Upcoming events and things to do in Asheville, NC. Below is a list of events for festivals, concerts, art exhibitions, group meetups and more.

Interested in adding an event to our calendar? Please click the green “Post Your Event” button below.

Saturday, June 12, 2021
Public Domain: Photography and the Preservation of Public Lands Exhibition
Jun 12 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

11am–6pm. Late-night Thursdays until 9pm; closed Tuesdays.

Public Domain: Photography and the Preservation of Public Lands presents works drawn from the Asheville Art Museum’s Collection by artists looking both regionally and nationally at lands that are either state or federally managed or have become so. This exhibition will be on view in the Asheville Art Museum’s Van Winkle Law Firm Gallery May 19 through August 30, 2021. 

“The Asheville Art Museum’s growing collection of photography features a variety of artworks that consider humankind’s impact on our environment and world,” said Hilary Schroeder, assistant curator. “The imagery featured in Public Domain reminds us of the critical role that artists play in environmental activism and preservation, affecting change at a range of levels”. 

Through images capturing the beauty, changes, and even devastation to the American landscape, photographers have played a vital role in advocating for the preservation of nature via the establishment and maintenance of state parks, national parks and monuments, and other federally protected lands. From George Masa and Timothy McCoy’s photographs of Great Smoky Mountains National Park to a selection of works from Robert Glenn Ketchum’s Overlooked in America: The Success and Failure of Federal Land Management series, these artworks provoke contemplation of both nature’s beauty and a calling to protect it. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Bureau of Land Management whose mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. 

Photographers include Robert Glenn Ketchum, George Masa, Timothy McCoy, Benjamin Porter, Sally Gall, and more. 

This exhibition is organized by the Asheville Art Museum and curated by Hilary Schroeder, assistant curator. 

Women of Distinction: If you can see it, you can be it! Paintings by Joseph Pearson
Jun 12 @ 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
Pink Dog Creative

Joseph Pearson, Aunt Lucy, 20″ x 16,” Oil on panel

Joseph Pearson created this body of work to honor the women in his family–he states, “…women whose love, nurture and support made me who I am. These were women who worked hard at home and in the community.”

This desire was precipitated with the celebration of his last living aunt’s 97th birthday, which led him to consider doing something to honor her and the women of her generation, including his mother and her older sister. Through this body of work Pearson presents a few of the many professional women from the local community as examples for younger women and girls as they strive to reach their goals and potential. “It’s a way of giving back something of the nurture and encouragement I received from the women in my life.”

Learn more in this interview of Joseph by Blue Ridge Public Radio and in the Asheville Made article.

Second Saturday at Asheville Art Museum: Expressive Landscapes
Jun 12 @ 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum


Small-group/in-person program
Second Saturday is back! Visit the galleries on a scavenger hunt for inspiration, then create your own expressive landscape or cityscape painting in the studio. This program is perfect for date-day, me time, or catching up with family and friends. All ages and abilities are welcome (children must be accompanied by an adult); no reservations are required. More info at ashevilleart.org/events.

Sunday, June 13, 2021
2021 Annual Juried Exhibition Calling Visual Artists
Jun 13 all-day
Online w/ Artists Collective | Spartanburg

The prospectus for our 2021 Annual Juried Exhibition is now available for download.
Spring Annual Fund Campaign!
Jun 13 all-day
Asheville Art Museum

SUPPORT THE MUSEUM
We’re kicking off our Spring Annual Fund Campaign! With your help, we’ve been able to do some amazing things this past year, from hosting major traveling exhibitions like Across the Atlantic to delivering 1,600 Art Kits for Kids to local students and fostering in-depth conversations about art and artists through virtual programs. Your gift to the Annual Fund supports all of this and more.
Stickwork by Patrick Dougherty at Biltmore Estate
Jun 13 all-day
Biltmore

Unique outdoor sculptural works by environmental artist Patrick Dougherty, known as “Stick Man,” will reside in Antler Hill Village. Renowned worldwide for his monumental creations, Dougherty weaves saplings and branches into intricate artworks, fashioning whimsical forms ranging from gigantic snares and cocoons to sculptural interpretations of notable buildings. The visual appeal of these large-scale artworks may be appreciated up close as guests are encouraged to walk through and around the creations, affording the opportunity to admire the artistry and technical skills required to make the sculptures.

