For those who want to feel cultured and cool…
As a dutiful arts supporter in the Triangle, there are the basic venues you probably already know you need to visit at least once a year - the North Carolina Museum of Art, North Carolina Symphony, Raleigh Little Theater. However, there are certainly other quality arts centers around the Triangle that warrant a visit from you as well. In a little series of blog postings, I’m going to detail these venues that will put you in the inner circle of cultured and cool, starting with the Triangle’s best kept secret, the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.
The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University was founded as the Duke University Museum of Art (DUMA) in 1969 with the purchase of the Brummer Collection of Medieval and Renaissance Art. The museum’s holdings have since grown to more than 13,000 works of art, acquired primarily through donations. The permanent collection is strong in four core areas: medieval and Renaissance art, African art, ancient American (pre-Columbian) art and Classical sculpture. The permanent collection also includes works by a diverse sampling of post-1945 American artists, including Romare Bearden, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Cindy Sherman and Don Eddy.
Now known as the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, the state-of-the-art facility opened in October 2005. Founded by the late Raymond Nasher, who was one of the country’s leading collectors of modern and contemporary sculpture, the museum’s first exhibit was actually from Nasher’s personal collection. Since that time, the Nasher Museum has become a standout in the Triangle as a supporter of modern art with several special exhibits that have included some of the most innovative and leading-edge artists in modern art.
One of these exhibits is Taste of the Modern: Rothko, Rauschenberg, Oldenburg, Kline, currently on exhibit until September 2008. As part of a special loan from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, six important works by four major American artists of the 1950s and 1960s will be on view at the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham for one year, showcasing America’s creative energies in Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. Included are an abstract sublime painting by Mark Rothko, No. 46 [Black, Ochre, Red Over Red] (1957); two combine paintings by Robert Rauschenberg, Painting with Grey Wing (1958), and Slow Fall (1961); two sculptures by Claes Oldenburg, Pie à la Mode (1962) and Hamburger with Pickle and Olive (1962); and Frans Kline’s gestural “action painting” Hazelton (1957), named for a town south of his hometown in Pennsylvania.
Don’t put off visiting the Nasher because September will be here before you know it! - time has a way of getting away from us. Does anyone want to get together a group to visit this exhibit, as well as check out Nasher’s permanent collection? Admission is $5 and the musuem is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday from 10am-5pm, Thursday from 10am-9pm, Sunday from noon-5pm and closed on Mondays. Let me know and let’s get it organized!
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Thanks for highlighting this museum and, especially, this exhibit. I’ve only been in the area for a little over a year and I’m lucky if I can find my way to the grocery store, let alone any place of cultural interest.