The Gift of Art in Asheville
Amid Asheville’s locally focused shops, boutiques, amazing restaurants, theaters, and experience-based businesses (i.e. Pinball Museum, Woolworth Walk’s soda fountain, LaZoom comedy tours, Moogseum, etc.) sits a diverse collection of venues dedicated to visual arts. Situated in a mix of historic art deco buildings, renovated brick constructs, and modern glass and concrete facades, Downtown Asheville’s Gallery and Museum District is concentrated within an approximate half-mile radius in the small mountain city’s very walkable city center. The District is home to a number of businesses representing a broad cross section of visual arts including folk art, pop culture and illustration, photography, Appalachian craft, a working glass studio, a co-op craft gallery operated by artists, custom jewelers, and contemporary fine art.
Located on Pack Square, in the center of downtown, is the Asheville Art Museum. This November, the western North Carolina community celebrates the opening of the Museum’s new, eye-popping $24+ million expansion. The renovation includes significant architectural improvements to the building both inside and out, to the layout of the museum’s expansive galleries, as well as upgrades to HVAC, lighting, security, life safety and technology systems. The Asheville Art Museum’s new, state-of-the-art, 54,000 square foot facility showcases American art of the 20th and 21st centuries. The Museum challenges guests to experience the art of this period and explore its relationship to western North Carolina and the Southeast.
Asheville Art Museum Executive Director Pamela L. Myers notes, “In rebuilding our home...we reflected on what it means to be in this place, a site nestled in the mountains of Appalachia of significance to native and immigrant communities of all backgrounds."The new Museum opens with two exhibitions that examine the vitality of the region. For Appalachia Now! An Interdisciplinary Survey of Contemporary Art in Southern Appalachia, New York-based scholar and curator Jason Andrew considered more than 700 artists from the Southern Appalachian states of North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. After 55 studio visits, Andrew selected the work of 50 diverse working artists.
The Museum’s second opening exhibition, Intersections in American Art, offers a fresh look at their permanent Collection. A grant from the Henry Luce Foundation allowed a diverse group, including an NC poet laureate, to help reinterpret the Museum’s Collection with ideas derived from the groundbreaking Black Mountain College (1933-1957). Several important artists of the 20th century taught or studied at Black Mountain College. One of the major focuses of the Collection is works of significance by artists associated with Black Mountain College, which was located 15 miles east of Asheville. From 1933 to 1957, BMC was a unique experiment in American education and a center for experimentation in all areas of the arts. Because of the College’s regional and international significance, and the impact that its revolutionary educational style had on modern art, the Museum is committed to preserving the legacy of BMC, with over 1,500 objects and documents by faculty and alumni such as by Josef & Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, and Robert Rauschenberg. Within the BMC Collection, the Museum is also the repository of the Lorna Blaine Halper Estate.
Black Mountain College was noteworthy as a forerunner in progressive interdisciplinary education, and a number of the most influential creatives of the 20th Century were involved with the school. Another museum in downtown Asheville, dedicated solely to preserving and continuing the legacy of educational and artistic innovation of Black Mountain College, is the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC). This museum achieves its mission through collection, conservation, and educational activities including exhibitions, publications, and public programs. Last year, BMCM+AC relocated to a larger space just a block away from the Asheville Art Museum on Pack Square.
Founded in 1993, the BMCM+AC celebrates the history of Black Mountain College and explores its extraordinary impact on modern and contemporary art, dance, theater, music, and performance. Today, the museum remains committed to educating the public about BMC’s history and raising awareness of its extensive legacy. Their goal is to provide a gathering point for people from a variety of backgrounds to interact through art, ideas, and discourse. They offer historic and contemporary exhibitions, dynamic events, and research opportunities for those interested in any and all aspects of Black Mountain College. Admittance is free with suggested donation.
Anchored by these two museums, the Downtown Asheville Arts District (DAAD) is also home to a number of privately-owned galleries and other art-related businesses, including Momentum Gallery. This thoughtfully curated space is a stand-out among the galleries in downtown. Momentum is owned and operated by Jordan Ahlers, a curator involved in the Asheville art community for the last two decades. Momentum is a relatively young gallery – it just opened in the fall of 2017 – however, despite this newness, Momentum is already undergoing its own significant expansion. Around the block from their original location on Lexington Avenue, the gallery is set to open in its expanded space at 52 Broadway this spring. Major improvements are being made to the historic building that will become the permanent home of Momentum Gallery. Increasing its presence, the Broadway move sees Momentum spreading out over two generous floors of exhibition space, connected by an open stairway, with a passenger elevator, hardwood floors, areas of exposed brick, and loads of natural light.
