Past Exhibitions

BIG

November 16, 2007 - April 13, 2008
Hughes Wing

"BIG" -- an exhibition of large scale works by five contemporary artists working in diverse imagery, techniques and mediums. The artists each employ an epic scale to communicate “big” ideas to heroic effect.

Californian John Cerney revisits the American West with a room installation entitled “Big Landscape, Big West”-- 40’ wide, with 10 to 12 foot high figures evoking the epic history and imagery of the American west. Gulf coast artist Sharon Engelstein presents a gigantic, amorphous, inflated sculpture entitled “Twins.” The sculpture “breathes” from the force of a fan, vacillating between threatening and comedic. Mark Flood’s gargantuan, 30 foot painting presents a reclining female figure reminiscent of the famed Neolithic fertility goddess figures from the Prehistoric period. Sculptures by artist Paul Kittelson render commonplace, mundane objects (appetizers, popcorn kernels, cigarettes) into a massive scale, invoking the legacy of Pop Art masters such as Claes Oldenburg and James Rosenquist.

Eric Rudd's sculpture, “Walter’s Ontogen,” is an enormous, amorphous creature whose limbs and torso move slowly and rhythmically, reminiscent of body-builders. See streaming video of this piece . . . . Watch a streaming video of “Walter’s Ontogen” here...

The large scale pursued by artists since the early 19th century continues to characterize contemporary American art in this age of super-size meals, malls, and mega-mansions.

Sponsored in part by Morgan Keegan and Company, Inc.

Party Animal, 2006
Urathane foam, styrospray coating, wood and celephane
Courtesy of the artist

Big Landscape-Big West, 2007
Mixed media, with 900 masonite panels
On loan from the artist from an original commission at Rice Gallery, Houston, TX

Measure of All Things: The Human Scale

November 16, 2007 – April 6, 2008
Brown Wing

Measure of All Things: The Human Scale features work in all media depicting the scale and form by which we “measure all things” –the human.

We continue to be fascinated by images of ourselves. This exhibition features thematic installations depicting human figures and faces, seen in ethnographic masks and figures; mythical and visionary figures; nudes; self portraits and portraits.

Included are powerful ethnographic works by Dan, Yoruba and Dogon artists, as well as modern masters such as Philip Pearlstein, Elie Nadelman, John Storrs, Arnulf Rainer, and Chuck Close.

We are grateful to Lower Cape Fear Dermatology Clinic for their contribution to this exhibition.

Tam Tam, New Hebrides
Collection of Mort and Judy Neblett

John, 2007
Wood, steel and tempera
Courtesy of the artist

little

November 16, 2007 – March 9, 2008
Galleria Cases

little includes works rendered in miniature scale in a wide variety of styles, periods and mediums: illuminated manuscripts and miniature books; diminutive crafts (baskets and pottery); folk art microcosms of foam, twist-ties, toothpicks and toys; and tiny contemporary sculptures and paintings.

These miniaturized works of art invoke the universal fascination with all things small: childhood associations; ancient legends of leprechauns; and literary tales of Hobbits, Lilliputians and fairy worlds.

Organized by Robert Unchester with installation design and fabrication by David Peters (both Cameron Art Museum staff).

Lead Pencil, 2002, Paper covered case bound book, Book size: 2 3/4 high by 2 wide by 3/4 deep, From the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Boyd D. Cothran, III

Between Taste and Travesty: Costume Designs by William Ivey Long

April 29 – October 14, 2007
Brown Wing, Hughes Wing and Galleria Cases

This premiere exhibition featured costume designs by William Ivey Long, a native of North Carolina and recipient of five Tony awards for his work on Broadway. Long’s brilliant designs for stage and film filled exhibition spaces with costumes and sketches created for Nine, Contact, The Producers, Frogs, Crazy for You, Guys and Dolls, Hairspray, Cabaret, La Cage aux Folles, and A Christmas Carol, in addition to the designer’s work Siegfried and Roy at the Mirage.

