International Conference
September 29 – October 1, 2017
Featuring two keynote presentations, the contributions of over 60 scholars, curators, and artists from around the world, the Southeast Premiere of Black Mountain Songs at Diana Wortham Theatre, and the opening of our inaugural ACTIVE ARCHIVE exhibition (Martha McDonald, Process + Performance)
Keynote Speaker: Mel Chin
Mel Chin, the internationally acclaimed conceptual artist kicked off ReVIEWING with a keynote address where he spoke about recent projects in Philadelphia and New Orleans and previewed “Wake” a new work created as part of his Black Mountain College Fellowship at UNC Asheville. Mel Chin is a conceptual visual artist. Motivated largely by political, cultural, and social circumstances, Chin works in a variety of art media to calculate meaning in modern life. Chin places art in landscapes, in public spaces, and in gallery and museum exhibitions, but his work is not limited to specific venues.
Keynote Panel: Black Mountain Songs
Commissioned and produced by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and BAM, and curated by Bryce Dessner (The National) and Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire), Black Mountain Songs is inspired by Black Mountain College, its prolific community of artists, and their work, and rekindles the College’s utopian spirit. The Chorus performs music written for them by eight composers: Dessner and Parry, as well as Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Shaw, Nico Muhly, Aleksandra Vrebalov, John King, Tim Hecker, and Jherek Bischoff. Featuring contributions from filmmaker Matt Wolf (Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell), Black Mountain Songs is an expansive choral and visual work. This exquisite production premiered at BAM in 2014. New Amsterdam Records released an acclaimed recording of the work—Brooklyn Youth Chorus’ first album—in 2017. The Black Mountain Songs performances took place at the Diana Wortham Theatre in downtown Asheville on September 29 + 30.
