Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center

Street view of BMCM+AC
Asheville, NC
Asheville, NC
Established 1933 (1933)
Location 56 + 69 Broadway Asheville, North Carolina
Coordinates 35°35′50″N 82°33′08″W / 35.597301°N 82.55216°W / 35.597301; -82.55216
Type Art museum
Founder Mary Holden Thompson
Nearest parking Street parking
Website blackmountaincollege.org

The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) is an exhibition space and resource center located at 56 Broadway in downtown Asheville, North Carolina dedicated to preserving and continuing the legacy of educational and artistic innovations of Black Mountain College (BMC). BMCM+AC achieves its mission through collection, conservation, and educational activities including exhibitions, publications and public programs.

History

BMCM+AC was founded in 1993 by Mary Holden Thompson to pay tribute to BMC (1933–1957). The museum and arts center existed as a nomadic organization from 1993 until 2003, when it moved to its current downtown Asheville location, 15 miles from the both BMC campuses at Lake Eden and the Blue Ridge Assembly in Black Mountain, NC.[1] BMCM+AC was first based out of founder Mary Holden Thompson's house in Black Mountain, NC. It expanded to Zone one contemporary, a gallery in downtown Asheville from 1991–2000 owned by long-time BMCM+AC board member Connie Bostic.[2] The museum then moved to the Kellogg Conference Center in Hendersonville, NC followed by Warren Wilson College and finally 56 Broadway.

Expansion

In Summer 2014 BMCM+AC received a major grant from the Windgate Charitable Foundation (Siloam Springs, AR) in support of a three-year plan to expand its facilities and public programs. BMCM+AC opened an additional gallery at 69 Broadway and created storage space for the growing collection of artwork and materials by faculty and alumni of Black Mountain College.

Asheville-based and internationally recognized artist Randy Shull designed and fabricated the overall expansion project including the two related gallery spaces in the BMCM+AC’s facility at 56 and 69 Broadway in downtown Asheville.[4]

Collection

BMCM+AC Collection

The BMCM+AC collection includes items with dates of creation ranging from 1931–2004. All items in the collection have a direct connection to the history of BMC, such as original college publications and other primary source materials. Components of the collection are photographs (24%), ephemera (22.5%), paintings (12%), drawings/prints (12%), poems/books/monographs/magazines/articles (11%), writings/correspondences (6%). The museum owns a variety of objects, including ceramics/clay (4%), furniture/wood (1.5%), sculptures (1%), weavings/fiber (1.5%), collages and mixed media pieces (4%), broadsides/artists’ books (.3%) and music/album covers (.2%). The permanent collection includes 2,000+ pieces of artwork and ephemera.

In addition, the collection features a full set of the poetry journal, The Black Mountain Review, which formed the group of writers known as the Black Mountain Poets. In Summer 2013, the museum acquired a 1971 work by BMC alumnus Robert Rauschenberg, Opal Gospel, 10 American Indian Poems, consisting of 10 moveable silkscreened acrylic panels of American Indian stories and imagery. Other noted pieces in the collection are furniture from the original Black Mountain College campuses: two benches from the Quiet House, a place for contemplation, meditation, and observance of special occasions at the Lake Eden campus and a desk designed by Josef Albers. BMCM+AC has an original Black Mountain College directional sign from the Lake Eden Campus, which is displayed in the 56 Broadway Space reception area. The collection features many other works by various alumni, faculty and key figures of Black Mountain College including, among many others, Ruth Asawa, Ray Johnson, Kenneth Noland, Charles Olson, M. C. Richards, Dorothea Rockburne and Susan Weil.[5]

The museum has been facilitating oral history documentation since 1999, resulting in a collection of recorded interviews with 58 BMC alumni to date. The BMCM+AC also has a research library, which includes approximately 400 BMC-related resources in audio, video and book form. These resources, in addition to the aforementioned oral histories, are available to museum visitors and members as a part the museum’s publicly accessible resource center. The BMCM+AC collection serves as a resource in a variety of contexts, on a regional, national and international level.

The Jargon Society

In 2012, BMCM+AC was chosen as the receiving institution for the remaining publications and archive of The Jargon Society, a small-press publisher founded in 1951 by Jonathan Williams. The archive currently includes over 70 titles out of the total 115 Jargon titles. Of the 115 originals in the Jargon catalogue, approximately 85 are books and another 30 are broadsides, pamphlets and other publications.[6]

UNC Asheville Ramsey Library Special Collections

The BMCM+AC and University of North Carolina Asheville's Ramsey Library Special Collections are collaborating to digitize and make available for study materials from the BMCM+AC archives and permanent collection.[7] UNCA Special Library Collection

Publications

The BMCM+AC has published numerous dossiers, exhibition catalogues and books about Black Mountain College, its teachers, and alumni.

