Exhibition Introduction, Checklist by Section, and Sample Labels
Making Room: Familiar Art, New Stories
June 3, 2023–April 6, 2024
EXHIBITION INTRODUCTION
How might the Weatherspoon better engage with museum participants to share fuller and more inclusive stories of American art? This question sparked an eighteen-month-long curatorial and programming project starting in January 2022. We’ve been listening to people as they share what matters to them in the museum, and we’ve created this installation of the museum’s art collection based on what we learned.
Making Room: Familiar Art, New Stories presents 43 artworks from the Weatherspoon’s collection of more than 6,500. Each was chosen in response to what more than 4,000 community members told us they care about. These visitor responses—which ranged from poems to doodles to personal statements—were gathered in multiple ways. Within the Inquiry Hubs, for example, the visitor engagement team coordinated pop-up gallery performances and facilitated collection-based inquiry and play. One thing we heard repeatedly: caring requires doing. As one museum visitor wrote, “I show my family I am there for them through actions.” We chose to organize this installation around the broad theme of caring—of being there—using four spaces dedicated to what we heard people care about: FAMILY, COMMUNITY, PLACE, and MEMORY. Staff also focused on how the museum’s own learning and growth could be made visible in this installation. We listened to the art department professors who said the collection lacked examples of social practice art, then acquired photographs of community performances by artists Dread Scott and Lorraine O’Grady. You’ll find them in the COMMUNITY and PLACE rooms, respectively. We reviewed the physical needs of objects in our collection and sent an iconic light-based sculpture by artist Tom Lloyd for specialized electronic repairs. It now shines a light on issues of social justice in the MEMORY room. We discovered, in dialogue with a contemporary artist, how stories about people who impacted the Weatherspoon itself might lead to the creation of new artwork. You can see Angela Fraleigh’s painting inspired by famous art collectors Etta and Claribel Cone in the FAMILY room.
Another word that we encountered repeatedly while reading visitor responses was “connect.” We hope that you find Making Room to be a place to connect with yourself, with works of art both new and familiar, and with your family and community. This installation is at once the culmination of a project and a waystation on an ongoing journey of learning by doing. Thank you for participating! We invite you to continue to do so. New stories will emerge, and new choices will be made.
—The Weatherspoon Team
CHECKLIST BY SECTION
Family
Our early family life is grounded in the body: how we touch, feed, nurse, and care for each other. Ademola Olugebefola’s painting and Janine Antoni’s sculpture show the dynamic physicality of the parent-child bond. Works by Maria Berrio and Angela Fraleigh use bright colors and dreamlike elements to evoke a close, seemingly wordless connection between sisters.
As we grow up, our family members may not always love and support us in the ways we wish they would. Found families—the friends and partners we choose for ourselves—are particularly important for folks in LGBTQ communities. Nan Goldin’s photographs have often documented the relationships of artists and others in those communities.
Social, labor, and political conditions outside the home also influence our relationships. In his drawings, Sherrill Roland recombines images and texts that helped sustain him when he was wrongfully imprisoned and separated from his family. Works by Beverly McIver and Willie Cole touch on the concerns of Black women earning their living by doing domestic work in the homes of White families. Robert Colescott’s painting points at the dangers of family secrets—in particular, fears associated with Black relatives attempting to pass as White during the 20th century’s Great Migration.
Family dynamics can be loving and supportive; they can also be irritating, damaging, even toxic. The artworks here explore the complexities of kinship and domestic life, while reminding us that for many of us, family—whether biological, adopted, or chosen—matters more than almost anything else.
Janine Antoni (born 1964, Freeport City, Bahamas; lives New York, New York)
Umbilical, 2000
Edition 33/25
Sterling silver
Purchase with funds from the Lynn Richardson Prickett Endowment, the Carol and Seymour Levin Acquisition Endowment, and the Judy Proctor Acquisition Endowment; 2012.21
Artist Janine Antoni uses her body as an instrument to create meaning and represent an idea. Antoni performs familiar actions such as eating, sleeping, and bathing to transform objects. The resulting sculptures are a record of her body’s presence; they show how her body interacts with the world. Her sculptures may remind you of the feeling of doing those actions yourself. To create this sculpture, Antoni made an impression of the inside of her own mouth biting the bowl of the spoon and an impression of her mother’s hand holding the handle. The artist then melted her family’s silver and poured it into the impressions, casting permanently the connection between parent and child. When I look at this piece, I feel nostalgic, remembering what it was like to be young, worriless, and cared for, and I think about my current role of supporting others.