Exhibition catalogs are still available in the Museum Shop. Please call 910-395-5999 ext. 1013 to order.

Sponsored in part by: Thomas S. Kenan Foundation, Nancy Allen, Scott Corbett, E. W. Godwin's and Sons, Inc., Harris Teeter, Image Displays, and Elaine Werner

Harvey Fierstein as Edna Turnblad
Can't Stop the Beat
Sketch by William Ivey Long

Printed in Beauty

November 16, 2006 – April 1, 2007
Brown Wing

An exhibition of prints demonstrating transcultural influences, historic conventions and modern innovations in printmaking, including work by 19th century artists Mary Cassatt, Utagawa Hiroshige (also called Ando), 20 prints by Henri Matisse from the seminal 1947 portfolio, “Jazz”, and prints by Pop artists including Brits Gerald Laing, Peter Phillips and American pop masters James Rosenquist, Ed Ruscha, and others. Contemporary works by local printmakers Ann Conner and Don Furst were also featured.

Henri Matisse (French 1869-1954)
Icare (Icarus), 1947
Portfolio of 20 hand-colored pochoir (Portfolio entitled Jazz)
Collection of Mrs. Samuel Sprunt, Sr.
© 2006 Succession H. Matisse, Paris / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Darryl Lauster: Recreating

January 12 – April 1, 2007
Galleria Cases

An installation of objects by Houston artist and art history instructor Darryl Lauster. The haunting resin and porcelain objects reflect the artist’s extensive research of 18th and 19th century American decorative arts, as well as his study of 20th century Modernists such as Alexander Calder, Constantin Brancusi and David Smith. Lauster’s commemorative plates, furniture and vessels are ghostly hybrids of inherited cultural values, contemporary aesthetic influence and ethical concerns. The artist observes: “I continue, in a way, dissecting a collective history, communicating in contemporary forms the traditions begun centuries before me.”

Darryl Lauster (American)
Vessel to Brancusi, 2004
Slip cast porcelain
Courtesy of the artist and the Devin Borden/Hiram Butler Gallery

Floored: Traditional and Unconventional Art on the Floor

January 19 – April 1, 2007
Hughes Wing

A continuing exploration of the enduring traditions and contemporary innovations of the textile industry. FLOORED! engaged both the shared conventions and diverse aesthetics of artists and artisans using "textiles" . . . from the refinement of Persian carpets to contemporary work using unconventional materials.

Devorah Sperber (American)
Lie Like a Rug, 2000-2001
18,000 Letraset marker caps on flexible canvas, rubber edging

Transformations: Cherokee Baskets of the Twentieth Century

November 1, 2006 - January 7, 2007
Galleria Cases

For hundreds of years, Cherokee women selected and harvested plants, trees, roots, nuts and vines and transformed them into an astonishing number and variety of baskets. This exhibition organized by the Asheville Art Museum examined Cherokee basket making over the past century, featuring cradle, burden, trunk, hen and market baskets made of native plants including rivercane, white oak and honeysuckle.

Partial funding for this traveling exhibition from the Cherokee Foundation and its program, Revitalization of Traditional Cherokee Artisan Resources.

Rowena Bradley (1922-2003)
Rivercane planter with walnut dye, c. 1994
Collection of the Asheville Art Museum
Gift of Billie Ruth Sudduth

Weave!

October 6, 2006 – January 7, 2007
Hughes Wing

WEAVE! explored both the process and product of weaving. Traditional materials and techniques employed in weaving are examined alongside new mediums and forms by contemporary installation artists. Innovative weaving with unconventional artists’ materials such as computer cables, telephone and video surveillance lines provides a metaphor of life in the age of information technology. Large-scale photographic panels by Phil Moody interpreted the rise, fall and transformation of the once powerful textile industry in North and South Carolina. Featured installation artists included Dan Brawley and Dixon Stetler of Wilmington, NC; Jan-Ru Wan, Greenville, NC and performance/installation artist, Pate Conaway of Chicago, Illinois.

