ReVIEWING Black Mountain College

International Conference

Co-hosted by BMCM+AC and UNC Asheville

at UNC Asheville’s Reuter Center

ReVIEWING 14

October 13 – 15, 2023

Thematic Focus: Material + Structure

Keynote Speakers: Brenda Danilowitz + Erica Warren in conversation

ReVIEWING Black Mountain College conference is a forum for scholars and artists to contribute original work on topics related to Black Mountain College and its place in cultural history.

The format is designed to be interdisciplinary, with sessions that will include panels, presentations, performances, and workshops. BMC itself was a uniquely interdisciplinary organization, generating output from its faculty and students that often involved the melding of the visual, performing, and literary arts. Each year, conference participation reflects this; past presentations have explored wide-ranging, fruitful intersections such as (to name just a few of the most recent examples) how Charles Olson’s “projectivist” poetics inspired works on the stage and screen; the influence of choreographer Merce Cunningham on Abstract Expressionist painters trained at BMC such as Pat Passlof and James Bishop; the photography of poet-publisher-artist Jonathan Williams; the path from BMC’s first Summer Institute in honor of Arnold Schoenberg, to the design and philosophy of contemporary summer arts programs today; a performance connecting Ruth Asawa’s sculpture to contemporary dance; and a workshop offering attendees the opportunity to weave on looms with found materials, as Anni Albers’ BMC students did.

The 14th Annual ReVIEWING Black Mountain College conference will feature Keynote Speakers Brenda Danilowitz + Erica Warren. This three-day program, open to the public, celebrates the opening of the museum’s exhibition Weaving at Black Mountain College: Anni Albers, Trude Guermonprez, and Their Students, curated by Michael Beggs and Julie J. Thomson.

Keynote Speaker: Brenda Danilowitz

Brenda Danilowitz is an art historian and chief curator at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. She is the author and editor of numerous books and essays on the work of Josef and Anni Albers and has organized exhibitions of their work in the US, Europe, Mexico, Peru and Brazil. Her publications include: Anni Albers: Selected Writings on Design, ed. and introduction (Wesleyan University Press, 2001), Josef Albers: To Open Eyes (with Frederick A. Horowitz) (Phaidon, 2006), Anni and Josef Albers: Latin American Journeys (Hatje-Cantz, 2007), The Prints of Anni Albers: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1963-1984 (Editorial RM, 2009), The Prints of Josef Albers: A Catalogue Raisonné (Hudson Hills, 2001) and contributions to Black Mountain: An Interdisciplinary Experiment 1933–1957 (Spector Books, 2015), Anni Albers: Camino Real (David Zwirner Books, 2020), Anni and Josef Albers, L’art et la vie, (Paris-Musees, 2021), and Josef Albers:Discovery and Invention, the Early Graphic Work, (Art/Books London, 2022)

Keynote Speaker: Erica Warren

Erica Warren is a decorative arts and design curator and scholar, and is currently the editor of Craft Quarterly the James Renwick Alliance for Craft’s magazine. From 2016-2022, Dr. Warren was a curator of textiles at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she organized numerous installations, including the critically acclaimed exhibitions Bisa Butler: Portraits and Weaving beyond the Bauhaus. Her recent publications include the essay “Fission: Design and Mentorship in the Dorothy Liebes Studio” for the catalog accompanying the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s exhibition A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes (2023). In 2021, her essay “Beyond Weaving: Transdisciplinarity and the Bauhaus Weaving Workshop,” was published in Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture.

Browse past conferences

Interested in sponsoring ReVIEWING and supporting BMCM+AC? Contact us at info@blackmountaincollege.org to learn more.