WNC Arts Launches New Website + Creative Economies Data
Jun 13 all-day
Online w/ WNC Arts

The Western Arts Agencies of North Carolina (WNC Arts) was established in 1980s as a peer support group for arts councils and agencies in WNC. This group is now working to expand their advocacy support for the arts in WNC.

Wild Art Sculpture Showcase
Jun 13 @ 8:00 am – 9:00 pm
NC Arboretum

The North Carolina Arboretum is going wild for art and nature in 2021 with Wild Art! On view April 1 through September 26, this outdoor sculpture exhibition features works by 17 local and national artists drawing inspiration from the natural environment. Situated throughout the Arboretum’s spacious, open-air gardens, the show offers guests a doorway into the wild world from the comfort and safety of cultivated landscapes transformed by art.

The 18 sculptures on display represent a variety of approaches to the theme of “wild art,” from the literal to the abstract, and are crafted from a diverse array of materials that will delight and inspire. Let your imagination take you on a wild journey into the world of plants and animals near and far with Wild Art at The North Carolina Arboretum.

The exhibit is available to all guests during normal Arboretum hours, and there is no admission cost to view the sculptures beyond our usual parking fee of $16 per personal vehicle.

Show Us Your Design Skills
Jun 13 @ 9:00 am – 9:00 pm
Online w/ Asheville Community Theatre
We are seeking 4 local graphic designers to help create the look of our Mainstage season marketing assets. This is a paid, collaborative project and rising, emerging, and/or student designers are encouraged to apply!

ACT’s 2021-22 Mainstage season consists of 4 productions. Guided by Dena Rutter of Dena Rutter Designs, each designer will create one typographical logo for the title of a Mainstage production. Logos will be highly public facing and used across all digital (website, social media banners, billboards) and print (large scale posters, sandwich board, lobby posters, postcards) applications.

Biltmore: Stickwork by Patrick Dougherty
Jun 13 @ 9:30 am – 6:00 pm
Biltmore

Image result for Stickwork by Patrick Dougherty

Included with admission

A unique-to-Biltmore, large-scale outdoor sculpture will be crafted and installed in Antler Hill Village this spring by Patrick Dougherty. Over the last three decades, this internationally-acclaimed artist has combined his carpentry skills and love of nature to build over 300 of these wondrous works, captivating the hearts and imaginations of viewers worldwide.

Image: Close Ties (2006) Scottish Basketmakers Circle, Dingwall, Scotland. Photo: Fin Macrae
NOTE: This is an example of Patrick Dougherty’s work; the artist will create Biltmore’s unique structure in Antler Hill Village this spring.

Art Exhibit: Beauford Delaney’s Metamorphosis into Freedom
Jun 13 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

Featuring more than 40 paintings and works on paper, Beauford Delaney’s Metamorphosis into Freedom examines the career evolution of modern painter Beauford Delaney (Knoxville, TN 1901–1979 Paris, France) within the context of his 38-year friendship with writer James Baldwin. The works in this exhibition bring into special focus Delaney’s intensified experiments with abstraction sparked by the artist’s 1955 move to the Paris suburb of Clamart, as well as the ways that the artist and Baldwin’s ongoing intellectual exchange shaped one another’s creative output and worldview from their first meeting in 1940 until Delaney’s death in 1979. This exhibition also calls attention to Baldwin’s role as “witness” to the painter’s evolution, which he deemed “one of the most extraordinary personal and artistic journeys of our time.”

Asheville Art Museum Exhibition Featuring Paintings by Beauford Delaney
Jun 13 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

Featuring more than 40 paintings and works on paper, Beauford Delaney’s Metamorphosis into Freedom examines the career evolution of modern painter Beauford Delaney (Knoxville, TN 1901–1979 Paris, France) within the context of his 38-year friendship with writer James Baldwin (New York 1924-1987 Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France). The exhibition will be on view in the Asheville Art Museum’s Explore Asheville Exhibition Hall April 2 through June 21, 2021.

The works in this exhibition bring into special focus Delaney’s experiments with abstraction sparked by the artist’s 1955 move to the Paris suburb of Clamart, as well as the ways that the artist and Baldwin’s ongoing intellectual exchange shaped one another’s creative output and worldview from their first meeting in 1940 until Delaney’s death in 1979.