On their website, Momentum Gallery states they offer a contemporary and modern program with an emphasis on emerging and mid-career artists. Ahlers comments, he enjoys, “showing a diverse array of work by American artists including paintings, original prints, sculpture, and studio furniture. The gallery curates thematic group exhibitions and mounts solo exhibitions that spotlight our talented artists. Typically, these exhibitions run two months at a time and then change, so there’s always something new on the horizon.” Regardless of the particular exhibition, Momentum Gallery is committed to providing access to compelling, museum-quality artwork.
To compliment its exhibitions, Momentum regularly programs educational events and opportunities for visitors to have direct experiences with artists. Recently, the gallery hosted a meet and greet for visiting artist Chakaia Booker. This fall, the gallery revisits an annual exhibition focused on smaller scaled work. Just in time for the holidays, Small Works | Big Impactopens November 14th and continues into the new year. This year’s small works exhibition presents work by a number of artists new to the gallery.
Nearby, Ariel Gallery is a contemporary art gallery focused on fine craft. Ariel is a premier showcase for original handmade jewelry, ceramics, fiber, glass, woodwork and furniture. The gallery represents some of western North Carolina’s finest nationally recognized artists. Since 2002, Ariel Gallery has provided a wonderful opportunity for the public to view and purchase work directly from these local artists. In 2008, Ariel moved to their current location on Biltmore Ave. and has become a mainstay of the downtown Asheville gallery district. Because it is an artist-owned gallery, visitors can look forward to the unique experience of meeting at least one of their artists on any given day.
The downtown art district is also home to a number of large-scale public sculptures, including Henry Richardson’s glass orb, “Reflections on Unity” (in front of the Asheville Art Museum), (Momentum Gallery artist) Hoss Haley’s 20’ diameter fabricated bronze fountain (in Pack Square), Albert Paley’s 40’ high corten steel sculpture “Passage” (in front of Federal Building), and the late Dirck Cruiser’s “Energy Loop” (near City Hall). More traditional works in cast bronze dot the Asheville Urban Trail which tells the story of Asheville’s history. Additionally, contemporary painted murals and wall-mounted reliefs adorn buildings like the Center for Craft, Momentum Gallery, Aloft Hotel, and more.
A number of outdoor Art Festivals are organized and presented over weekends during warmer months at Pack Square Park. Two of the longest running events are Asheville Art in the Park and the Big Crafty.
Asheville Art in the Park provides access to a wide array of art and artists from the region with its market series, now in its second decade. The event takes place on three consecutive Saturdays each June and October. Nationally known artists exhibit at this event and the best part is they are local. The organizers of Art in the Park proudly offer local artists the opportunity to connect with the public. They comment, “Take a stroll around the Vance Monument and Hoss Haley’s marvelous fountain and experience the textures and forms of a truly unique garden.”
Started in 2008, the Big Crafty takes place outdoors within Pack Square Park in July and inside the US Cellular Center in December. The Big Crafty revives the tradition of the community bazaar, a lively celebration of handmade commerce, featuring some of the most exciting artists and crafters around. Their fun-for-all-ages events are held twice annually with the guiding principle being that supporting creative venturers makes for a stronger community, and their aim is to make it fun. The founders of the Big Crafty also own Horse + Hero, a Neo Appalachian Art Gallery in downtown Asheville.
Located in the South Slope area of Asheville is the Tracey Morgan Gallery. The gallery specializes in contemporary photography, works on paper, painting, sculpture and installation by emerging and established artists from the United States and abroad. The secondary focus of the gallery is to promote the visual arts in the community by highlighting work created by regional artists or pertaining to western North Carolina. Each year, the gallery will present a rotation of well-researched exhibitions by individual artists as well as curated group shows that explore historical and contemporary themes. Tracey Norman-Morgan has nearly twenty-years of gallery and research experience, including over a decade specializing in photographic based art work
With all of this going on, it’s no surprise Asheville regularly appears on lists of the country’s top arts-destinations. On any day of the year, the downtown Asheville art district has so much to offer visitors in the way of experiencing visual arts. Next time you are wandering through the streets of Asheville, keep an eye out for some of the numerous murals and public sculptures around downtown, stop into one or more of the amazing art galleries, or spend some time in a museum learning about the rich creative legacy of this special area.
