Trotman calls his figures embodiments of a “dystopian America,” a foil to Rockwell’s utopian images of the American Dream. Toppled housewives and sinking businessmen make up his vision of 1950s cookie-cutter convention. He turns static material—wood—into figures that vibrate with tense energy, so confined by their roles that they threaten spontaneous combustion. The only interruptions in his pristine craftsmanship are strategically placed splits in the wood that call attention to the unease that is hidden beneath the starched shirts, sensible pumps, and strained smiles of his characters.

When we all stood looking up at Vertigo, Trotman’s first self-portrait and a new addition to the NCMA’s collection, Linda noted its reference to Yves Klein’s iconic 1960 photograph Leap into the Void. The visual and conceptual resemblance is clear—an ordinary-looking man in a suit triumphantly breaks free from life’s constraints as he plunges off a building. But a darker parallel exists underneath the obvious similarities. Klein’s photograph was fabricated, a lie. This “staged lie” is the truth behind Trotman’s Inverted Utopias—the uncomfortable reality that one cannot really leap off the building, sink into the ground, or hide beneath the sheets. There is no escape for his characters.

No escape. I went back to the exhibition with that in mind. Is it really that dark? Trotman has a beautiful way of exposing the sad realities of everyday life, our hidden agendas and concealed burdens, with just enough humor to help us pretend we only imagined that glimpse of ourselves in Arden or Martin. Am I Janet? I think I am wearing her shoes. Perfectly camouflaged in my badge and business attire, I can’t help but feel exposed by her presence, as if I, too, am beginning to spin off my axis into the Void. I turn away only to find myself scrutinizing the exhibition as if I were a member of Trotman’s Committee, ready to offer up my art-savvy intern input like the Cake Lady’s chocolate confection.

I think we, as museumgoers, often get caught up in the appeal of collecting experiences. Seeing works of art and high-profile exhibitions becomes a part of that pressing “better-yourself” checklist. We start darting around, snapping photos and referencing our list of the museum highlights without really seeing anything. Check, check, check. Bob Trotman’s characters do not allow this type of detached viewing. Instead, they mirror back to us that delusion of checkboxes against which we all measure ourselves and confront us head-on with solid, tangible personifications of our own flawed realities.

So, art nerd, housewife, professional, adolescent, and museum wanderer, unite—Trotman has something for all of us. Take a moment with Inverted Utopias to put down the checklist and help Olive Suit find his shoe, picture the faces under Cover Up, and wonder what Stu might look like, if he just opened his eyes.

Laura Ritchie, Curatorial Intern

Hundreds of photos poured in to Flickr, and a 10-foot-by-10-foot cube was born. Open at the top and tied around the middle with an oversize bow, the installation became the centerpiece for the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the opening of the Museum’s new West Building on April 23.

Wayne Henderson of Chapel Hill, a graphic artist and blacksmith, crafted the project and managed its installation on the Museum lawn. He worked with a team of students at N.C. State’s College of Design to create the bow. Under the leadership of professor Vita Plume, the students–Jessica Odom, Veronica Tibbitts, and Jenna Bost–designed and fabricated the large cloth bow and added it to the gift.

After the ceremony, Linda Carlisle, secretary of the Department of Cultural Resources, asked what would be done with the cube. Upon hearing it would go into storage, she said, “Oh, no, this is much too wonderful to put into storage. It should be in the lobby at DCR.”  Thus began another art movement project for the Museum’s art handlers.

The piece has been installed in the State Archives and History Building at 109 E. Jones St. in Raleigh, in numerous locations. A very pleased Wayne Henderson says, “While I had designed the panels for some flexibility, your creative triangular towers in the lobby were not something I had even considered. Great job! It’s wonderful that the faces and places of this great state will live on for a while.”

Thanks again to David Mueller for the soundtrack (from the Heads on Sticks EP, Oak City Version.)

Installing Ogromna from The North Carolina Museum of Art on Vimeo.

