A Modern Vision: European Masterworks from The Phillips Collection debuted with newly redesigned collection galleries at the North Carolina Museum of Art.
Director of NCMA Valerie Hillings remarked, “We are happy to welcome visitors to a newly reinvented exhibition of the People’s Collection, which we rededicate to the people of North Carolina.” Through new pieces of art, interactive installations, and themed galleries, the revised collection galleries provide greater representation and novel views. Through the unique exhibition A Modern Vision: European Masterworks from The Phillips Treasure, which brings famous painters like Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, and more to Raleigh, visitors will also have the opportunity to view another magnificent collection.
Along with Start Talking: Fischer/Shull Collection of Contemporary Art, which will be on display from September 17, 2022, to February 5, 2023, and Powers Concealed: Egúngúns from Africa and America, which will be on display from October 15, 2022, to February 26, 2023, A Modern Vision is one of three special exhibitions on display this winter.
Start Talking includes more than 40 pieces from a planned donation of more than 100 works of modern art from collectors Hedy Fischer and Randy Shull, including photos, paintings, mixed-media assemblages, and sculptures. The list of artists also includes Graciela Iturbide, Tina Modotti, Pope.L, Gabriel Rico, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Hank Willis Thomas, Nari Ward, and Vanessa German. Fischer and Shull, who have offices in Asheville, North Carolina, and Merida, Mexico, have assembled an ambitious collection of works by artists that question the existing quo and deviate from accepted historical viewpoints on identity, power, resistance, and agency. They have concentrated on acquiring works by Black, Latino, and female artists who, in their words, “have something to say.”
The NCMA’s Powers Concealed show on African and African-inspired masquerade displays two modern American Egúngúns costumes, one of which was recently commissioned, in context with a historical example from Nigeria in the 1930s from the NCMA’s collection. Both the masquerade itself and the notion that these masquerades are outward representations of deceased African ancestors who come earthside for blessings, festivals, and memory are covered by the term “powers disguised,”Egúngúns .