Asheville Art Museum Presents Huffman Gifts of Contemporary Southern Folk Art
Jun 13 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum
Addie James, Big Mama Demp, 2002, acrylic and pen on foamcore, 20 × 16 inches. Asheville Art Museum. © Estate of Addie James.
Asheville, N.C.Huffman Gifts of Contemporary Southern Folk Art features gifts of contemporary southern folk art including paintings, ceramics, and more from the collection of Allen and Barry Huffman. The exhibition will be on view in the Asheville Art Museum’s Judith S. Moore Gallery from April 7 through September 13, 2021.

Allen and Barry Huffman have been collecting contemporary southern folk art for the past 40 years. Both collectors are originally from the South, and their journey together has led them around the southeastern United States, from Florida to Alabama to their hometown of Hickory, NC. In each place, they formed bonds with regional artists and learned first-hand the narratives of each artwork. Within their collection are subsets of folk art, including self-taught artists driven to share their messages, crafts for the tourist market, and southern pottery. The guiding principle evident throughout their collection and the generous donation of contemporary southern folk art that they have gifted to the Asheville Art Museum is the story told by each of these artists through their artworks.

“The Asheville Art Museum is fortunate to have friends like the Huffmans; not only are they prolific collectors who have generously shared gifts with the Museum, but their knowledge about southern contemporary folk art and its artists enriches the region,” says Whitney Richardson, associate curator. “I have such respect for the curious nature with which Allen and Barry have approached adding each artwork to their collection. They formed a friendship with almost every artist they bought from and have a genuine interest in the stories being told by the art and its artist.”

Artists featured include Barry Gurley Huffman (GA, 1943–Present Hickory, NC), James Cook (Glen Alpine, NC 1934–1984 Lawndale, NC), Albert Hodge (Vale, NC 1941—Present Vale, NC), Howard Finster (Valley Mead, AL 1916–2001 Rome, GA), Addie James (SC 1943–2011 Statesville, NC), James Harold Jennings (Pinnacle, NC 1931–1999 Pinnacle, NC), LaVon Van Williams Jr. (Lakeland, FL 1958–Present Lexington, KY), and more.

This exhibition is organized by the Asheville Art Museum and curated by Whitney Richardson, associate curator. For more information, visit ashevilleart.org/exhibitions/huffman-gifts-of-contemporary-southern-folk-art.

Asheville Art Museum: New Exhibition— Meeting the Moon
Jun 13 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

The Asheville Art Museum announces Meeting the Moon, an exhibition featuring prints, photographs, ceramics, sculptures, and more from the Museum’s Collection. This exhibition will be on view in the Asheville Art Museum’s McClinton Gallery February 3 through July 26, 2021.

2021 marks the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Apollo space program at NASA, but its inception was hardly the beginning of humankind’s fascination with Earth’s only moon. Before space travel existed, the moon—its shape, its mystery, and the face we see in it—inspired countless artists. Once astronauts landed on the moon and we saw our world from a new perspective, a surge of creativity flooded the American art scene, in paintings, prints, sculpture, music, crafts, film, and poetry.

This exhibition, whose title is taken from a 1913 Robert Frost poem, examines artwork in the Asheville Art Museum’s Collection of artists who were inspired by the unknown, then increasingly familiar moon. Meeting the Moon includes works by nationally renowned artists Newcomb Pottery, James Rosenquist, Maltby Sykes, Paul Soldner, John Lewis, Richard Ritter (Bakersville, NC), and Mark Peiser (Penland, NC). Western North Carolina artists include Jane Peiser (Penland, NC), Jak Brewer (Zionville, NC), Dirck Cruser (Asheville, NC), George Peterson (Lake Toxaway, NC), John B. Neff (NC), and Maud Gatewood (Yanceyville, NC).

Meeting the Moon offers the opportunity to combine science and popular culture with works of art in the Museum’s Collection,” says Whitney Richardson, associate curator. “I think all visitors will find something that draws them into this exhibition, whether it’s the artwork, poetry, music, or science of space travel. It’s such an affirmation of humanity to find these mysteries, like the moon, which enchant us all.”

This exhibition is organized by the Asheville Art Museum and curated by Whitney Richardson, associate curator. Visit ashevilleart.org for more information about this and other exhibitions.

