RALEIGH, NC.- The North Carolina Museum of Art announces three free photography and video exhibitions opening in fall 2016. William Noland: Dream Rooms, opening September 3, is a video installation examining the wired world of the 21st century. Panorama: North Carolina, opening October 8, features 30 photographs of the Old North State lovingly created by North Carolina–based artists. Finally, Human/Nature, opening October 15, pairs photographs of individuals to photographs of natural or man-made environments.
William Noland: Dream Rooms September 3, 2016–February 5, 2017 Video Gallery Free
Dream Rooms examines our wired world of the 21st century. Individuals are seen in coffee shops, wholly absorbed, their trancelike states brought on primarily through an intense engagement with the alternate reality presented by laptops and smart phones. They are immersed in an interior world of concentration and at times of pleasure, seemingly oblivious to the often busy and noisy surroundings.
The long takes of Dream Rooms seek to lay bare the effects of technologically mediated intimacy and chronic multitasking. Questions arise: Are we being rewired by our relationship to interactive media? And how does the idea of surveillance alter our experience of these individuals? Each character is intimately examined in public space, comfortably anonymous and secure in the privacy of his or her thoughts and behavior, while the gaze of the camera records impulses and reactions.
Panorama: North Carolina October 8, 2016–February 12, 2017 East Building, North Carolina Gallery Free
In Panorama: North Carolina, the Old North State is the subject of over 30 photographs, lovingly created by North Carolina–based artists. These works from the North Carolina Museum of Art's permanent collection interpret the subject matter in varied ways. Some images, like Elizabeth Matheson's Edenton and Luis Rey Velasco's Stovall, present specific towns or landmarks. Other photographs represent the soul of the state via portraits of its inhabitants, as in Rob Amberg’s Carter Crosby, Highway 24 South, Clinton, NC and Jeff Whetstone’s Mingo Boys with Water Snake on the Eno River. A third grouping—a barren tree in winter, some lovingly tended gravestones—provides quiet reflection through stilllife scenes. Combined, these images tell a story of the state as captured in black and white.
A segment of Panorama: North Carolina features works from David Simonton's Polk Prison Project. The former Polk Youth Center, which occupied land adjacent to the Museum, was closed in 1997. Before the building was demolished in 2003, Simonton received access to the prison and captured interesting details of that space. Five images from this series, which was partially commissioned by the North Carolina Museum of Art, are included in the exhibition.
Human/Nature October 15, 2016–February 26, 2017 East Building, Photography Gallery Free
Human/Nature features photographs from the NCMA’s permanent collection that relate individuals to both natural and man-made environments. Our primary human instincts drive us to control, dominate, nurture, and find a connection to our surroundings. Each photograph in Human/Nature presents the relationship between man and the environment—comparing, for example, a desolate landscape with a similar close-up of the human body. In simple yet profound ways, these images manifest the many ways bodily forms echo forms in nature and drive home the importance of connecting to our habitat in a physical, tangible way.