—Bobby Holt, UNCG ’21 BA Studio Art, Visitor Services and Security Associate
María Berrío (born Bogotá, Colombia, 1982; lives Brooklyn, New York)
Aminata Linnaea, 2013
Mixed media on canvas
Purchase with funds from the Weatherspoon Art Museum Acquisition Endowment for the Dillard Collection; 2017.16
Willie Cole (born Somerville, New Jersey, 1955; lives New Jersey)
Man Spirit Mask, 1999
Edition 34/40
Photo etching; silkscreen; photo etching with woodcut
Purchase with funds from the Louise D. and Herbert S. Falk Acquisition Endowment, the Lynn Richardson Prickett Acquisition Endowment, the Frances Stern Loewenstein Endowment, and the Warren Brandt Acquisition Endowment; 2014.8.1
Robert Colescott (born Oakland, California, 1925; died Tucson, Arizona, 2009)
A Visit from Uncle Charlie, 1995
Acrylic on canvas
Purchase with funds from the Benefactors Fund; 1997.17
Angela Fraleigh (born Beaufort, South Carolina, 1976; lives Allentown, Pennsylvania)
Splinters of a secret sky: Skies, 2021
Oil on canvas
Purchase with funds provided by Betty and Ben Cone, Jr.; Ed, Lisa, Sydney, and Elijah Cone; Sally B. Cone; Carol Cone Douglas; Richard and Jane Levy; Sue Levy Klau; Edward and Eliza Levy; Anonymous Donor; K. Porter Aichele; J. Sam Cone; Daniel and Katie Cone; Laurie Cone; Anne Cone Liptzin; Rick Birgel; Mr. and Mrs. EF Dehnert III; Sarah Cone Merriman; and the Weatherspoon Art Museum Acquisition Endowment; 2022.4
Nan Goldin (born Washington, DC, 1953; lives New York, New York)
Bruce’s mirror. Portland, Maine, 1996
Edition 1/15
Color coupler print mounted on Sintra board
Purchase with funds from the Jefferson-Pilot Endowment; 2007.17
Beverly McIver (born Greensboro, North Carolina, 1962; lives outside Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
Oh, Happy Day, 2001
Oil on canvas
Gift of Douglas and Nicole Walla; 2017.19
Ademola Olugebefola (born St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, 1941; lives Harlem, New York
The Family, 1971
Lithograph on paper
Gift of Robert G. Rosenthal, JD, and Beth R. Friedland, MD; 2022.6
Ademola Olugebefola moved to Harlem in 1966, during the height of the civil rights movement. At this time, he also changed his name to feel more associated with his culture and community. He wanted to create art to deconstruct and define the beauty of the Black family. What I see in this image is the family’s sense of regality. The woman depicted in the middle features vibrant circles of red in her bracelet, necklace, and hair, all aligned with a sense of energy. The artist has talked about wanting to link the science of color to his subjects’ consciousness or state of mind, using many tones to draw the viewer into the space of his portraits. Here, the golden yellow outline defines the figures while overlapping among them and showing their connection and family bond. I find the artist showcasing a positive portrayal of a Black family’s strength and beauty to the world.
—Valerie McConnell, Former Business Coordinator
Sherrill Roland (born Asheville, North Carolina, 1984; lives Durham, North Carolina)
Artforus: April 2014 Issue, 2018
Artforus: February 2014 Issue, 2018
ArtForum International Magazine, toilet paper, legal paper pad, primer paint, Kool-Aid, Sharpie marker, ink, and steel
Purchase with funds from the Weatherspoon Art Museum Acquisition Endowment for the Dillard Collection; 2021.8.6 and 2021.8.4
COMMUNITY
What do we mean when we say “community”? Do we think of the people living in our own home, or the neighbors living near us, or all the residents of our town or city, or the broader citizenry of our state or country? Is community even defined by proximity, or is it better defined by affinity? That is, are we members of a community simply because we exist among certain others or because we share beliefs or activities with them? Is community a given or a choice? How many different communities do each of us claim and name (neighborhood, faith, school, work, culture)? How are we supported by those communities, and what are our responsibilities to them?