Child’s Play Art Exhibition
Jun 13 @ 11:00 am – 3:00 pm
The Gallery at Flat Rock

Save the date! For our upcoming exhibit “Child’s Play” the gallery will host its first opening reception since the pandemic started! This reception will take place from 5-7pm on Thursday, June 10. The show will feature art celebrating the fun of childhood by four local artists: Don Greeson, Jean Greeson, Janet Hickey @smartaleckstudio and Janet Orselli. We’ll see you there! #childsplay #galleryflatrock #artistsexhibition #flatrocknc #bringingartistsandcollectorstogether #828isgreat

We hope you’ll enjoy this lighthearted group exhibit that highlights objects and materials that are iconic to childhood and playtime—we feel this fun and nostalgic look back to simpler times is especially needed after a pandemic year. Delight in the works of artists Don Greeson, Jean Greeson, Janet Orselli and Janet Hickey.

Free and open to the public.

Old World/New Soil Art Exhibit
Jun 13 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

Old World/New Soil

Foreign-Born American Artists from the Asheville Art Museum Collection

DATES:
May 7–August 2, 2021
LOCATION:
Appleby Foundation Exhibition Hall

Inspired by Allen H. Eaton’s book from 1932, Immigrant Gifts to American Life: Some Experiments in Appreciation of the Contributions of Our Foreign-Born Citizens to American Culture, this exhibition focuses on those artists in the Asheville Art Museum Collection who were born outside of the United States of America. As an American art museum, the exhibition calls attention to the fact that we have decided to collect those artists who came to this country – either at their own prompting or out of necessity. As they adopted America as their new home, we have, in turn, embraced them, their creative output, and their artwork.

Old World/New Soil: Foreign-Born American Artists from the Asheville Art Museum Collection is curated by Assistant Curator Whitney Richardson.

Old World/New Soil Foreign-Born American Artists from the Asheville Art Museum Collection
Jun 13 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum
René Pinchuk, Soliloquies, 1965, oil on canvas, 24 × 30 inches. Asheville Art Museum. © René Pinchuk.
Asheville, N.C.Old World/New Soil: Foreign-Born American Artists from the Asheville Art Museum Collection features ceramics, glass, paintings, sculptures, fiber art, and more. This exhibition coincides with Our Strength Is Our People: The Humanist Photographs of Lewis Hine. Both exhibitions will be on view in the Asheville Art Museum’s Appleby Foundation Exhibition Hall May 7 through August 2, 2021.

Inspired by the book Immigrant Gifts to American Life: Some Experiments in Appreciation of the Contributions of Our Foreign-Born Citizens to American Culture written in 1932 by Allen H. Eaton, a contemporary of Lewis Hine, the exhibition Old World/New Soil calls attention to the collection of works the Museum has acquired from artists who came to the United States either at their own prompting or out of necessity. Just as they adopted America as their new home, we have in turn embraced them, their creative output, and their artwork.

“This exhibition proudly displays artwork by those that chose the United States as their home but were not born here, in an American art museum,” says Whitney Richardson, associate curator. “I hope Old World/New Soil encourages visitors to not only see this country through the eyes of these artists, but also to appreciate the creativity they brought to us and shared. Many artists in this exhibition went on to teach in the US and influenced the next generation of Americans.”

Our Strength Is Our People Art Exhibit
Jun 13 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

Sadie, a Cotton Mill Spinner, Lancaster, South Carolina

May 7–August 2, 2021

Our Strength Is Our People

The Humanist Photographs of Lewis Hine

DATES:
May 7–August 2, 2021
LOCATION:
Appleby Foundation Exhibition Hall

This exhibition surveys the life’s work of Lewis Wickes Hine (1874–1940), the father of American documentary photography. Consisting entirely of rare vintage prints, it covers the three overarching themes of Hine’s three-decade career—the immigrant experience, child labor, and the American worker—and culminates in his magnificent studies of the construction of the Empire State Building.

Our Strength Is Our People is organized by art2art Circulating Exhibitions, LLC. All works are from the private collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg.

.

Public Domain: Photography and the Preservation of Public Lands Exhibition
Jun 13 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

11am–6pm. Late-night Thursdays until 9pm; closed Tuesdays.

