Intermediate Spanish Tour and Conversation / Recorrido y conversación
Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 5:30 – 6:30pm
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center {120 College Street}
Free to Attend
Hosted in partnership with the Pack Memorial Library Spanish Language Conversation Practice Group, join us for a short guided tour and open conversation about the exhibition Black Mountain College and Mexico. Walk through the galleries while conversing in Spanish! You will learn about the history of Black Mountain College, its links to Mexico, and the legacy of experimentation that influences contemporary Mexican artists today – all while practicing your listening and conversation skills. This experience is geared towards intermediate Spanish speakers looking to keep their skills sharp, but native speakers are welcome.
Please register for the event at the Pack Memorial Library event page. Questions? Contact our Outreach Coordinator, Kira Houston, at kira @ blackmountaincollege.org
Photo gallery:
About the Exhibition
Black Mountain College had important links to Mexico that until now have been little investigated. Two crucibles of 20th-century creativity, BMC galvanized and inspired artists and intellectuals from around the world, while Mexico’s innovations and age-old traditions—in fine and applied arts, architecture, poetry, music, performance, and more—dovetailed with, and indeed drove, global impulses toward modernism and beyond. Among the many key BMC figures whose lives were importantly touched by experiences in Mexico were Anni and Josef Albers, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, Jean Charlot, Buckminster Fuller, Carlos Mérida, Robert Motherwell, Charles Olson, Clara Porset, M. C. Richards, and Aaron Siskind. In turn, engagements with BMC have played a role in shaping contemporary approaches to art making in Mexico; BMC/MX features work by numerous Mexican artists who have in some way responded to this legacy.
The project Black Mountain College and Mexico examines these artistic reciprocities. The exhibition includes original visual works and sound installations by prominent contemporary Mexican artists alongside vintage works by BMC artists and relevant archival materials—all highlighting the ways in which ideas and modalities are translated across materials, space, and time. Related programming, collaboratively conceived with Mexican counterparts and the Latinx community of North Carolina, includes “Bizarre Sabado:” a series of weekend presentations and performative actions taking place over the course of the exhibition.
Black Mountain College and Mexico offers new historical research and a significant effort toward inclusion and understanding of multiple perspectives. In short, the project is an investigation into modes of communication—the arenas in which new ideas and alliances may take form.
Left: Gabriel Orozco, Isadora’s Necklace, 2003. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, NY. Right: Anni Albers, Knot 2, 1947. Courtesy The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, CT.