As staff members of the NCMA, we have seen West Building go from a mass of red piedmont clay to a concrete slab to golden oak floors and luminous glass walls. We stood witness to cart after cart rolling by with precious cargo as the collection moved to her new home. And with all hands on deck the walls were touched up, floors scrubbed, cases polished, and plans finalized for the Grand Opening celebration.

And what a remarkable celebration it was. Over the three day weekend, members and visitors by the thousands strolled through the new galleries, enjoyed the Museum campus, and basked in the glow of returning to their beloved museum.

But visitors have the opportunity to experience one thing that the NCMA staff will never know–walking into the new gallery building for the first time, seeing the completed space filled with art all at once, and having that overwhelming moment of wonder and excitement over the glorious light, the stunning expanse, the sheer beauty of it all.

We know it happens because we’ve been watching you take it in for a few weeks now and we are just as happy that you have returned to the galleries as you are to be here.

By the numbers:

22,006 Visitors toured the new building during the opening weekend

690 artists, dancers, vocalists, and musicians participated in the Opening Festival

1,014 NCMA branded items sold over opening weekend

14,479 NCMA membership as of opening weekend

Visitors came from all over North Carolina, the US, and even from around the world including California, Alaska, Colorado, South Dakota, Vermont, Venezuela, Norway, Australia, India, and China.

On this 40th Earth Day, its ideals may be celebrated as we open our new gallery building, welcome visitors to the Museum Park, and complete the Pond restoration. Here, art is connected to nature, completely. NCMA is taking a leadership role in sustainable design. Our day lit galleries are beautiful and reduce energy consumption, as does an advanced HVAC system for the collection. Rain water is collected to replenish pools and irrigate a sustainable landscape for sculpture. Our Park is preserving open space and introducing the community to contemporary art in nature. And we are building a unique and innovative storm water management pond to reduce sedimentation and point-source pollution to the state’s rivers and streams. We may not be saving the world, but we think the Museum is contributing in a significant way.

Read more about the green features of the Museum in our green statement.

Grand Opening Program (pdf)

From music, dance, and performance art to discussions, craft demonstrations, and hands-on workshops, there is so much to see and do during the Grand Opening Festival. Do as much or as little as you like, after all everything is free! We encourage you to use the Grand Opening program, with the complete schedule of festivities, to help make the most of this jam-packed weekend.

Not sure where to start? Here are some sample itineraries to inspire your Festival visit:

A North Carolina Experience
Date Night
Digital Guru
Kids in Tow
Culture Lover

A North Carolina Experience

Our state is about more than basketball and barbecue (though both of those are great!). Whether you’re a native or newcomer, you’ll feel right at home.

Reserve a timed-ticket to the Museum Sunday, April 25 at noon. You don’t need to pack anything special, but if you hum James Taylor or Nnenna Freelon tunes as you’re driving to the Museum, you’ll be in the right frame of mind.

10–11:30 am: Start the morning with great gospel sounds: the MLK All Children’s Choir from Raleigh and Durham’s own Gospel Jubilators.

11:30 am: Make your way to the canopy of West Building and watch potters Pam and Travis Owen make examples of classic and contemporary Jugtown ware.

Noon: Enter the new galleries, West Building. Chapel Hill artist Patrick Dougherty’s work is immediately to your right as you enter. NC artists are indicated on the wall labels, among them, Kenneth Noland, John Biggers, Daisy Youngblood, and John Beerman.

Lunchtime: Whether it’s barbecue, veggies, or tacos that say North Carolina to you, there’s something to suit your taste with a variety of food vendors.

Afternoon: Head across the Plaza to East Building and enjoy film shorts—Tar Heel Shorties and enjoy exhibitions from several NC universities.

As you head back to your car, look to your left toward the Museum Park. The three large rings and the whirlgig are by NC artists Thomas Sayre and Vollis Simpson.  You’ve had a North Carolina visit from start to finish!

Date Night

The new Museum is enchanting under the nighttime sky. Galleries at twilight and illuminated gardens and courtyards set the stage for a romantic evening rendezvous.
Reserve a timed-ticket for Saturday, April 24, at 7 pm. Bring your special someone and a blanket for relaxing under the stars.