Journal of Black Mountain College Studies

Black Mountain College Studies is an online peer-reviewed publication of The Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center, which sponsors an annual conference along with the University of North Carolina Asheville. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis.

Catalogues

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2014

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2013

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2013

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2011

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2011

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2010

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2008

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2008

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2007

Books

Poetry chapbook by M.C. Richards. Edited by Julia Connor, 2014

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2014

Essays by David Vaughan, Connie Bostic, and Erika Zarow

Michael Rumaker, Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center, 2003

Mary Emma Harris, Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center, 1995[8]

Dossiers

The Dossiers focus on specific BMC alumni and serve both as exhibition catalogues and critical studies. To date, the museum has published eight dossiers, featuring BMC alumni including Joseph Fiore, Fannie Hillsmith, Lore Kadden Lindenfeld, Ray Johnson, Susan Weil, Michael Rumaker, Gwendolyn Knight and Gregory Masurovsky. BMC + AC has 29 publications dossiers, exhibition catalogues, and other publications.

Exhibitions

At the 56 Broadway location, pieces from the permanent collection are featured via a rotating schedule of temporary exhibitions, which are on display for an average of four months at time. In addition to these rotating exhibitions at the museum, BMCM+AC curated exhibitions of selections from the permanent collection from 2009–2011 at the University of North Carolina at Asheville (UNCA) in concurrence with their annual conference, ReVIEWING Black Mountain College. The center has also co-curated exhibitions with a variety of regional institutions, including the Hickory Museum of Art, Western Carolina University, the Western Regional Archives, and the Smith-McDowell House. In addition to the museum’s regional use of the collection in exhibitions, the collection is also accessed nationally and internationally by means of traveling exhibitions and loans to other institutions.

Past exhibitions

BMC + AC has hosted 47 exhibits so far.

Programs

The {Re}HAPPENING, an annual multidisciplinary art event, honors the interdisciplinary nature of Black Mountain College and pays tribute to the innovations of that community of artists. Hosted on the former BMC campus at Lake Eden, NC, the site-specific event launches a contemporary platform for artists and attendees to experience creativity in the present day. The event has been co-organized since its inception in 2010 by the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and the Media Arts Project.

Taking its name from what is widely considered to be the first ‘Happening’ in the United States—from John Cage’s emphasis on chance and the observer as vital components in artistic creation—the {Re}HAPPENING reimagines BMC’s tradition of Saturday night parties and performances. Cage’s proto-Happening took place at BMC in 1952 and featured Cage reading Meister Eckhart, Charles Olson and M.C. Richards reciting poetry, Robert Rauschenberg showing his White Paintings and playing recordings on an old victrola, and Merce Cunningham dancing.

Each year, the {Re}HAPPENING features over 80 local, regional, national, and international artists collaborating on 30+ visual art installations, new media presentations, and performances dependent upon wildly innovative visual and participatory components. As with Cage’s 1952 event, the {Re}HAPPENING is a democratizing art experience, participatory and interactive rather than hierarchical.[9]

The ReVIEWING Black Mountain College Conference is annual academic event which engages a variety of humanities disciplines. Hosted on the campus of UNCA, the conferences of the past have included film screenings, musical and dramatic productions, hands-on workshops and lectures by new and established scholars. A full list of past conferences and schedules is located on the museum website.

The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center's Institute for the study of Democracy, Education and the Arts aims at investigating and continuing the college's legacy in experiential education, democratic practice and artistic innovation both separately and in combination. The Institute's activities focus on educational activities and include internships, visiting fellowships, publications and public programming.

IDE+A is directed by Dr. Brian E. Butler, Thomas Howerton Distinguished Professor of Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Former Chair of the Board of the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Butler is a scholar in politics, legal philosophy and aesthetics. He has degrees in art (BFA, Otis College of Art and Design and MFA, Claremont Graduate University), philosophy (MA and PhD, Claremont), and law (JD with honors, University of Chicago).

References

  1. ↑ Black Mountain College Museum+Arts Center http://www.blackmountaincollege.org/about/history. Retrieved 2015-02-17. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. ↑ Mountain Express https://mountainx.com/arts/art-news/1220zoneone-php/. Retrieved 2015-08-20. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. ↑ Black Mountain College Museum+ Arts Center http://www.blackmountaincollege.org/programs/past/155-under-the-influence-festival. Retrieved 6 March 2015. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. ↑ NY Times,
  5. ↑ "BMCM+AC Collection". BMCM+AC. Retrieved 2015-02-27.
  6. ↑ "The Jargon Society". BMCM+AC. Retrieved 2015-02-17.
  7. ↑ "UNCA Special Collections". BMCM+A. Retrieved 2015-02-27.
  8. ↑ "BMCM+AC Publications". BMCM+AC. Retrieved 2015-02-27.
  9. ↑ "{Re}HAPPENING". Retrieved 2015-02-27.
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