Public Domain: Photography and the Preservation of Public Lands presents works drawn from the Asheville Art Museum’s Collection by artists looking both regionally and nationally at lands that are either state or federally managed or have become so. This exhibition will be on view in the Asheville Art Museum’s Van Winkle Law Firm Gallery May 19 through August 30, 2021. 

“The Asheville Art Museum’s growing collection of photography features a variety of artworks that consider humankind’s impact on our environment and world,” said Hilary Schroeder, assistant curator. “The imagery featured in Public Domain reminds us of the critical role that artists play in environmental activism and preservation, affecting change at a range of levels”. 

Through images capturing the beauty, changes, and even devastation to the American landscape, photographers have played a vital role in advocating for the preservation of nature via the establishment and maintenance of state parks, national parks and monuments, and other federally protected lands. From George Masa and Timothy McCoy’s photographs of Great Smoky Mountains National Park to a selection of works from Robert Glenn Ketchum’s Overlooked in America: The Success and Failure of Federal Land Management series, these artworks provoke contemplation of both nature’s beauty and a calling to protect it. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Bureau of Land Management whose mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. 

Photographers include Robert Glenn Ketchum, George Masa, Timothy McCoy, Benjamin Porter, Sally Gall, and more. 

This exhibition is organized by the Asheville Art Museum and curated by Hilary Schroeder, assistant curator. 

Psychedelic Jam Fest 2021 Community Day!
Jun 13 @ 3:00 pm – 12:00 am
Sly Grog Lounge
Monday, June 14, 2021
Wild Art Sculpture Showcase
Jun 14 @ 8:00 am – 9:00 pm
NC Arboretum

The North Carolina Arboretum is going wild for art and nature in 2021 with Wild Art! On view April 1 through September 26, this outdoor sculpture exhibition features works by 17 local and national artists drawing inspiration from the natural environment. Situated throughout the Arboretum’s spacious, open-air gardens, the show offers guests a doorway into the wild world from the comfort and safety of cultivated landscapes transformed by art.

The 18 sculptures on display represent a variety of approaches to the theme of “wild art,” from the literal to the abstract, and are crafted from a diverse array of materials that will delight and inspire. Let your imagination take you on a wild journey into the world of plants and animals near and far with Wild Art at The North Carolina Arboretum.

The exhibit is available to all guests during normal Arboretum hours, and there is no admission cost to view the sculptures beyond our usual parking fee of $16 per personal vehicle.

Show Us Your Design Skills
Jun 14 @ 9:00 am – 9:00 pm
Online w/ Asheville Community Theatre
We are seeking 4 local graphic designers to help create the look of our Mainstage season marketing assets. This is a paid, collaborative project and rising, emerging, and/or student designers are encouraged to apply!

ACT’s 2021-22 Mainstage season consists of 4 productions. Guided by Dena Rutter of Dena Rutter Designs, each designer will create one typographical logo for the title of a Mainstage production. Logos will be highly public facing and used across all digital (website, social media banners, billboards) and print (large scale posters, sandwich board, lobby posters, postcards) applications.

Biltmore: Stickwork by Patrick Dougherty
Jun 14 @ 9:30 am – 6:00 pm
Biltmore

Image result for Stickwork by Patrick Dougherty

Included with admission

A unique-to-Biltmore, large-scale outdoor sculpture will be crafted and installed in Antler Hill Village this spring by Patrick Dougherty. Over the last three decades, this internationally-acclaimed artist has combined his carpentry skills and love of nature to build over 300 of these wondrous works, captivating the hearts and imaginations of viewers worldwide.

Image: Close Ties (2006) Scottish Basketmakers Circle, Dingwall, Scotland. Photo: Fin Macrae
NOTE: This is an example of Patrick Dougherty’s work; the artist will create Biltmore’s unique structure in Antler Hill Village this spring.

Art Exhibit: Beauford Delaney’s Metamorphosis into Freedom
Jun 14 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

Featuring more than 40 paintings and works on paper, Beauford Delaney’s Metamorphosis into Freedom examines the career evolution of modern painter Beauford Delaney (Knoxville, TN 1901–1979 Paris, France) within the context of his 38-year friendship with writer James Baldwin. The works in this exhibition bring into special focus Delaney’s intensified experiments with abstraction sparked by the artist’s 1955 move to the Paris suburb of Clamart, as well as the ways that the artist and Baldwin’s ongoing intellectual exchange shaped one another’s creative output and worldview from their first meeting in 1940 until Delaney’s death in 1979. This exhibition also calls attention to Baldwin’s role as “witness” to the painter’s evolution, which he deemed “one of the most extraordinary personal and artistic journeys of our time.”

