VISUAL ARTS
March 4, 2023 - July 23, 2023
Michael Richards Are You Down?
Free Admission
Michael Richards’s visionary sculptures and drawings, created between 1990 and 2001, engage Blackness, flight, diaspora, spirituality, police brutality, and monuments in his largest retrospective to date. Michael Richards: Are You Down? takes its name from one of the last artworks the artist created.
In his sculptures and installations, Richards gestures toward both repression and reprieve from social injustices and the simultaneous possibilities of uplift and downfall, often in the context of the historic and ongoing oppression of Black people. Flight and aviation were central themes for Richards as an exploration of freedom and escape, ascendance and descent. These themes are especially evident in Richards’s engagement with the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen, including his well-known sculpture Tar Baby vs. St. Sebastian (1999)—a version of which has been on continuous display at the NCMA since 2003.
North Carolina Museum of Art
2110 Blue Ridge Road
Raleigh, NC 27607
(919) 839-6262
www.ncartmuseum.org
April 1–August 6, 2023
Ruth E. Carter: Afrofuturism in Costume Design
Admission: TBA
Academy Award–winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter has defined generations through her work in film and TV. Her art adds dimensionality, flair, and culture to the characters she envisions, giving power to the incredible actors who wear her designs. Her vibrancy and attention to detail in costuming is integral to translating stories of race, politics, and culture to the big screen. From humble roots in Massachusetts, Carter has helped style the Afrofuturism movement for almost 40 years. Creating pieces for films such as Black Panther, Malcom X, Selma, and Do the Right Thing, Carter has designed costumes for legends like Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington, Chadwick Boseman, Eddie Murphy, Angela Bassett, and Forest Whitaker.
In this exhibition the NCMA displays more than 60 of Carter’s original garments while also showcasing her immersive process, historical research, and the attention to detail that imbues every project she brings to life.
North Carolina Museum of Art
2110 Blue Ridge Road
Raleigh, NC 27607
(919) 839-6262
www.ncartmuseum.org
April 21. 2023 - July 2, 2023
Unsettled Things: Art from an African American South
Free Admission
Including forty-four works by twenty-eight artists – largely drawn from the Ackland’s permanent collection — Unsettled Things: Art from an African American South explores works by makers from the southern United States, long overlooked and now considered major artists, including Thornton Dial, Lonnie B. Holley, Nellie Mae Rowe, and Mose Tolliver, through three themes: Life, Spirit, and Matter. The themes emerge from recurring threads in the works’ subject matter, from shared approaches to choosing and applying materials, and from the artists’ own accounts of their ideas, efforts, and struggles.
Ackland Art Museum
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
101 S. Columbia St
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
(919) 966-5736
ackland.org
March 4, 2023 - July 23, 2023
Michael Richards Are You Down?
Free Admission
Michael Richards’s visionary sculptures and drawings, created between 1990 and 2001, engage Blackness, flight, diaspora, spirituality, police brutality, and monuments in his largest retrospective to date. Michael Richards: Are You Down? takes its name from one of the last artworks the artist created.
In his sculptures and installations, Richards gestures toward both repression and reprieve from social injustices and the simultaneous possibilities of uplift and downfall, often in the context of the historic and ongoing oppression of Black people. Flight and aviation were central themes for Richards as an exploration of freedom and escape, ascendance and descent. These themes are especially evident in Richards’s engagement with the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen, including his well-known sculpture Tar Baby vs. St. Sebastian (1999)—a version of which has been on continuous display at the NCMA since 2003.
North Carolina Museum of Art
2110 Blue Ridge Road
Raleigh, NC 27607
(919) 839-6262
www.ncartmuseum.org
April 1–August 6, 2023
Ruth E. Carter: Afrofuturism in Costume Design
Admission: TBA
Academy Award–winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter has defined generations through her work in film and TV. Her art adds dimensionality, flair, and culture to the characters she envisions, giving power to the incredible actors who wear her designs. Her vibrancy and attention to detail in costuming is integral to translating stories of race, politics, and culture to the big screen. From humble roots in Massachusetts, Carter has helped style the Afrofuturism movement for almost 40 years. Creating pieces for films such as Black Panther, Malcom X, Selma, and Do the Right Thing, Carter has designed costumes for legends like Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington, Chadwick Boseman, Eddie Murphy, Angela Bassett, and Forest Whitaker.
In this exhibition the NCMA displays more than 60 of Carter’s original garments while also showcasing her immersive process, historical research, and the attention to detail that imbues every project she brings to life.
North Carolina Museum of Art
2110 Blue Ridge Road
Raleigh, NC 27607
(919) 839-6262
www.ncartmuseum.org
April 21. 2023 - July 2, 2023
Unsettled Things: Art from an African American South
Free Admission
Including forty-four works by twenty-eight artists – largely drawn from the Ackland’s permanent collection — Unsettled Things: Art from an African American South explores works by makers from the southern United States, long overlooked and now considered major artists, including Thornton Dial, Lonnie B. Holley, Nellie Mae Rowe, and Mose Tolliver, through three themes: Life, Spirit, and Matter. The themes emerge from recurring threads in the works’ subject matter, from shared approaches to choosing and applying materials, and from the artists’ own accounts of their ideas, efforts, and struggles.
Ackland Art Museum
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
101 S. Columbia St
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
(919) 966-5736
ackland.org