May 29, 2024
For immediate release
Kira Houston, Outreach Coordinator
828.350.8484 | kira@blackmountaincollege.org
Alison Croney Moses with her 2021 sculpture My Babies. Photo by Jesika Theos.
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center awards the annual BMC International Artist Prize to Alison Croney Moses
This annual grant of $20,000 is awarded to international or national artists working in the spirit of Black Mountain College (1933-1957).
Alison Croney Moses was selected as the recipient of the $20,000 annual grant for international or national artists working in the spirit of Black Mountain College (1933-1957). 2024 BMC Prize nominators Seth Cluett, Ruth Erickson, Maura Keefe, Paul Lazar, and Dexter Wimberly selected Croney Moses after a rigorous multidisciplinary search process.
BMC Prize artists have the opportunity to develop their practice in a context that is rich with artistic and cultural significance and ongoing contemporary relevance through a guided site visit to the historic Black Mountain College campus at Lake Eden with BMCM+AC staff, transportation to Asheville, and a four-day stay to spend time at BMCM+AC, with a tour of the exhibitions and archival support at the museum and neighboring Western Regional Archives.
Origins of the Prize
Black Mountain College (BMC) was a uniquely global college, with ideas and ideals grounded in worldviews that extend beyond the Western canon. In the same way, the legacy of the college has taken root across the globe, evolving and expanding to encompass disparate identities and forms of expression. BMCM+AC is dedicated to preserving the history of BMC as well as facilitating new work through collaboration with contemporary artists. As we advance this mission, we are privileged to have a blueprint set forth by Black Mountain College that valued the greater good, experimentation, and accountability. Funded by cultural pollinators Hedy Fischer and Randy Shull, The BMC Prize will allow BMCM+AC to continue on this path by building relationships and creating an impact with intention by supporting the creation of new work by the most innovative artists working within the BMC tradition today. The BMC Prize reflects the spirit of Black Mountain College as a place conducive to experimentation, where global social movements, communitarian efforts, and process-based practice flourished.
About the 2024 BMC Prize Recipient: Alison Croney Moses
Photo: Alison Croney making pod sculpture 1-2.
Boston-based artist Alison Croney Moses creates wooden objects that reach out to your senses—the smell of cedar, the color of honey or the deep blue sea, the round form that signifies safety and warmth, the gentle curve that beckons to be touched.
Born and raised in North Carolina by Guyanese parents, making clothing, food, furniture, and art is embedded in her memories of childhood. She carries these values and habits into adulthood and parenting—creating experiences, conversations, and educational programs that cultivate the current and next generation of artists and leaders in art and craft.
Select Honors: Alison Croney Moses’s work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She is a recipient of the 2023 Boston Artadia Award, the 2022 USA Fellowship in Craft, and a finalist of the 2024 LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize. She was recently named one of the 2023 WBUR 10 Makers. Her work has been featured in American Craft Magazine and Boston Art Review. In the Fall of 2023, her first solo was reviewed in the Boston Globe. Alison holds an MA in Sustainable Business & Communities from Goddard College, and a BFA in Furniture Design from Rhode Island School of Design.
Artist Statement:
“Trained as a furniture maker, my sculptures use a combination of timeless woodworking techniques, such as coopering and bent lamination, to create delicate, intricate shapes with a subtle nod to the female form.
My inspiration sometimes comes from the materials and processes themselves, capturing universal forms and impressions from nature and the human body. Other times, it come from photos, gatherings, and memories that serve as an impetus for my explorations of Black motherhood, where I examine my experiences of childhood and motherhood, reframing my memories for my children and my own healing.
I strive to create situations where people are compelled to interact, to express, and challenge themselves to heal, to stand taller, to build community, and to work toward a more just future. This occurs in a classroom where my presence shows that art and woodworking is a valid pursuit for young people who look like me or when I bring together mothers of color in Boston to build solidarity, support, and friendship while we navigate raising Black and Brown children to value their own identities in a white society, or it happens within people as they interact with my work, hopefully having a lasting impact that can be felt beyond that moment. “ — Alison Croney Moses
BMC Prize Nominator Seth Cluett remarks: “With the uncompromising interdisciplinarity of woodworking excellence and artistic invention, Alison Croney Moses exemplifies the Black Mountain College spirit. Balancing the design expertise of skillful hands with a practice committed to community growth and empowerment, I can’t imagine a more fitting artist to celebrate with the Black Mountain College Prize.”
BMC Prize Nominator Dexter Wimberly remarks: “It was an honor to jury such an outstanding group of artists for the Annual Black Mountain College International Artist Prize. I was moved by the vulnerability and clear focus expressed in Alison Croney Moses’ proposal, and inspired by her commitment to collaboration with her community. I believe she embodies the spirit and values of Black Mountain College, and will live up to its meaningful legacy. I am very excited to see what Alison accomplishes as a result of this well-deserved career support and opportunity. I have no doubt the outcome will be powerful.”
BMC Prize Nominator Ruth Erickson remarks: “I think of the BMC Prize like a prism reflecting the many facets of Black Mountain College. In Alison Croney Moses, we have an artist whose engagement with wood in her own artwork and deep commitment to building community exemplifies the ways that craft and community worked in concert at BMC. I think of the beautifully organized woodshop at the college, where Molly Gregory helped to acquaint many students and faculty with the beauty and structure of wood, while making sculptures, tools, and a place to gather and be accepted. Moses through her hand and heart has expanded the field of woodworking and formed spaces of connection for women, mothers, and artists of color.”