The artists with work in this gallery engage with these questions and others. They offer up depictions of individuals who support their communities through the quiet effort of daily labor and the louder actions of political activism. They recognize that communities can be both cohesive and fractured. In making these artworks, they are also participating as active community members—as individuals paying attention to and caring about the lives of others. We may or may not see ourselves, our communities, or our concerns in their work. But, through the very act of looking at it, we engage with them in yet another community: a community of learners.
John Ahearn (born Binghamton, New York, 1951; lives Bronx, New York)
Ed Whitfield at the Caldcleugh Community Center, 1996
Acrylic on plaster and two framed documents
Gift of Richard and Jane Levy in memory of Frances S. Loewenstein; 1996.11.a.b.c
Huma Bhabha (born Karachi, Pakistan, 1962; lives Poughkeepsie, New York)
Receiver, 2019
Edition 3/4
Bronze and paint
Purchase with funds from the Tannenbaum-Sternberger Foundation in memory of Leah Louise B. Tannenbaum, the Weatherspoon Art Museum Acquisition Endowment, the Weatherspoon Guild Acquisition Endowment, and by exchange; 2024.9
Beverly Fishman (born Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1955; lives Detroit, Michigan)
Untitled (Missing Doses, 3 Opioid Addiction, 1 ADHD), 2018
Urethane paint on wood
Purchase with funds from the Lynn Richardson Prickett Acquisition Endowment and the Burlington Industries Endowment; 2019.15
Harry Gamboa Jr. (born Los Angeles, California, 1951; lives Los Angeles, California)
Decoy Gang War Victim, 1974, printed 2011
Edition 9/10
Fujigloss Lightjet print on paper
Purchase with funds from the Louise D. and Herbert S. Falk Acquisition Endowment; 2022.3
Chester Higgins (born Fairhope, Alabama, 1946; lives Brooklyn, New York)
Shirley Chisholm, Congresswoman, NY, 1973, printed 1990s
Gelatin silver print
Museum purchase with funds from the Weatherspoon Art Museum Acquisition Endowment; 2021.15
Alfredo Jaar (born Santiago, Chile, 1956; lives New York, New York)
Untitled (Water), 1990
Double-sided lightbox with two color transparencies and seven framed mirrors
Purchase with funds from the Weatherspoon Art Museum Acquisition Endowment, the Frances Stern Loewenstein Acquisition Endowment, the Jefferson-Pilot Endowment, and by exchange; 2012.7
“Here, the mirror offers you a window into someone else,” artist Alfredo Jaar emphasizes while discussing the importance of community in Untitled (Water). “In this work, I’m trying to bring home a certain reality that is mostly invisible to all of us. See you, see me, see you, see me.”
A framed, soothing sea sits calmly on the gallery floor as I approach seeking tranquility. What is the purpose of these mirrors? This artwork seems to demand movement from me among the seven mirrors, none of which reflect my image. Their reflections instead depend entirely on my personal perspective.
Jaar, known for his artistic explorations of communities in turmoil, focuses here on Vietnamese refugees who arrived at Hong Kong Bay in the 1980s. On the opposite side of this lightbox, an image of Vietnamese refugees complicates the calmness of the ocean as a symbol of hope and loss.