7 pm: Take in the new building hand-in-hand, and experience the light-filled galleries against a sunset backdrop. Be sure to step outside and enjoy the Rodin Court together. Soak up the romantic surroundings on one of the stone benches: watch the evening sky reflected in the shimmering pool while the bamboo rustles in the breeze.

8-10 pm: Split a delectable dessert—or two from Hereghty’s Heavenly Delicious, and make your way back to the Plaza, where you’ll overhear music from the park theater concert. Find a spot and linger awhile, because the night also holds a special finale—a fabulous fireworks display set to music.

Digital Guru

Some may call you an early adopter. Tech-savvy and social media obsessed, you tweet and blog. You’re into contemporary art and design, so the new @ncartmuseum definitely suits your style.

Reserve a timed ticket for Saturday, April 24, at 6 pm. Download the Museum’s new audio tour (121Mb) and Sound Track (21Mb) tour from home. When you arrive, check in via Foursquare (or Gowalla, or TriOut), and add #ncmaOPEN to your tweets to join in the  conversation all weekend on Twitter.

2 pm: Grab a seat in the auditorium for the Art and Architecture Creative Conversation to learn about the design of the new building.

4 pm: Take a coffee break, and then head to the Plaza Music Stage to witness the The Beast, a Durham-based quartet reimagining hip-hop with their musical eclecticism.

5 pm: Check out the new media exhibition in the Museum’s East Building. Many of North Carolina’s most  talented digital artists, filmmakers, and designers are teaming up to present an innovative mix of light and sound projections, experimental performances, short films, and imaginative fashion creations.

6 pm: Finally, it’s your time to see the new building. Pop in your headphones and tour the new galleries guided by the new Sound Track experience. You’ll want to spend extra time with the many new contemporary acquisitions, including a video installation by Jennifer Steinkamp. You’ll want your camera handy–yes, you can now take snaps in the galleries!–and be sure to add them to our Flickr group to share with everyone.

Kids in Tow

Introduce the whole family to the transformed Museum. The spectacular new building and our many family–friendly activities are sure to delight everyone in the bunch, including little ones.

Reserve a timed-ticket to the new building Sunday, April 25, at 11 am. Pack a snack, a package of markers for our art supply drive, and a camera—there’ll be lots of great photo opportunities indoors and out.

10 am: Let the kids clap, dance, and sing along with the Martin Luther King All Children’s Choir at the Plaza music stage.

11 am: Next, while everyone’s energy is riding high, stroll through the new galleries. There’s enough art to fill many visits, so pick a few highlights: El Anatsui’s huge metal tapestry, the Sawfish Headdress in the African Gallery, and the animal-themed gallery among the European collection.

11:30 am: Step outside into the Rodin Garden, and strike a pose among our famous new sculptures. We’ll capture you in a souvenir photo to take home. While you’re outside, stop to check out the temporary sculpture box featuring images of North Carolina’s people and places.

Noon: “I’m hungry!” Head over to the food vendors, where you’ll find a variety of lunch options from Whole Foods, Only Burger, Neomonde, and more to satisfy everyone in the group.

Afternoon: A stop by Creation Stations in the Park Theater completes your family adventure. Create your own mini-metal tree to take with you, or a portable art collection, experiment with paper designs, and decorate a frame for your commemorative photo.

Culture Lover

Plan to arrive at the Museum by noon on Sunday, April 25 to partake in a cultural treat for the senses.

Reserve your timed ticket to the Museum at 1 pm; remember to pack your binoculars if you enjoy getting to see dancers and musicians up close.

Noon: Enjoy the premiere of a new work by the Carolina Ballet followed by a conversation with Robert Weiss in the Museum Auditorium, East Building.

1 pm: Make your way into West Building; you’ll notice the Dendy Dance Theater performers and NC potters along the way. Take a stroll through the building and be sure to see the Picasso in the modern and contemporary galleries, the expansive European collection, and of course, the two Monet paintings in the Impressionist gallery. Finish your tour in the Rodin Court.