Dan Brawley and Dixon Stetler (American)
Old Hoses of Wilmington, 2003-2006
Recycled hoses

Rick Beck: Form

July 28 - October 29, 2006
Brown Wing

Rick Beck’s cast glass sculpture stirred the age-old debate surrounding the boundaries between craft and fine art. He exaggerates and enlarges everyday objects to monumental proportions and captures these sculptural abstractions in glass. His depiction of common everyday items, such as tools and kitchen utensils, also references the ideas explored by artists working in the artistic movements of Dadaism and Pop Art. His sculpture challenges seriousness versus playfulness, art versus object, functional versus non-functional, ancient versus modern. This exhibition was organized by the North Carolina State University Gallery of Art and Design.

Rick Beck, Measuring Spoons, 2002, (detail) cast glass

Galleria Cases: From Mechanical to Microchip

June 1 – September 24, 2006
Collection Cases

This exhibition traced the influence of changing technology and taste on object design, including typewriters, telephones, televisions, fans, computers and calculators loaned by institutions and private collectors.

Manufacturer: General Electric Fan, c. 1940s, Collection of Virginia Wall Speed

Five American Artists

May 19 – September 17, 2006
Hughes Wing

This exhibition of work by five artists demonstrated the diverse aesthetic contributions made by African American artists since the mid-twentieth century. Exhibition featured works on paper, paintings, sculpture and quilts by artists Romare Bearden, Big Al Carter, Minnie Evans, Ivey Hayes and Faith Ringgold.

Sponsored in part by C. Edward Alexander III with additional sponsorship by The Landfall Foundation

Faith Ringgold, Tar Beach II, 1990-92, Silkscreen on silk. Photo courtesy of ACA Galleries, New York.

The Elements: Of Nature and Art

September 2, 2005 - July 9, 2006
C. Reynolds Brown Wing

This thematic reinstallation of the museum's permanent collection offered diverse paths in the viewer's aesthetic journey of discovery. Galleries were devoted to the elements of nature: water, earth, air and fire are mirrored in subsequent galleries dedicated to elements of art: line, form, color, texture.

Donald Sultan (American 1951)
House March 2, 1990
Latex, tar, linoleum tile, masonite mounted on wood
Claude Howell Endowment for the Purchase of North Carolina Art

African-American Life: 1830-1980 from the Collections of the Cape Fear Museum and the Bellamy Mansion Museum

February 29 - May 28, 2006
Galleria Cases

Artifacts and photographs chronicled aspects of African American life in the Cape Fear region over the course of 150 years. These objects of material culture bore witness to the life of a people through labor, politics, civic service, professional work, cultural arts, sports and family life. Examples included a rough-hewn cypress log, holding a story of the slave industry when, with a large pestle, it was used as a grinder for freeing rice kernels from their hard exterior shells; a Victrola, vinyl records and musical instruments, still playing the song of a music-filled home in the 1920s; and a female student in cap and gown signing the roll of the National Honor Society, while an unknown young man in uniform smiles back at the camera.

Stereograph (1879)
Market House, Market Street, Wilmington, NC
Photo courtesy of Cape Fear Museum

From Memory: Maud Gatewood

October 21, 2005 - April 16, 2006
Samuel Hudson Hughes Wing

This exhibition illustrated how Maud Gatewood skillfully moved from the subject of figure to landscape to express isolation, loss and hope.

Sponsored by:
John and Andrea Hastings
Dorothy D. Hodges
Thomas S. Kenan III

"Flying School" and "Mandala Naya"

November 22, 2005 - April 2, 2006

Diane Landry is one of Canada’s foremost installation artists: her work is exhibited throughout Canada, the United States and Europe. The artist employs everyday objects, sound, light and shadow in her evocative constructions.

Sponsored by:
Scott Sullivan in Honor of his Children

Flying School, 2005. Site-specific installation: umbrellas, lights, computer (midi control), motors, harmonicas, tape measures and muslin ceiling scrim