A recent piece in Defector—The Wonder of the Regional Art Museum by the writer Megan Greenwall—extolled the power of overlooked and off-the-beaten-path museums. While its aims might seem self-explanatory, from the title, the piece is worth reading: It’s a reminder of the surprising ways that we can encounter art, and the surprising way it can worm itself into our brain, changing how we see the world.
In the Triangle, we have access to numerous places to see art—our lauded state museum, university museums, area galleries, and plenty of unconventional arts spaces and pop-ups in-between—that are worth dedicating time and wonder to.
Below, find highlights from three Triangle museums with exhibitions opening this spring. These are just a sampling of what’s out there; several already-opened exhibitions run through the spring, like Ella West Gallery’s Freedom: Forward March, now extended through May, with work from Renzo Ortega, Clarence Heyward, and several other artists, and Cannupa Hanska Luger: Speechless, a fascinating look at language, technology, and colonialism through the lens of cargo cults, which runs through July.
There’s plenty to look forward to, too: Material Connection, a textile exhibition, opens at Peel Gallery on March 14; artists huiyin zhou and Laura Duduassil have a dual multimedia show bodies tender with grief at the Durham Arts Council Semans Gallery
runs March 17-May 12; Cassilhaus has an exhibition on African American quilting that opens in May; and Queen Street Magic Boat has a fascinating multimedia exhibition, Trajectories: Liberated Pathways through Makeup, Photography, and Jewelry, that runs May 10-June 8.
Lastly, the Nasher Museum of Art celebrates twenty years this May with an ambitious slate of summer programming and exhibitions that caps off in the fall with the October 18 opening of the Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Family Sculpture Garden.
The North Carolina Museum of Art
Spring is going to be big at the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA). Just take it from National Portrait Gallery director Nicholas Cullinan, whose London museum played host to the exhibit The Time Is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure last spring. “It is probably,” Cullinan said of The Time Is Always Now, “the most consequential contemporary art exhibition we have ever had.”
Curated by British writer and curator Ekow Eshun, The Time Is Always Now, which opened at NCMA on March 8 and runs through June 29, features the work of 23 artists from the United Kingdom and the United States, including Michael Armitage, Kerry James Marshall, and Toyin Ojih Odutola. The works of figuration vary widely in medium, style, and scale, but share one powerful, and canon-breaking, common denominator—the Black body seen through the eyes of a Black artist.
And while the show has its origins in the U.K. (where Eshun is a journalist and curator), its final stop is well-appointed in the South: the title is drawn from a James Baldwin essay on William Faulkner, desegregation, and urgency. “There is never a time in the future in which we will work out our salvation,” the full Baldwin quote reads. “The challenge is in the moment, the time is always now.”
Two other upcoming exhibits round out NCMA’s spring portfolio: On March 1, David LaChapelle: Picture Show opens at NCMA, a show that’s paired with the NCMA Winston-Salem show David LaChapelle: Dear Sonja. Together, the two exhibits showcase over eighty works from the bold contemporary artist LaChapelle, who attended high school at Winston-Salem’s North Carolina School of the Arts.
On April 2, Grace Hartigan: The Gift of Attention opens, featuring over 40 works by the New York School artist with a look at the relationship between poetry (a dominant force in the New York School) and Hartigan’s fervid work.
PORTAL
In a 1998 lecture, the experimental poet Fanny Howe theorized a way of living and practicing art around the word “bewilderment.”
“Bewilderment is an enchantment that follows a complete collapse of reference and reconcilability,” she wrote. “It cracks open the dialectic and sees myriads all at once.”
The artist Meg Stein’s exhibit BEWILDERNESS at artist-run studio and exhibition space PORTAL seems to orbit the same idea of possibility via destabilization. Opening March 29 at 1320 Old Oxford Rd, Suite 7, BEWILDERNESS is curated by Laura Ritchie and features “ceramic vessels, wall sculptures, drawings, a large-scale mixed-media installation, and a collaborative series of photographic portraits.”
“Through my own embodiment practices I’ve connected to the mystery and vitality within my own experience,” Stein writes in an artist statement. “In a similar way, this new work was unveiled through my time in the studio and exists as its own ecosystem. During a time of turmoil, this work invites all of us to discover what not-yet-known possibilities exist within us.”
If these practices sound abstract, the exhibit offers opportunities to ground it: Stein, a certified mindfulness instructor, will host a “sculpture and meditation workshop” (April 24) and two embodiment workshops (March 30 and April 6). Here’s an opportunity for an arts experience that embraces questions and offers immersive entry points. PORTAL hours, once the exhibit opens, are Saturdays and Sundays, 2-6 p.m., by appointment.
LUMP Gallery
At LUMP, UNC-Chapel Hill’s graduating MFA class of 2025 is showcasing their thesis exhibitions, which “respond to geographic, constructed, psychological, and bodily spaces.”
First up: An Animal Within from Rebecca Pempek, whose tangled, colorful mixed media work explores the “mythologizing of female pain,” and the large-scale sculptural works of John Felix Arnold’s Sermons in the Soil that meditate on nature and monument. The joint exhibition is on view through March 29.
Between April 4-26, Confluence by Carson Whitmore and ¿Qué dice tu corazón? by Dominique Muñoz take over LUMP’s intimate gallery space, with an April 4 opening reception. Whitmore’s found materials create works that challenge notions of time and topography, while Guatemalan-American artist Muñoz’s portraiture examines queer identity and how “histories of care, survival, and migration shape our sense of self.”
MFA program exhibits are a chance to see cutting-edge work from artists immersed in research and studio work for two years—don’t miss these exhibits or LUMP’s other upcoming events, including a March 1 screening of the 2024 Turkish film Crossing.
The Gregg Museum of Art & Design
Sometimes a university museum can feel like just an accessory to its academic counterpart, but not so with The Gregg Museum of Art & Design—its identity as the STEM flagship of the state university system shines through in curatorial choices that weave together art and technology and activate the mind.
Pop-up gallery lounge Art2Wear: Through the Archives runs through July 5 with a look at wearable art garments made by NC State students over the years that “symbolize creativity, boldness, and innovation.” The Gregg will also play host to Art2Wear’s annual runway event on April 24; this year’s theme—Revive— focuses on “renewing and transforming ideas and traditions.”
Exhibitions that work with permanent collections are fun: They’re a real-life version of the New York Times “connections” game, drawing out complex relationships between different pieces. Opening March 20, Your Brain on Art: Reimagining the Gregg Museum’s Collection through Neuroarts looks at the Gregg’s collection through the lens of the Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross neuroaesthetics bestseller, Your Brain on Art. This is an immersive experience, with “meditation, drawing, and sound activities” curated by the Gregg’s education team, that runs through late September.
While you’re on campus, be sure to hunt down the museum’s two outdoor exhibits: textile artist Danielle Hatch’s pleasingly titled installation Of Pleasure, Of Curiosity, Of Intelligence, which opens April 5 and will be located on the exterior of the museum building, and Craig Coloruss’s sound art installation Meditation with Sun Boxes, which opens April 8 in various campus locations—check the museum website for further location details, closer to the opening.
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Follow Culture Editor Sarah Edwards on Bluesky or email sedwards@indyweek.com.