RALEIGH, NC.- The North Carolina Museum of Art announced its fall 2021 exhibitions, with artists from both around the world and around the state, including Alphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau Visionary on view through January 23, 2022. Focused on the influence of craft on artists working nationally and globally, Break the Mold: New Takes on Traditional Art Making features world-renowned artists like Gabriel de la Mora, Yasumasa Morimura, Shinique Smith, Hank Willis Thomas, and more. In N.C. Artist Connections, three North Carolina–based artists (Stephen Hayes, Hong-An Truong, and The Beautiful Project) enter into a dialogue with the NCMA’s collection, presenting work that speaks directly to the Museum’s works of art.

Czech-born Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939) was one of the most influential and celebrated artists in turn-of-the20th-century Paris. He is best known for his graphic work, such as theater posters for superstar actress Sarah Bernhardt and decorative panels and advertisements featuring graceful women. Mucha created a distinctive approach characterized by harmonious compositions, sinuous forms, organic lines, and muted colors, which became synonymous with the decorative style called art nouveau.

“This fall the North Carolina Museum of Art is pleased to present a series of exhibitions that span the 19th to the 21st centuries and offer insight into art made in different parts of the world,” says Valerie Hillings, Museum director. “Our fall season features internationally beloved and recognized work by Alphonse Mucha alongside local, national, and international contemporary artists who explore a range of techniques and social and cultural histories.”

Despite the powerful impact of Mucha’s style, his ideas behind its development are less well known. Alphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau Visionary draws on the latest research to examine the theoretical aspects of his style, which evolved as a language for communication with the wider public. Featuring some 100 objects from the Mucha Trust collection, including rarely seen works from the artist’s family, the exhibition looks at Mucha’s contributions to the art nouveau style and how he later used his visual language to express his vision for an independent Czechoslovak nation.

The international scope of Mucha’s aesthetic, influences, and impact are elaborated in the exhibition and accompanying catalogue through the addition of works from the North Carolina Museum of Art collection and new research on their relationship to Mucha’s art and times.

Break the Mold: New Takes on Traditional Art Making
September 25, 2021–February 6, 2022
East Building, Joyce W. Pope Gallery

The North Carolina Museum of Art is presenting Break the Mold: New Takes on Traditional Art Making. Break the Mold showcases contemporary artists who are using traditional modes of art making to tackle timely subject matter. Innovative approaches to embroidery, ceramics, quilting, furniture, interior design, and fashion accessories serve to explore diverse topics such as gender inequality, prison reform, racial justice, memory, and loss, as well as how objects encapsulate, transmit, and transform social and cultural history. As daily life becomes more digitized and technology-dependent, artwork evoking or involving traditional craft assumes new significance and provides an avenue for interrogating and critiquing social and historical contexts. In this exhibition historic objects are being presented alongside contemporary artworks to explore the making and meaning embodied by both. In addition artistic technique is considered—and a commitment to choosing labor-intensive modes of working—as another layer of meaning in these contemporary pieces. Artists included are Lucas Samaras, Gabriel de la Mora, Yasumasa Morimura, Hank Willis Thomas, Elizabeth Brim, Sanford Biggers, Rachel Meginnes, Elizabeth Alexander, Rodney McMillan, Shinique Smith, Thomas Schmidt, Maria Britton, Julie Cockburn, Do Ho Suh, and more.

N.C. Artist Connections: The
Beautiful Project, Stephen Hayes, and Hong-An Truong
September 4, 2021–February 13, 2022
Photography Galleries 1 and 2, Video Gallery

The NCMA has provided art education, inspiration, and access to generations. For artists the Museum has been a particularly special place for burgeoning careers, especially as a space for study, experimentation, and guidance. The NCMA presents new and/or reconceived works of art by two North Carolina–based artists and an art collective that link to important artworks in the Museum collection. Framed through themes of their choosing, these artists’ presentations offer fresh perspectives on the NCMA’s collection and highlight the important relationship between the Museum and living artists. Stephen Hayes’s work is concerned with historical depictions of African Americans as these images relate to social justice, and his contribution involves a large gallery-hung installation of Museum collection works. Hong-An Truong’s art connects to issues of communication (and misunderstandings) between disparate cultures. The Beautiful Project grapples with ideas of memory and ritual through portraiture.