2 pm: You’ll hear the sounds of Charanga Carolina from the Plaza and if you like contemporary art, head back to the auditorium for a talk about SECCA in Winston-Salem. Or take a break and enjoy a snack from Hereghty Heavenly Delicious or Tea Gschwender.

3 pm: It’s time for the Festival Finale, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, The Resurrection, in the Park Theater—a grand finish to the day!

Check back Monday for two more itineraries: “All Natural” and “Movers and Shakers.”

NCMA: New Home from The North Carolina Museum of Art on Vimeo.

Special thanks to David Mueller, who kindly gave permission to use a track from the Heads on Sticks EP, Oak City Version. (Hat tip, New Raleigh.)

Note: That the name of the band fits the subject matter perfectly is just lovely serendipity.

(Here’s a direct link to the video.)

Here’s a sneak peek. Take a look at Guido Reni’s Madonna and Child…and while you look, click on the audio player below.

Download audio file (eng_14_Madonna-Reni_FIX.mp3)

(download mp3)

A fresh perspective, perhaps, and an invitation to look again in a new way: it’s a new approach to go along with the new building.

Update: You can now download the complete Sound Track Experience (as well as the complete Cell Phone Tour) directly from the Plan Your Visit section of the Museum site!

Modeled in 1880, greatly enlarged and installed outside Paris’s Panthéon in 1904, The Thinker was already used in an advertisement by 1908. The visual cliché has been around so long that, unless we see the sculpture in person, it’s hard for us to fully appreciate the one work Rodin deemed so vital he asked that it be put over his grave in Meudon, France. In April visitors to the NCMA will have the unique opportunity to see both the original and the enlarged versions of this most familiar of sculptures.

Before visiting, it might help to clear away some of the commercial cobwebs by considering what Rodin originally called the sculpture: not The Thinker but The Poet, according to Curator of European Art David Steel.

In his new book Rodin: The Cantor Foundation Gift to the North Carolina Museum of Art, Steel says The Poet was likely the first sculpture Rodin created for his famous The Gates of Hell. It sits high atop these bronze doors initially inspired by scenes in Dante’s Inferno. Steel tells us Rodin first imagined the poet to be Dante himself, “thinking of the plan of his poem.”

As an editor it touched me that this famous thinker was initially a writer, a poet facing the blank page. Rodin’s poet thinks so hard about his work of art that his toes grip the rock he sits on. Hardly cerebral, the poet is visceral, grounded, and heavy: the monumental cast installed in front of the NCMA’s new West Building, a loan from the Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford, weighs nearly 1,500 pounds.

I was curious what a true poet would have to say about Rodin’s original title for the sculpture, so I cold called a fine translator of Dante’s Inferno, former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky, who remarked on the deceptive ease of creating a poem, or any work of art. Pinsky likes Rodin’s original title “as a corrective to 19th-century and older notions of Orpheus or Dionysus or wild-eyed Highlands bards with their beards sideways in the Scottish wind.”

“It’s interesting,” Pinsky said, “to think about [Rodin’s] image of [The Poet]: hunched, not dancing or lyre-strumming, muscular, not epicene, and working hard. An image of composition and inner work, not of performance.”

Rodin labored on The Gates of Hell for more than 20 years. Gradually the work strayed from the Inferno, and Rodin included stories from the Bible and Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil. Slowly the Poet became the Thinker. “Guided by my first inspiration,” Rodin wrote, “I conceived another thinker, a naked man, seated upon a rock, his feet drawn under him, his fist against his teeth, he dreams. The fertile thought slowly elaborates itself within his brain. He is no longer dreamer, he is creator.”

In April you can learn more about The Thinker and other figures on The Gates of Hell by visiting the NCMA’s new Rodin court and garden. After seeing these magnificent sculptures in person, pick up a copy of Steel’s book in the new Museum Store or online. Rodin: The Cantor Foundation Gift to the North Carolina Museum of Art also includes a DVD documentary on the collection, created by Emmy Award–winning producer-director Art Howard and coproducer Julie Dixon.