Curation: Appalachia Now! An Interdisciplinary Survey of Contemporary Art in Southern Appalachia

Glenis Redmon

Location:
Abbleby Foundation Exhibition Hall, Explore Asheville Exhibition Hall

Dates:
November 14, 2019–February 3, 2020

Appalachia Now! An Interdisciplinary Survey of Contemporary Art in Southern Appalachia is the inaugural exhibition of the newly renovated Museum. The exhibition provides a regional snapshot of the art of our time—a collective survey of contemporary Southern Appalachian culture. This exhibition explores the amalgamation of tradition and present-day perspectives extant in contemporary artistic representations of life in this region. Appalachia Now! situates artists within a regional and national dialogue that spans time and socioeconomic status. Whether works are bio-bibliographical, or address larger, universal themes, this cross-disciplinary exhibition invites visitors to participate in the individual experiences that make this part of the world so unique. It celebrates contemporary artists living and working in Southern Appalachia, focusing on Asheville as a nucleus of creativity within the broader area of its adjacent states of Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

Appalachia Now! builds upon the Museum’s mission of collecting and interpreting 20th- and 21st-century American art in all media relevant to/produced in the Southeast and WNC. Inclusive and ambitious in scope, the exhibition presents a survey of works by emerging and established artists selected by Jason Andrew, a curator and juror of national renown. Andrew and Lola Clairmont, former Museum curatorial assistant, drove over 40 hours around the Southeast and made 54 studio visits with artists. In order to promote under-recognized and emerging artists, Appalachia Now! features artists whose work is not yet represented in the Museum’s Collection.

The following 50 artists were selected through recommendations from regional museums, curators, and art organizations and through an open submission process. The overwhelming regional interest in this exhibition was demonstrated in the participation of artists in the free, public open call; over 400 artists applied through the call. Overall, the Museum and Andrew researched over 700 artists for consideration in the exhibition. The selected artists represent all media, including painting, sculpture, new media, dance, and film.

Curation: Groundings—dialogues between contemporary and historic members of AAA

Location:
(Online) American Abstract Artists

Groundings—dialogues between contemporary and historic members of American Abstract Artists
Curated by Jason Andrew

Featuring works by:
Alice Adams, Suzy Frelinghuysen, Iona Kleinhaut, Katinka Mann, Nancy Manter, Betty Parsons, Judith Rothschild, Edith Schloss, Esphyr Slobodkina, & Karen Schifano

Groundings examines the continuing legacy of American Abstract Artists by juxtaposing the works of historic and contemporary members of the organization. Having little abstract tradition of their own, American artists, many of them immigrants to this country, formed this group in New York in 1936 at a time when abstract art was met with strong, even critical resistance. Through this group, one of the earliest to be particularly inclusive of women artists, a new advocacy emerged providing opportunities to exhibit and a much-needed refuge for discussion related to new ideas and artistic theories.

Originators of this group channeled a Cubist-based tradition of cool structural abstraction in the face of prevailing Social Realism and later held strong to this aesthetic during the dawn of the emotive and brutish school of Abstract Expressionism. Today, the group continues to expand in numbers and varying aesthetics.

This online exhibition, the first of its kind for the organization, brings together the work of ten women artists, five of whom are historic members and five of whom are contemporary members. Through the pairing of these artists, it is my intention to find aesthetic commonalities and compositional similarities that bridge decades of thinking and making. Throughout history, whether it be ancient, modern, or contemporary, art circulates a rhythm of evolution—one generation building upon the groundings of the former.