2023 Alison Croney Moses Exhibition at Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, “The Habits of Reframing”. Photo Credit: Mel Taing.
About the Nominators
Seth Cluett is an artist and composer whose work ranges from photography and drawing to video, sound installation, concert music, and critical writing. Cluett’s works are marked by a detailed attention to perception and to the role of sound in the creation of a sense of place, the workings of memory, and the experience of time. The recipient of grants from Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Fund, the Mellon Foundation, and Meet the Composer, his work has been presented internationally at venues such as The Whitney Museum, MoMA/PS1, Moving Image Art Fair, CONTEXT Art Miami, GRM, and STEIM. He has published writings with MIT Press, Tacet Revue, Leonardo Music Journal, and the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, and his creative work is documented on Line, Sedimental, Notice, and Winds Measure recordings. Since 2017, Cluett has served as Artist-in-Residence at Nokia Bell Labs and is Director of the Computer Music Center and Assistant Director of the Sound Art MFA Program at Columbia University.
Ruth Erickson currently serves as the Barbara Lee Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at the The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston. She has organized exhibitions including To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood, A Place for Me: Figurative Painting Now, and When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art; and solo presentations of Guadalupe Maravilla, María Berrío, and Barbara Kruger, among others. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the critically acclaimed Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–57 (2015), for which she was co-editor and served as research fellow. Before joining the ICA, Erickson was a fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia and served as curator at Burlington City Arts. Erickson is the recipient of a prestigious Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellowship in 2021.
Maura Keefe is a contemporary dance historian and scholar in residence at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. She is currently the Director of the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. Keefe has given lectures and led audience programs nationally at places such as Princeton University, UCLA, Kennedy Center, and New York Live Arts; and internationally for the Festival Internacional Danza Extremadura, Mexico. She has published essays on women in dance, contemporary dance forms, and dance cultures. Keefe is the president of the Council of Dance Administrators and Chair of the Committee on Ethics for the National Association of Schools of Dance. She has served as a panelist for the New York State Council of the Arts, Maryland State Arts Council, and National Endowment for the Humanities. Keefe was previously Chair of the Department of Dance at SUNY Brockport and was on the dance faculty at Ohio University.
Paul Lazar founded Big Dance Theater in 1991 with Annie-B Parson. His work with the company includes conceiving, directing and/or performing in such works as “17c” (BAM) Supernatural Wife (BAM), and Comme Toujours Here I Stand (The Kitchen), at theaters ranging from The Old Vic in London to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s Obie Winning “We’re Gonna Die” as well as plays at Saint Ann’s Warehouse and Classic Stage Company. Lazar has appeared in The Wooster Group’s North Atlantic, Brace Up!, Emperor Jones and The Hairy Ape. He is an instructor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and has taught Acting, Directing or Theatre History at Yale University, SUNY Purchase, Rutgers University, The Bill Esper Studio and The Michael Howard Studio. He is currently teaching at the Theater, Dance and Media concentration at Harvard. Paul’s film career includes roles in Silence of the Lambs, Mickey Blue Eyes, Lorenzo’s Oil, Philadelphia, The Host and Snowpiercer as well as numerous other films and television shows.
Dexter Wimberly is an American curator based in Japan who has organized exhibitions in galleries and institutions around the world including the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City; The Green Family Art Foundation in Dallas, Texas; The Harvey B. Gantt Center in Charlotte, North Carolina; KOKI Arts in Tokyo, Japan; BODE in Berlin, Germany; and The Third Line in Dubai, UAE. His exhibitions have been reviewed and featured in publications including The New York Times and Artforum; and have received support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and The Kinkade Family Foundation. Wimberly is a Senior Critic at New York Academy of Art, and the founder and director of the Hayama Artist Residency in Japan. He is also the co-founder and CEO of the online education platform, CreativeStudy.
Black Mountain College (1933-1957) and Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
Founded in 1933, Black Mountain College was one of the leading experimental liberal art schools in America until its closure in 1957. After the Bauhaus in Germany closed due to mounting antagonism from the Nazi Party, Josef and Anni Albers readily accepted an offer to join the Black Mountain College faculty. During their 16-year tenure in North Carolina, the Alberses helped model the college’s interdisciplinary curriculum on that of the Bauhaus, attracting an unmatched roster of teachers and students including R. Buckminster Fuller, Elaine and Willem de Kooning, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Mary Caroline (M.C.) Richards, and Robert Rauschenberg.
The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) was founded in 1993 to celebrate the history of Black Mountain College as a forerunner in progressive interdisciplinary education and to celebrate its extraordinary impact on modern and contemporary art, dance, theater, music, and performance.
The museum is committed to educating the public about the history of Black Mountain College and promoting awareness of its extensive legacy through exhibitions, publications, lectures, films, seminars, and oral histories. Through our permanent collection, special exhibitions, publications, and research archive, we provide access to historical materials related to the college and its influence on the field.
BMCM+AC provides a forum for multifaceted programming in a dynamic environment in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. Our goal is to provide a gathering point for people from a variety of backgrounds to interact – integrating art, ideas, and discourse.