Asheville Art Museum Exhibition Featuring Paintings by Beauford Delaney
Jun 14 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

Featuring more than 40 paintings and works on paper, Beauford Delaney’s Metamorphosis into Freedom examines the career evolution of modern painter Beauford Delaney (Knoxville, TN 1901–1979 Paris, France) within the context of his 38-year friendship with writer James Baldwin (New York 1924-1987 Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France). The exhibition will be on view in the Asheville Art Museum’s Explore Asheville Exhibition Hall April 2 through June 21, 2021.

The works in this exhibition bring into special focus Delaney’s experiments with abstraction sparked by the artist’s 1955 move to the Paris suburb of Clamart, as well as the ways that the artist and Baldwin’s ongoing intellectual exchange shaped one another’s creative output and worldview from their first meeting in 1940 until Delaney’s death in 1979.

Asheville Art Museum Presents Huffman Gifts of Contemporary Southern Folk Art
Jun 14 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum
Addie James, Big Mama Demp, 2002, acrylic and pen on foamcore, 20 × 16 inches. Asheville Art Museum. © Estate of Addie James.
Asheville, N.C.Huffman Gifts of Contemporary Southern Folk Art features gifts of contemporary southern folk art including paintings, ceramics, and more from the collection of Allen and Barry Huffman. The exhibition will be on view in the Asheville Art Museum’s Judith S. Moore Gallery from April 7 through September 13, 2021.

Allen and Barry Huffman have been collecting contemporary southern folk art for the past 40 years. Both collectors are originally from the South, and their journey together has led them around the southeastern United States, from Florida to Alabama to their hometown of Hickory, NC. In each place, they formed bonds with regional artists and learned first-hand the narratives of each artwork. Within their collection are subsets of folk art, including self-taught artists driven to share their messages, crafts for the tourist market, and southern pottery. The guiding principle evident throughout their collection and the generous donation of contemporary southern folk art that they have gifted to the Asheville Art Museum is the story told by each of these artists through their artworks.

“The Asheville Art Museum is fortunate to have friends like the Huffmans; not only are they prolific collectors who have generously shared gifts with the Museum, but their knowledge about southern contemporary folk art and its artists enriches the region,” says Whitney Richardson, associate curator. “I have such respect for the curious nature with which Allen and Barry have approached adding each artwork to their collection. They formed a friendship with almost every artist they bought from and have a genuine interest in the stories being told by the art and its artist.”

Artists featured include Barry Gurley Huffman (GA, 1943–Present Hickory, NC), James Cook (Glen Alpine, NC 1934–1984 Lawndale, NC), Albert Hodge (Vale, NC 1941—Present Vale, NC), Howard Finster (Valley Mead, AL 1916–2001 Rome, GA), Addie James (SC 1943–2011 Statesville, NC), James Harold Jennings (Pinnacle, NC 1931–1999 Pinnacle, NC), LaVon Van Williams Jr. (Lakeland, FL 1958–Present Lexington, KY), and more.

This exhibition is organized by the Asheville Art Museum and curated by Whitney Richardson, associate curator. For more information, visit ashevilleart.org/exhibitions/huffman-gifts-of-contemporary-southern-folk-art.

Asheville Art Museum: New Exhibition— Meeting the Moon
Jun 14 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

The Asheville Art Museum announces Meeting the Moon, an exhibition featuring prints, photographs, ceramics, sculptures, and more from the Museum’s Collection. This exhibition will be on view in the Asheville Art Museum’s McClinton Gallery February 3 through July 26, 2021.

2021 marks the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Apollo space program at NASA, but its inception was hardly the beginning of humankind’s fascination with Earth’s only moon. Before space travel existed, the moon—its shape, its mystery, and the face we see in it—inspired countless artists. Once astronauts landed on the moon and we saw our world from a new perspective, a surge of creativity flooded the American art scene, in paintings, prints, sculpture, music, crafts, film, and poetry.

