Upcoming Events

Past Events

FAITH IN ARTS INSTITUTE
FAITH IN ARTS INSTITUTE

October 13-16, 2021 | BMCM+AC {120 College Street} + Zoom – This four-day event brought together acclaimed artists and scholars to explore the intersections of art, faith, and spirit. Public events included performances, film screenings, community workshops, lectures, and more.

ReVIEWING Black Mountain College 13
ReVIEWING Black Mountain College 13

October 7-9, 2022 in Asheville, North Carolina
Thematic Focus: Leo Amino / The Visible and the Invisible: Submerged Histories of Abstraction

THE GLYPH
THE GLYPH

July 30, 2022 at 3PM + 7PM | BMCM+AC
Commissioned by ICA/Boston

CURATOR TALK: JADE DELLINGER
CURATOR TALK: JADE DELLINGER

Jade Dellinger, Curator of "Don't Blame it on ZEN: The Way of John Cage & Friends" Thursday, January 13th, 2022 at 7PM Zoom | Registration Required | Suggested Donation“He hasn't just been an odd character performing strange music on the stage, he's a prepared...

PERSPECTIVES: JADE DELLINGER
PERSPECTIVES: JADE DELLINGER

December 15, 2021 at 1 PM | Live on Zoom – Jade Dellinger is Director of the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at FSW and curator of our current exhibition Don’t Blame It on ZEN: The Way of John Cage & Friends. He has served for eight years now as Director of Exhibitions & Collections at Florida SouthWestern State College.

BROADCAST: BMC RADIO ARTIST MICHAEL HATCH
BROADCAST: BMC RADIO ARTIST MICHAEL HATCH

December 13, 2021 | 103.3 Asheville FM – BMC Radio Artists’ 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.

BROADCAST: BMC RADIO ARTIST CILLA VEE
BROADCAST: BMC RADIO ARTIST CILLA VEE

December 6, 2021 | 103.3 Asheville FM – BMC Radio Artists’ 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.

BROADCAST: BMC RADIO ARTIST ZAZIE PRODUCTIONS
BROADCAST: BMC RADIO ARTIST ZAZIE PRODUCTIONS

December 17, 2021 | 103.3 Asheville FM – BMC Radio Artists’ 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.

BROADCAST: BMC RADIO ARTIST THOM NGUYEN
BROADCAST: BMC RADIO ARTIST THOM NGUYEN

November 19, 2021 | 103.3 Asheville FM – BMC Radio Artists’ 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.

CARL BOLLEIA + THOMAS MOORE – WORKS OF JOHN CAGE
CARL BOLLEIA + THOMAS MOORE – WORKS OF JOHN CAGE

November 13, 2021 | BMCM+AC {120 College Street} – Presented in conjunction with the 12th annual ReVIEWING conference. Two performances present the wide-ranging works of John Cage: Carl Patrick Bolleia, John Cage Piano/Toy Piano Retrospective: Black Mountain Keyboard | Thomas Moore, solo piano works by John Cage, with a focus on compositions written around 1952 and 1953.

JACK QUARTET – WAVES AND PARTICLES, JOHN LUTHER ADAMS
JACK QUARTET – WAVES AND PARTICLES, JOHN LUTHER ADAMS

Commission | November 12th, 2021 | BMCM+AC {120 College Street} + Streaming | The world premiere of John Luther Adams’ new composition “Waves and Particles,” performed by JACK Quartet. Presented on the opening night of the 12th annual ReVIEWING Black Mountain College Conference (November 12 – 14, 2021) and co-commissioned as part of the inaugural Faith in Arts Institute, a partnership between BMCM+AC and UNC Asheville.

TALK: DISPLAYING THE DHARMA, BUDDHIST “ART” AND THE MODERN MUSEUM
TALK: DISPLAYING THE DHARMA, BUDDHIST “ART” AND THE MODERN MUSEUM

October 16, 2021 | BMCM+AC {120 College Street} + Zoom – Presented as part of the Faith in Arts Institute. This talk by Pamela D. Winfield examined the tensions and tactics involved in exhibiting Buddhist visual culture in modern museum spaces. It first critically examined the ideological divide between sacred and secular that reduced powerful Buddhist icons into aesthetic objects within 19th century Euro-American collections of Asian “art.” If the 19th century transferred the temple out to the museum, then the 20th century transferred the museum back into the temple grounds. The result is that both American and Japanese museums need to be understood as hybrid spaces, where the supposed boundaries between sacred and secular are porous and continually negotiated by diverse audiences.

FILM SCREENING: A KADDISH FOR BERNIE MADDOF
FILM SCREENING: A KADDISH FOR BERNIE MADDOF

October 16, 2021 | BMCM+AC {120 College Street} – Presented as part of the Faith in Arts Institute. A hybrid of musical memoir and narrative fantasy, “A Kaddish For Bernie Madoff” tells the story of Madoff and the system that allowed him to function for decades through the eyes of musician/poet Alicia Jo Rabins, who watches the financial crash from her 9th-floor studio in an abandoned office building on Wall Street.

KAY LARSON: JOHN CAGE’S LECTURE ON NOTHING
KAY LARSON: JOHN CAGE’S LECTURE ON NOTHING

October 16, 2021 | BMCM+AC {120 College Street} + Zoom – Presented as part of the Faith in Arts Institute. Published in 1961, in John Cage’s first book Silence, “Lecture on Nothing” has much to say to creative artists. In this presentation, Kay Larsen expounds on the lasting impact of this lecture on the landscape of art and performance. In all his work, Cage sought to “get himself out of the way” so that vivid encounters with the world could “make their own art.” These methods are still useful and timely.

PERFORMANCE: THOMAS MOORE – THE MUSIC OF JOHN CAGE
PERFORMANCE: THOMAS MOORE – THE MUSIC OF JOHN CAGE

October 16, 2021 | BMCM+AC {120 College Street} – Presented as part of the Faith in Arts Institute. Thomas Moore’s performance of solo piano works by John Cage featured compositions from the 1950s through the 1990s, including the often discussed but infrequently performed 4’33” — Cage’s “silent” piece of 1952 — as well as Water Music (1952), selections from the Etudes Australes (1974–75), and One5 (1990).

VIDEO + CONVERSATION: KIMBERLY BARTOSIK + CHRISTOPHER-RASHEEM MCMILLAN
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
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
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.

TALK: ORIGINAL ZEN: ITS ART THEN AND NOW
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
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.

TALK: ART + RELIGION IN THE 21st CENTURY
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
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.

PERFORMANCE: KATHERINE YOUNG / TIM DAISY DUO
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.

BROADCAST: BMC RADIO ARTIST NOSTALGIANOID
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
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.

BMC-TV: A MULTIDISCIPLINARY COMMUNITY ART EVENT
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
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
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.

PERSPECTIVES: SHERRILL ROLAND
PERSPECTIVES: SHERRILL ROLAND

July 14, 2021 | Streaming – A conversation with Sherrill Roland, featured artist in the exhibition I AM A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD, on his installation “After the Wake Up” (2017 – present). Roland is an artist based in Raleigh, NC, well known for The Jumpsuit Project, an ongoing work developed during his MFA at UNC Greensboro and inspired by his experiences with the justice system following a wrongful conviction and incarceration. In this conversation, we will discuss how “After the Wake Up” fits within the artist’s larger body of work and what citizenship means in the face of systemic violence.