—Angelica Henry, UNCG ’23 BA Art History, Former Visitor Engagement Student Intern
Nate Lewis (born Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania; lives New York, New York, and Washington, DC)
Probing the Land 9 (Charles Aycock, after the fire), 2021
Hand-sculpted inkjet print, ink, frottage, and graphite on paper
Museum purchase with funds from the Weatherspoon Art Museum Acquisition Endowment for the Dillard Collection; 2021.10
Gordon Parks (born Fort Scott, Kansas, 1912; died New York, New York, 2006)
American Gothic, Washington, DC, 1942, printed later
Gelatin silver print
Purchase with funds from the Jefferson-Pilot Endowment, the William D. Snider Acquisition Endowment, and the Louise D. and Herbert S. Falk Acquisition Endowment; 2018.9
Dread Scott (born Chicago, Illinois, 1965; lives Brooklyn, New York)
Slave Rebellion Reenactment Performance Still 1, 2020
Slave Rebellion Reenactment Performance Still 5, 2020
Edition 3/4
Pigment prints
Purchase with funds from the Weatherspoon Art Museum Acquisition Endowment; 2022.10.1–2
Judith Shea (born 1948, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; lives New York, New York)
Urban Francis, 2000–2002
Edition 3/3
Bronze
Purchase with a bequest from Leah Louise Tannenbaum and funds from the Tannenbaum-Sternberger Foundation given in her memory; additional funds provided by the Burlington Industries Endowment and the Weatherspoon Art Museum Acquisition Endowment; 2007.7
In the 13th century, Saint Francis of Assisi traded his wealth for a life of poverty and service to the teachings of Jesus Christ. Through poverty, he and his followers believed they were closer to God. Now, artist Judith Shea has dropped him into a modern-day center city. Can Francis “love thy neighbor” here? He seems to be having a tough time of it. He’s soaking wet, wearily looking to the sky with his mouth open. Is he giving up? Or might he be taking comfort in the familiar—a rain shower—drinking from the clouds, washing away the grime of his surroundings, and counting to ten in the hopes of keeping his cool as he attempts to love his flawed human brothers and sisters?
Fully 17.4 percent of Greensboro lived in poverty in 2022. Can Urban Francis inspire understanding and support for the poor today, or will someone instead call the police to report suspicious activity?
—Susan Taaffe, UNCG ’94 BFA Studio Art, Lead Museum Preparator
John Sonsini (born Rome, New York, 1950; lives Los Angeles, California)
David, 2012
Oil on canvas
Benefactors Choice Purchase; 2019.14
Nancy Spero (born Cleveland, Ohio, 1926; died New York, New York, 2009)
Explicit/Pre-Columbian, 1994
Handprinting and collage on handmade paper
Purchase with funds from the Dillard Paper Company for the Dillard Collection; 1995.4433
MEMORY
Artists draw from the collective memory and their own memories when creating a new work of art. Some look to historical source materials like books or earlier works of art or documentary footage. Others turn to family photo albums and conversations with their grandparents or a stranger. Some rely entirely on their own imaginations or begin with a small memory—a story or an idea either told directly to them or embedded in some communal consciousness—and then invent upon it. Works of art themselves also bear the memories of what came before. Some are related to how the art was physically made or what happened to it after it was made. In a sense, a work of art is an archive of the history of its existence, just like every one of us is. Each of the works in this gallery conveys memory in a different way—in the story that the artist chose to tell, with the materials used or incorporated within the artwork, or through the history of the artwork’s care and display at the Weatherspoon. Encountering some of the artworks in this room or others may spark your own memories and in turn become the foundation of a new one.
Sanford Biggers (born Los Angeles, 1940; lives New York, New York)
Paket, 2016
Antique Japanese futonji, silk, cotton, assorted textiles, acrylic, gold leaf, and polystyrene
Benefactors Choice Purchase; 2018.5
Peter Bradley (born Connellsville, PA, 1940; lives Woodstock, New York)
Shamp 4, 1976
Acrylic on canvas
Gift of Mr. And Mrs. Leonard Bocour; 1977.2478.3
Helen Frankenthaler (born New York, New York, 1928; died Darien, Connecticut, 2011
Houdini, 1976
Acrylic on canvas
Gift of Linda and Tom Sloan; 2022.19
Helen Frankenthaler invented a method of thinning oil paint with turpentine, then pouring it onto the canvas so that it became stained with patches of color. She would later say this new way of painting was the result of a “combination of impatience, laziness, and innovation.” Male abstract artists who took up a similar style became celebrated for their “Color Field” paintings, but for many years Frankenthaler’s work was regarded as feminine, pretty, and therefore less serious.
By the time she made this painting, she’d turned to using acrylic rather than oil paint. I wonder what she was thinking when she called this painting Houdini, presumably after the tricky man famous for escaping shackles and confined spaces. What’s the trick here? How to be a woman and an artist at the same time? How to have your accomplishments be as celebrated as those of your male contemporaries?
