Latest News
VIDEO + CONVERSATION: KIMBERLY BARTOSIK + CHRISTOPHER-RASHEEM MCMILLAN
October 15, 2021 | UNC Asheville + Zoom | Presented as part of the Faith in Arts Institute. Guggenheim Fellow and Bessie Award recipient Kimberly Bartosik guides us through clips and discusses the process around the creation of I hunger for you, her choreographic work focusing on the need for faith and the collective desire for transformation. Following the screening and discussion, Dance Scholar/Choreographer Christopher Rasheem Macmillan joined Kimberly in a rich conversation around their shared passion for questioning, through artistic practice, embodied pathways towards faith within a critical and compassionate understanding of our contemporary moment.
FILM SCREENING: TESTIFY, BEYOND PLACE
October 14, 2021 | BMCM+AC {120 College Street} – Presented as part of the Faith in Arts Institute. Film screening and talk with Director Marie Cochran. “Testify, Beyond Place” pays homage to the Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church as well as its relationship to Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC. The year the film was produced in 2021, marked the 85th anniversary of the church demolition and gravesite removal to make way for the expansion of the campus.
FILM SCREENING: THEIRS IS THE KINGDOM: A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT POVERTY AND PORTRAITURE
October 14, 2021 | Haywood Street Congregation – Presented as part of the Faith in Arts Institute. At the intersection of poverty and portraiture, Theirs is the Kingdom follows the rare creation of a contemporary fresco mural inside the sanctuary of a small church in Asheville, NC. This is a painting not of the rich and powerful, but of people battling homelessness, addiction, and mental illness. From first sketch to final unveiling, the viewer witnesses the difficulties of this ancient artistic technique while also meeting an ensemble cast of complex characters.
BMC Campus Tours at Lake Eden
Various Dates Feb – May 2026 | Lake Eden
TALK: ORIGINAL ZEN: ITS ART THEN AND NOW
October 14, 2021 | UNC Asheville + Zoom – Presented as part of the Faith in Arts Institute. The arts were considered forms of Ch’an (Zen) Buddhist practice in ancient China, and mountain landscape played an important part in that practice. Hinton outlines Ch’an insight. Then, starting from that understanding, he discusses how Ch’an shaped the arts in ancient China, and how it migrated to America in the twentieth century, where it shaped poetry and visual-art in fundamental ways, a process in which John Cage and Black Mountain played a major role.
TALK: COMMUNITY AND INFINITY IN THE ART OF JOHN BIGGERS AND DANIEL MINTER
October 14, 2021 | UNC Asheville + Zoom – Presented as part of the Faith in Arts Institute. This presentation by Rachel Elizabeth Harding explores thematic parallels in the work of painters John Biggers (1924-2001) and Daniel Minter (1961). Separated by more than a generation, and each with his own unique professional trajectory, these creative artists share Southern roots, diasporic visions, and sensibilities grounded in both the materiality and the mysticism of African American life.
DYMAXION CHOCOLATE EPHEMERALIZATION: LIMITED EDITION FLAVOR FROM THE HOP ICE CREAM CAFE
June 21 – June 27, 2021 | The Hop Ice Cream mixes up a new batch of Dymaxion Chocolate Ephemeralization, a celebration of Black Mountain College’s very own Buckminster Fuller! Sales benefitted BMCM+AC.
TALK: ART + RELIGION IN THE 21st CENTURY
October 13, 2021 | BMCM+AC {120 College Street} + Zoom – Presented as part of the Faith in Arts Institute. It is time to set aside old assumptions about the antagonism between art and religion and look again with fresh eyes. In this lecture, Aaron Rosen, a leading scholar on religion and contemporary art as well as a practicing curator and critic, explores some of the key ways in which artists today are reframing how we think about religion and spirituality and driving new approaches to ethical issues including climate care and racial justice.
PERFORMANCE: DUET FOR THEREMIN AND LAP STEEL
September 30, 2021 | Streaming – Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel is Scott Burland (Theremin) and Frank Schultz (Lap Steel guitar). Burland and Schultz bring their mesmerizing duet to BMCM+AC for a live recorded session in the gallery. Presented in conjunction with the Fall 2021 exhibition Don’t Blame it on ZEN: The Way of John Cage & Friends.
