"In Feast or Famine"

January 20 - April 7, 2024

Bringing together the work of twenty-four artists, In Feast or Famine presents drawings, paintings, printmaking, photography, sculpture, collage, installation, and video. Artists consider our connections with food within the contexts of history and memory; identity and community; food equity, agriculture, and our environment.
 

Exhibition on view: September 2, 2023 - April 6, 2024

The Weatherspoon is pleased to announce the 47th presentation of Art on Paper. A time-honored museum tradition, the exhibition features the work of artists who demonstrate the breadth of ways in which one can deploy the humble medium of paper to extraordinary ends. From layering colorful strips as one might on a piñata, to precisely cutting through an elongated page until its image appears as if made by lace, to densely coating giant sheets with shellac and walnut ink until they appear as weighty as stone, these artists harness the seemingly infinite ability of paper to take on myriad forms. Simultaneously, they use those forms to explore a rich array of topics–from the links and tensions between humans and the natural environment, to the beauty found in the often overlooked materials of our daily lives, to the complexity of heritage tracked across centuries of global migrations.

April 14 – August 21, 2023

Altruistic Genius: Buckminster Fuller’s Plans to Save the Planet brings the inventions and designs of R. Buckminster Fuller (Milton, MA 1895-1983, Los Angeles, CA) to Western North Carolina and introduces visitors to Fuller’s strategies for the sustainability of humans and the planet relating to housing, transportation, mathematics, and engineering.  

In this episode, Stolle talks with Matt Peiken about the seeds of her artistic inquiry, the heavy research fuelling her work and the line she straddles between artistry and activism. 

The North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh has acquired Kirsten Stolle's Chemical Bouquet II (2016)

Kirsten Stolle and Katie Hirsch discuss Stolle’s exhibition ‘Only You Can Prevent a Forest’ at an artist talk at the Hasley Institute of Contemporary Art, Aug. 27, 2022

Using appropriation, wordplay, and humor, Kirsten Stolle co-opts advertising strategies used by agrichemical corporations to resurface and critique company history. For her exhibition, Only You Can Prevent A Forest,  Stolle will create photo-based collages, visual poetry interventions, text-based sound animation, a neon wall piece, and her first site-responsive sculptural installation. 

Explore humanity’s relationship to the environment through an immersive, multimedia exhibition and outdoor sculpture installations in the Ann and Jim Goodnight Museum Park. Through video, photography, sculpture, and mixed-media works, 14 contemporary artists focus on current concerns and offer new perspectives. They address urgent environmental issues, consequences of inaction, and opportunities for sustainable environmental stewardship and restoration. Also including work by: John Akomfrah, Olafur Eliasson, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Allison Janae Hamilton, Richard Mosse, Jennifer Steinkamp, Christine Wertheim, and Margaret Wertheim, among others. 

A series of pieces focused on the appropriation of selling chemicals products within advertising. A new take of toxic chemicals with a pop art view. 

Selective Memory examines the influence of agribusiness and biotech companies on our food supply. Using appropriation, redaction and manipulation, Kirsten Stolle critiques the popular narrative and explores the complex relationship between economy and ecology. Mining source materials such as 20th century medical books, 19th century botanical lithographs, USDA promotional videos and archival photographs, Stolle’s work responds to corporate propaganda and challenges industry narratives.
Kirsten Stolle is a visual artist working in collage, drawing and mixed media. Her research-based practice is grounded in the investigation of corporate propaganda, food politics and biotechnology.

Drawing together nearly 100 works from the museum’s Modern & Contemporary Collection, Under Construction: Collage from The Mint Museum is the museum’s first exhibition to focus on this dynamic, engaging medium. This technique, in which materials from different sources are cut, torn, and layered to create new meanings and narratives, experienced a renaissance after World War II, due in large part to Charlotte native Romare Bearden, whose work plays a special role in this exhibition.

The exhibition The End is Where We Start From. On Tsunamis, Nuclear Explosions and other Fairy Tales brings together works of eight international visual artists whose work navigates on the intersection of art and long-term scientific research. While examining the relationship between nature, time and human intervention, and translating this in strong visual work, these artists generate new readings of our surroundings and possible perceived futures.

Collage is one of the most accessible artistic mediums. Requiring nothing more than paper and glue, it is easily achievable by people of all ages and skill levels. Often relying on found imagery, collage circumvents the need to generate new content and is a refreshingly non-intimidating form of self-expression. However, its seeming simplicity belies an influential, potent, and rebellious underbelly.

12 x 12 gives artists from across North Carolina a public platform for continued artistic development and recognition in the place where they live and work, and beyond. Through this exhibition, SECCA seeks to give national exposure and recognition to artists in the region, as SECCA has done historically with the annual awards for the selected Southeast Seven contemporary artists and the Awards in the Visual Arts, recognizing national and international artists.