11: The 10th Anniversary.” All told, more than 50 institutions are partaking in exhibitions, readings, and performances dedicated to honoring those lost in the terrorist attacks. Now that a decade has passed, it seems that some artists now feel that their wounds—personal, physical or psychic—have healed enough to revisit, leading to a proliferation of works.

The Brooklyn Museum is presenting Ten Years Later: Ground Zero Remembered, an exhibition featuring works by two artists, Michael Richards and Christoph Draeger. The inclusion of Richards is especially notable for NC Museum of Art visitors, who may be familiar with Tar Baby vs. Saint Sebastian, currently located in our Modern and Contemporary Galleries. During his tragically short career, Michael Richards frequently addressed issues of social injustice, creating stunning sculptures that criticize oppression. Tar Baby vs. Saint Sebastian commemorates the Tuskegee Airmen, African American pilots whose heroic contributions to World War II were recognized only in the past few decades. The sculpture itself, cast from the artist’s own body, represents a gold-painted airman penetrated on all sides by small airplanes, reminiscent of the arrows shot at St. Sebastian, an early Christian martyr and saint. The title of the work, with its double reference to the saint and a southern folktale of entrapment, pays tribute to the Tuskegee pilots—and to all who suffer intolerance and unfairness.

The back story of the sculpture, though, is a haunting one, and is quite pertinent to the anniversary of 9/11. The work itself, in effect a self-portrait, now seems an eerie foretelling of the artist’s death. Richards was a victim of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001—his studio was on the ninety-second floor of Tower One. Tar Baby vs. Saint Sebastian, too, was feared lost in the wreckage, as it was not found in the remains of the artist’s studio, or at his home. It was only revealed later to be stored in a relative’s garage outside of New York City. Now housed at the NCMA on long-term loan, the work is a commemoration of the artist’s life and talents and a memorial, of sorts, for September 11. Stop by over the weekend and include this as a must-see on your list.

Image: Michael Richards, Tar Baby vs. St. Sebastian, 1999, body cast in resin and fiberglass, painted, and supported by steel shaft, with airplanes cast in resin and fiberglass, painted, and attached by steel bolts, On loan from the estate of the artist

Last fall, Raleigh artist Nancy S. Baker shook things up by riffing on three popular paintings from the NCMA’s American collection. This spring, we highlight three photographic works by Brooklyn artist Anthony Goicolea. Goicolea’s billboards coordinate nicely with the solo exhibition of his works, Alter Ego: A Decade of Work by Anthony Goicolea, which will be on view in the East Building through July 24. The artist has long been interested in fabricating images of new, fantastical spaces that are familiar yet strange, enticing yet unsettling. The photographs the artist chose for Park Pictures stem from a series examining issues of environmental destruction, globalization, and the influence of humanity on the world at large. In addition to being inspired by the world around him, Goicolea also takes cues from art history. As he notes, “I’m influenced by the tradition of the sublime in 19th-century American landscape paintings,” much as Nancy Baker had been in our previous billboard series. Goicolea continues, “My series of photographs treat their environments as hyper-exaggerated frontiers … providing physical evidence and visual proof of an ongoing past narrative.”

Guardian features a snowy scene, completely populated by dogs that dwell amid the ruins of a colorful town. As such, it contrasts starkly with the verdant, lush surroundings of the Museum Park in springtime. Guardian can be seen in a different context in Alter Ego. Similarly, Ocean and Ghost Ship reveal water-based scenes that contrast with the types of landscapes in the Museum Park itself. Overall, the artist noted that his rationale for choosing images for Park Pictures was simple: “I thought it would be interesting to present a landscape within a landscape.” The novelty of the Park Pictures project was certainly an enticement for the artist. “I have never had any outdoor work presented before, but it has always been a bit of a fantasy of mine! I love the idea, and I am excited to see the billboards actualized.”

Anthony Goicolea, Guardian, 2008, digital print on vinyl. Photo credit: twbuckner via the NCMA Flickr group.

This work, made possible by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, is part of an ongoing series of outdoor art projects, Art Has No Boundaries, commissioned by the NCMA to encourage visitors to actively explore the Museum Park.

The latest installation features work by Raleigh artist Nancy S. Baker. You may be familiar with Baker’s work; her painting The Betrayal is part of the Museum’s permanent collection and is on view on Level A in East Building.

Nancy’s billboards are fun and funky, an interesting take on existing works. “Borrowing from three exalted artists from the NCMA’s American collection, mingling highbrow and lowbrow taste, I offer up three reinvented and reconfigured tableaus of the American tradition of landscape painting,” Baker says.

Her willing (or unwilling) subjects? Bierstadt’s Bridal Veil Falls, Mignot’s Landscape in Ecuador, and Inness’s Under the Greenwood. But viewers might not recognize them—the paintings have been bisected and then digitally reflected back onto themselves, as if by a funhouse mirror or a kaleidoscope. Suddenly something familiar becomes something new, strange, and even a bit disturbing. Surrounding the altered landscapes is a border of jewels, flowers, staring eyes, and other strange elements, acting, as Baker puts it, as “a Looney Tunes memento mori, in stark contrast to the dreamy realism of the [original] paintings.”

Baker links this memento mori theme with the title of her billboard series: Home Sweet Home. As she notes, “The title, appropriated from John Howard Payne’s ubiquitous poem, reminds us that ‘Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.’ However, the idea of home in [works such as] Mignot’s Landscape in Ecuador has become an historical rendering of a world now on the verge of self-destruction. Through no fault of Mignot, this unreliable narrative of fecund nature is testimony to our desire for fantasy. Like the oeuvre of Norman Rockwell, art can be the greatest and most convincing propaganda.” Baker’s works allow us to ponder important questions of reality vs. fiction, and how that distinction—or lack thereof—affects the natural world today.

This work, made possible by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, is part of an ongoing series of outdoor art projects, Art Has No Boundaries, commissioned by the NCMA to encourage visitors to actively explore the Museum Park.

Our Bierstadt has a history in contemporary art! Check out this post from 2008, which links the painting to an artist at the Brooklyn Museum–Ed.

“I feel like some of the pieces look like they are ready to return to the earth, while others seem to be growing from it,” the artist notes. “Sometimes I see [the larger elements in the work] as lichen or fungus, or even decaying leaves. The small pieces relate to growing roots or decomposing plant matter.”

The many forms that compose Cycle differ in appearance because of the various techniques used to create them: the two types of clay have been combined in both fired and raw forms, with a number of patinas providing a range of colors and textures in the final product. The connection between Brown’s chosen medium—clay—and the environment is not accidental. “When I am immersed in clay, I feel like I am connected to the earth,” Brown says. “I utilize the clay in an organic, flowing, natural manner. In my work I use deep, dark, and bold texture to reflect nature, giving my pieces life.”

Brown’s installation won first prize at the Caldwell Arts Council’s 25th annual Sculpture Celebration, one of the longest-running sculpture events in the Southeast, which was held in September in Lenoir, N.C. Museum Director Larry Wheeler presided over the competition, choosing Brown for the top honor—a prize that offered the opportunity to install the work at the NCMA.

Though Cycle itself is not going to decay and return to dust like its organic representations, visitors are urged to see the work soon, as it is on view for only a limited time. Cycle will be deinstalled on December 3, 2010.