MFA BFA RAD: A pop-up exhibition of new works by 18 WCU students

The exhibition, which opened Friday, April 25, is up through this Friday, May 2 at The Tannery, a studio and gallery space off of Old Lyman Street in the River Arts District. It was organized independently of the WCU art program and co-curated by MFA candidates Tonya Anderson and Laura Sellers. Its featured works offer a cross section of the department’s breadth.

Smart Bets: The Tills

Asheville-based psychedelic indie pop rocker outfit The Tills arose from the ashes of its former, and apparently legally bound name, The Critters, in January after receiving a cease-and-desist phone call from the 1960s pop band of the same name. The local obliged and promptly released its new album, Mixtape Vol. 1, a frenzied 13-track outburst […]

Climbing up the walls

On Friday night, the City of Asheville’s Public Art and Cultural Commission (PACC) will host a public comment and review session for three project proposals in order to determine which new piece of public art will be installed at the 51 Biltmore Ave. parking garage.

Ralph Burns: A Persistenc­e of Vision

Ralph Burns: A Persistence of Vision, 1972 – 2013, is a new exhibition opening this Saturday, March 29 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Asheville Art Museum. The show, curated by J. Richard Gruber, Ph.D., the Director Emeritus of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, surveys 41 years of work by Asheville photographer Ralph Burns. Photo: “Baptism #1,” Jordan River, Israel, 1996, silver gelatin print

State of the Arts

Narration, a new group show on view at Blue Spiral 1, opens with a portrait of beauty marred by death and consequence. In “Or Some of Those That Fly So High (Little Sparrow),” a 45-by-50-inch countryside rendering by Julyan Davis, a woman in a navy dress stands in front of a rusted red barn. She’s either […]

State of the Arts

The streets of Asheville serve both as subject and setting for a duo of local art events. PUSH Gallery hosts an exhibition of photographic works by Asheville photographer Anthony Bellemare. Meanwhile, the annual, weekend-long Asheville Tattoo and Arts Expo expands its footprint to include the Renaissance Asheville Hotel and Masonic Temple. Street scenes Just Looking: […]

Street view

“Just Looking: New Portrait Street Photography,” an exhibition of works by Asheville photographer Anthony Bellemare, is on view at PUSH Gallery through April 14. The opening reception is today — Friday, March 7, from 7-10 p.m. Image courtesy of the artist.

Love and loss

On Feb 19 Lark Books employees got the word: The longtime publishing house is closing, and staff must move out by the first week of May. That’s when Lark — founded as an independent publishing house in 1979 by Rob Pulleyn with his then-wife, Kate Matthews — will officially relocate to the New York offices […]

State of the Arts

Apothecary closed and moved out of the YMI Cultural Center last November. But that closure didn’t spell the end for the experimental arts and music collective. Rather, it presented an opportunity for unrestricted transition. The group’s current incarnation is on view at the Asheville Area Arts Council. In Public is an exhibition of interdisciplinary, avant-garde […]

What’s past is prologue

For more than a decade, Phil Mechanic Studios has been a pillar of the River Arts District and a key player in the greater Asheville arts scene. But while that legacy may be secure, the building’s future is now very much in question. The five-story, 20,800-square-foot structure and adjacent parking lot at 109 Roberts St. […]

The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design opens in downtown Asheville

The CCCD, or the center, christened its new space at 67 Broadway St. with an opening reception and inaugural exhibition, “Taking Shape: Celebrating the Windgate Fellowship.” The center’s Friday, Jan. 24, launch was a bit of a triumph over adversity. It followed a 2013 budget cut-turned-institutional severance from UNC Asheville, a relocation from Hendersonville, the recent purchase of the downtown Asheville building (which formerly housed Lark Books) and four months of renovations. Image: “The Understood Weight” (2013), by Dustin Farnsworth.

Funding stream

On Dec. 30, the Asheville Area Arts Council closed on a deal to sell the last of their downtown properties: 13 Biltmore Ave. quietly transferred proprietorship to the owners of Cúrate, which is located next door in the formerly AAAC-owned 11 Biltmore Ave. The building “was a great boon as a resource,” AAAC Executive Director […]

State of the Arts

Chances are you’ve been invited to one of Asheville’s cafes, salons, bookstores or breweries not for a book, beer or haircut, but for an art opening. Whatever their main purpose, these businesses-turned-galleries are some of the city’s premier spaces for art. They’re accessible to new artists wanting to show their work, and approachable for those […]