—Julia Ridley Smith, writer, creative writing professor, and former Weatherspoon docent
Willem de Kooning (born Rotterdam, Netherlands, 1904; died East Hampton, New York, 1997)
Woman, 1949–50
Oil on canvas
Lena Kernodle McDuffie memorial purchase; 1954.1211
Tom Lloyd (born Queens, New York, 1929; died Mastic Beach, New York, 1996)
Clavero, 1968
Aluminum, light bulbs, and plastic laminate
Gift of Howard Wise; 1981.2895
Faith Ringgold (born Harlem, New York, 1930; lives Englewood, New Jersey)
Coming to Jones Road #2: Under a Blood Red Sky, 2001
Screenprint on canvas quilt, edition 4/20
Benefactors Choice Purchase in honor of the Weatherspoon Art Museum Benefactors, 2002–2021; 2021.7
Elizabeth Talford Scott (born Chester, South Carolina, 1916; died Baltimore, Maryland, 2011)
Knots and Snakes, 1982
Stitched quilt and fiber media
Gift of Carol Cole Levin in memory of Betty Beatrice Person; 2019.30
Shinique Smith (born Baltimore, Maryland, 1971; lives Los Angeles, California)
Out of Body, 2015
Acrylic, fabric, paper, socks, ribbons, and plastic bags on wood panel
Benefactors Choice Purchase; 2016.6
Talking about her youth in Baltimore, Shinique Smith describes different spaces: her grandmother’s house filled with plaid, floral, and brocade fabrics; the pretend classrooms where she taught her dolls; the actual classrooms where she doodled on notebooks; the stages where she learned to dance and act; and the streets where she painted graffiti. Today, she creates artworks that honor these locations—especially the play, discovery, and imagination that she cultivated in them.
This painting captivates me with its bundles of children’s socks, strips of ribbon, twisted plastic bags, and scraps of fashion images. In them, I recognize my own youth: learning to get dressed on my own, shopping at the mall with friends, flipping through magazines while dreaming of being older. The turquoise and pink are exactly the colors I once wanted to paint my room. Like the artist, I’m a child of the 1980s, but I wonder if others—both younger and older than us—likewise see their own memories here.
—Emily Stamey, Elizabeth McIver Weatherspoon Curator of Academic Programming and Head of Exhibitions
PLACE
The word “place” indicates a location: the Bronx, Antarctica, Idaho, Kansas. As the artworks in this section express, the concept of “place” can be expanded to encompass a home, a neighborhood, even a community. The sites on view in this gallery have unique physical characteristics. But for the artists who created the images, these places also possess various intangible qualities—peacefulness, happiness, history, leisure, discord—depending on what happened or was experienced there.
Roger Shimomura, Lorraine O’Grady, and Jason Mitcham’s artworks all carry personal familial or communal connotations: an internment camp in Idaho, a jubilant parade through a vibrant African American community, the dislocation and demolition of a Greensboro neighborhood. Stuart Klipper, Mark Dion, and Larry Schwarm’s images are defined by how the natural and humanmade worlds interact. These artists encourage us to contemplate and expand upon our own experiences in nature, and to see their works as visual metaphors for larger philosophical concepts such as the sublime and the ecological. Sarah Sense combines her connections to specific geographical areas with her cultural heritage to share stories of colonialism, resistance, and resilience, while Lucinda Devlin and Sylvia Mangold investigate the psychological power of apparently objective interiors.
Places don’t stay the same but rather change for us physically, emotionally, technologically, and socioeconomically. These artworks, then, not only describe a location but also capture it at a specific moment in time.
