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Break the Mold: New Takes on Traditional Art Making
September 25, 2021–February 6, 2022
East Building, Joyce W. Pope Gallery

The North Carolina Museum of Art will present Break the Mold: New Takes on Traditional Art Making. Break the Mold will showcase contemporary artists who are using traditional modes of art making to tackle timely subject matter. Innovative approaches to embroidery, ceramics, quilting, furniture, interior design and fashion accessories serve to explore diverse topics such as gender inequality, prison reform, racial justice, memory and loss, as well as how objects encapsulate, transmit, and transform social and cultural history.

As daily life becomes more digitized and technology-dependent, artwork evoking or involving traditional craft assumes new significance and provides an avenue for interrogating and critiquing social and historical contexts. In this exhibition historic objects will be presented alongside contemporary artworks to explore the making and meaning embodied by both. In addition artistic technique will be considered — and a commitment to choosing labor-intensive modes of working — as another layer of meaning in these contemporary pieces.

Artists to be included are Lucas Samaras, Gabriel de la Mora, Yasumasa Morimura, Hank Willis Thomas, Elizabeth Brim, Sanford Biggers, Rachel Meginnes, Elizabeth Alexander, Rodney McMillan, Shinique Smith, Thomas Schmidt, Maria Britton, Julie Cockburn, Do Ho Suh, and more.