This exhibition, whose title is taken from a 1913 Robert Frost poem, examines artwork in the Asheville Art Museum’s Collection of artists who were inspired by the unknown, then increasingly familiar moon. Meeting the Moon includes works by nationally renowned artists Newcomb Pottery, James Rosenquist, Maltby Sykes, Paul Soldner, John Lewis, Richard Ritter (Bakersville, NC), and Mark Peiser (Penland, NC). Western North Carolina artists include Jane Peiser (Penland, NC), Jak Brewer (Zionville, NC), Dirck Cruser (Asheville, NC), George Peterson (Lake Toxaway, NC), John B. Neff (NC), and Maud Gatewood (Yanceyville, NC).

Meeting the Moon offers the opportunity to combine science and popular culture with works of art in the Museum’s Collection,” says Whitney Richardson, associate curator. “I think all visitors will find something that draws them into this exhibition, whether it’s the artwork, poetry, music, or science of space travel. It’s such an affirmation of humanity to find these mysteries, like the moon, which enchant us all.”

This exhibition is organized by the Asheville Art Museum and curated by Whitney Richardson, associate curator. Visit ashevilleart.org for more information about this and other exhibitions.

Old World/New Soil Art Exhibit
Jun 14 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

Old World/New Soil

Foreign-Born American Artists from the Asheville Art Museum Collection

DATES:
May 7–August 2, 2021
LOCATION:
Appleby Foundation Exhibition Hall

Inspired by Allen H. Eaton’s book from 1932, Immigrant Gifts to American Life: Some Experiments in Appreciation of the Contributions of Our Foreign-Born Citizens to American Culture, this exhibition focuses on those artists in the Asheville Art Museum Collection who were born outside of the United States of America. As an American art museum, the exhibition calls attention to the fact that we have decided to collect those artists who came to this country – either at their own prompting or out of necessity. As they adopted America as their new home, we have, in turn, embraced them, their creative output, and their artwork.

Old World/New Soil: Foreign-Born American Artists from the Asheville Art Museum Collection is curated by Assistant Curator Whitney Richardson.

Our Strength Is Our People Art Exhibit
Jun 14 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

Sadie, a Cotton Mill Spinner, Lancaster, South Carolina

May 7–August 2, 2021

Our Strength Is Our People

The Humanist Photographs of Lewis Hine

DATES:
May 7–August 2, 2021
LOCATION:
Appleby Foundation Exhibition Hall

This exhibition surveys the life’s work of Lewis Wickes Hine (1874–1940), the father of American documentary photography. Consisting entirely of rare vintage prints, it covers the three overarching themes of Hine’s three-decade career—the immigrant experience, child labor, and the American worker—and culminates in his magnificent studies of the construction of the Empire State Building.

Our Strength Is Our People is organized by art2art Circulating Exhibitions, LLC. All works are from the private collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg.

.

Public Domain: Photography and the Preservation of Public Lands Exhibition
Jun 14 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

11am–6pm. Late-night Thursdays until 9pm; closed Tuesdays.

Public Domain: Photography and the Preservation of Public Lands presents works drawn from the Asheville Art Museum’s Collection by artists looking both regionally and nationally at lands that are either state or federally managed or have become so. This exhibition will be on view in the Asheville Art Museum’s Van Winkle Law Firm Gallery May 19 through August 30, 2021. 

“The Asheville Art Museum’s growing collection of photography features a variety of artworks that consider humankind’s impact on our environment and world,” said Hilary Schroeder, assistant curator. “The imagery featured in Public Domain reminds us of the critical role that artists play in environmental activism and preservation, affecting change at a range of levels”. 

Through images capturing the beauty, changes, and even devastation to the American landscape, photographers have played a vital role in advocating for the preservation of nature via the establishment and maintenance of state parks, national parks and monuments, and other federally protected lands. From George Masa and Timothy McCoy’s photographs of Great Smoky Mountains National Park to a selection of works from Robert Glenn Ketchum’s Overlooked in America: The Success and Failure of Federal Land Management series, these artworks provoke contemplation of both nature’s beauty and a calling to protect it. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Bureau of Land Management whose mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. 

Photographers include Robert Glenn Ketchum, George Masa, Timothy McCoy, Benjamin Porter, Sally Gall, and more. 

This exhibition is organized by the Asheville Art Museum and curated by Hilary Schroeder, assistant curator.