WESTON OLENCKI / LAURA STEENBERGE
Released May 16, 2022
PERFORMANCE: KATHERINE YOUNG / TIM DAISY DUO
September 2, 2021 | Streaming – Chicago-based percussionist Tim Daisy and bassoonist, improviser, and composer Katherine Young (a recent Atlanta, GA transplant) bring their two-decades-long collaborative experience to the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center for a live recording of improvised duets. Investigating a wide array of sonic territory from laser-focused pointillism to extremes in density and texture, Katherine and Tim aim to use the art of listening combined with their shared performative experience to create a unique blend of sound-making, taking full advantage of the unique instrumentation involved.
BRÍGHDE CHAIMBEUL
Released May 16, 2022
Jo Sandman / TRACES
Released April 19, 2022
BROADCAST: BMC RADIO ARTIST NOSTALGIANOID
August 27, 2021 | 103.3 Asheville FM – Each month, a BMC Radio Artist’s work will be featured in various programs on Asheville FM with an exclusive interview kicking off their featured month. At the completion of the broadcasts, a culminating listening session will be held at Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center to celebrate the work of the five radio artists: Mike Holmes (Nostalgianoid), Thom Nguyen, Cilla Vee, Zazie Productions, and Michael Hatch. Presented in collaboration with Asheville FM and Make Noise.
PERFORMANCE: CHRISTOPHER-RASHEEM MCMILLAN
August 19, 2021 | Streaming – “The Long Way Home,” a new solo work by Christopher-Rasheem Mcmillan, poses a way of contending with the Black body as a composite body, one that is connected to, affirms, and disrupts the archive and Historiography. Through this solo dance performance, McMillan tracks the Merce Cunningham technique through diaspora, emphasizing that the diaspora is never the homeland: it’s never home, it’s always somehow both exile in migration and in travel; different from, yet somehow always in dialogue with, its genesis.
Jonathan Williams, Found Sound, and the Concrete Poem
Jonathan Williams was a master of translating sound onto the page. In many of his poems, he inspires the question, “What do the sounds of a place look like?”
CALL FOR ARTISTS: BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE RADIO ART
103.3 Asheville FM, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, and Make Noise announce an opportunity for artists living in Western North Carolina (WNC) to create new short works for broadcast on the radio. We invite artists in WNC to propose projects that reflect the experimental and innovative spirit of Black Mountain College. Artists are encouraged to take risks. Projects should be between 3-5 minutes long and no more than 12 months old. New work is strongly encouraged. The work does not have to be music. Projects can include any sound recording, cellphone recording, field recording, meditation, movement score, text score, sound collage, spoken word, audio art, experimental DJ work, etc.. The LOI deadline is July 20, 2022.
BMC-TV: A MULTIDISCIPLINARY COMMUNITY ART EVENT
August 5, 2021 | BMCM+AC {120 College Street} + Streaming – A Happening meets variety show, this premiere episode of BMC-TV connects a wide range of the Asheville area’s most innovative performers, musicians, artists, and craftspeople. For over 25 years, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) has bridged the history of Black Mountain College with its lasting legacy in Western North Carolina and beyond. Broadcast from the stages, studios, and streets of Asheville, BMC-TV brings together our friends and collaborators who stoke the flames of experimentation sparked at BMC.
PERSPECTIVES: SOUTHERN EQUALITY STUDIOS
June 16, 2021 | Streaming – A conversation with artists Liz Williams and Al Murray of Southern Equality Studios, a program of the Campaign for Southern Equality. A layered installation by SES was featured in our exhibition I AM A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD. The works “You’re Welcome” and “Building a Better Table” invite participants to consider their role in creating a more equitable world, holding space for the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities.
LISTENING SESSION: 2021 Black Mountain College Radio Artists
December 16, 2021 at 7PM | BMCM+AC – The 2021 Black Mountain College Radio Artists have been selected by BMCM+AC, AshevilleFM, and Make Noise for a series of innovative works for the radio inspired by the experimental spirit of BMC artists. This year’s artists are based in Western North Carolina, with a focus on pushing the limitations of sound art, music, and performance.