Lucinda Devlin (born Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1947; lives Greensboro, North Carolina)
Jules Undersea Lodge, Key Largo, FL, 1989, printed 2016, from the series Pleasure Ground
Pigment inkjet print
Gift of the artist; 2017.6.2
Mark Dion (born New Bedford, Massachusetts, 1961; lives Copake, New York)
Travels of William Bartram Reconsidered (postcard cupboard), 2008
36 postcards, wood and glass cabinet with brass fixtures
Purchase with funds provided by Lucy McDonald Bane in memory of Alice Wills Holbrook; 2013.8
Stuart Klipper (born Bronx, New York, 1941; lives Minneapolis, Minnesota)
Ice Front of the Ross Ice Shelf, Ross Sea, East of Cape Crozier, Ross I.—from a US Coast Guard HH-1 ‘Dolphin’ Helicopter, Antarctica, 1992, from the series On Antarctica, 1992
C-type photograph, edition of 20
Purchase with funds from the Frances Stern Loewenstein Acquisition Endowment; 1999.32
Sylvia Plimack Mangold (born New York, New York, 1938; lives Washingtonville, New York)
Night Light, 1973
Acrylic on canvas
Purchase with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and matching funds from Burlington Industries; 1974.2179
Jason Mitcham (born Jamestown, North Carolina, 1979; lives upstate New York)
Roadway Horizon #4, 2020
India ink on paper and HD videograph
Purchase with funds from the Weatherspoon Art Museum Acquisition Endowment; 2020.a–b
Lorraine O’Grady (born Boston, Massachusetts, 1934; lives New York, New York)
Art Is . . . (Guys in a Crowd), 1983
Edition 3/8
Art Is . . . (Colt 45 “African” Float), 1983
Edition 3/8
Art Is . . . (Man with Towel Head), 1983
Edition 4/8
Art Is . . . (Sheadrach Home Cooking), 1983
Edition 1/8
All printed 2009
C-prints
Purchase with funds from the Weatherspoon Art Museum Acquisition Endowment; 2022.12.1–4
Larry Schwarm (born Greensburg, Kansas, 1944; lives Bellingham, Washington)
Roiling Fire, Eastern Lyon County, Kansas, 2005
Unnumbered edition of 15
C-print
Gift of Charles Weinraub and Emily Kass in honor of Nancy Doll; 2019.24.24
Sarah Sense (born Sacramento, California, 1980; lives in Northern California)
Trade and Navigation, 2022
Woven archival inkjet prints on Hahnemuhle bamboo paper, Hahnemuhle rice paper, beeswax, and artist tape
Purchase with funds from the Judy Proctor Acquisition Endowment; 2022.21
An essential component of Sarah Sense’s artwork is its exploration of how cultural history determines our sense of place. Her maternal grandmother is Choctaw from Oklahoma, and her maternal grandfather is Chitimacha from Louisiana; her paternal relatives are non-Native. Sense draws on her understandings of coming from two different cultures to create her unique photo-weavings.
Trade and Navigation is layered with both historical significance and personal meaning. The map represents the ever-changing borders that resulted from White people claiming Native lands, and it indicates 19th-century commercial and human trade routes. Other elements include an animal hide, geometric patterning derived from the artist’s Native heritage, and landscape imagery. The female figure lying on the grass is harder to discern. The act of cutting and weaving together images of old maps and new landscapes into traditional patterns is Sense’s way of sharing stories of colonialism, resistance, and resilience.
—Elaine D. Gustafson, Curator of Collections and Head of Facilities
Roger Shimomura (born Seattle, Washington, 1939; lives Lawrence, Kansas)
Dress Rehearsal, 2012
Acrylic on canvas
Museum purchase with funds by exchange from the Gift of Dr. Lenoir C. Wright; 2022.14
Artist Roger Shimomura, a third-generation Japanese American, creates paintings that blend his American upbringing and Japanese heritage. As a young child, he and his family were forced to live in an incarceration camp in Idaho during World War II. While there, his grandmother, Toku, kept diaries that the artist now uses to learn about her and others’ experiences and to create paintings such as this one. Toku wrote about the hardships she and others faced during their removal from their homes, but her diaries also served to distance her from the camp world, allowing her to hide from or even block out the environment around her. Likewise, in this image, a woman has hung a work of art on her barrack wall and strung up a curtain across the window to distance herself from the camp—though the artist reminds us of it with a thin line of barbed wire peeking out from behind the curtain.
—Yesenia Cruz Delasancha, UNCG ’24 BA Human Development and Family Studies
Pat Steir (born Newark, New Jersey, 1940; lives New York, New York)
Melancholy Painting I / Red Waterfall, 1994
Oil on canvas
Purchase with funds from the Jefferson-Pilot Endowment, the Burlington Industries Endowment, the Weatherspoon Guild Acquisition Endowment, and the Louise D. and Herbert S. Falk Acquisition Endowment; 2002.6
