Black Mountain College: Idea + Place
Lower Level Gallery with Companion Digital Exhibition
How can an idea inform a place? How can a place inform an idea? Would Black Mountain College have had the same identity and lifespan if it had been located in the urban Northeast, the desert Southwest, or coastal California? How did BMC’s rather isolated, rural, and mountainous setting during the era of the Great Depression and the Jim Crow South influence the college community’s decision-making and the evolution of ideas upon which it was based?
This exhibition seeks to delve into these questions and others by exploring the places of Black Mountain College: its two very different campuses, its influential predecessor the Bauhaus in Germany, and the post-BMC diaspora. Curated by Alice Sebrell, Director of Preservation
adVANCE! Modernism, Black Liberation + Black Mountain College
Upper Level Gallery with Companion Digital Exhibition
Featuring the work of contemporary sculptor Larry Paul King in conversation with Black Mountain College modernist masters including Jacob Lawrence, Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence, Josef Albers, Leo Krikorian, and Sewell Sillman. Premiering three Jacob Lawrence lithographs new to the BMCM+AC permanent collection. adVANCE! celebrates Black Mountain College’s role in early civil rights and the ongoing role of Black, modernist artists in the pursuit of liberation and justice.
Curated by Marie T. Cochran, Founder of the Affrilachian Artist Project


