February Issue 2001
SECCA Presents Three New Exhibitions in Winston-Salem, NC
Sculptor/musician Terry Adkins has created a series of powerful installations that pay homage to the many heroes that continue to inspire him: musicians, writers, friends and family. Over the past 20 years, the artist has manipulated an array of salvaged objects to create poetic works that provoke powerful spiritual and emotional responses. The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) in Winston-Salem, NC, presents Adkins latest installation, Greater Deeps, through Apr. 15.
For this exhibition, Adkins was in residence at SECCA for two weeks in early January to complete a series of new works dedicated to the life and times of the noted 19th century abolitionist John Brown - revealing many new facets to his known history. Adkins project, Greater Deeps, features new site-specific works and a community performance, entitled Requiem. During the Opening Reception in Jan., the artist directed a performance that included community musicians playing four 18' horns created by the artist. According to Adkins, "Blow Ye Trumpet Blow was John Brown's favorite religious song and I envision using local musicians to comprise SECCA's version of the Terry Adkins Recital Corps, a performance unit with an ever-changing membership."
A five-part video series entitled Odyssey:
An African-American Journey will be offered in conjunction
with this exhibition. Odyssey celebrates the rich cultural
identity of Americans of African descent.
In SECCA's Overlook Gallery the exhibition, Crowns: Portraits
of Black Women in Church Hats by Winston-Salem photographer
Michael Cunningham and award-winning Greensboro journalist Craig
Marberry. The exhibit will be on view through Apr. 15. Based on
their book of the same name, Crowns: Portraits of Black Women
in Church Hats, is comprised of some thirty to fifty photographs,
text excerpts from the book, and a selection of the very same
church hats shown in the photographs. The exhibition features
women of all ages from the Triad in their Sunday best.
For these women, a church hat, flamboyant as it may be, is no mere fashion accessory: It's a cherished African-American custom, one observed with boundless passion by black women of various religious denominations. A woman's hat speaks long before its wearer utters a word. It's what Deirdre Guion calls, 'hattitude... there's a little more strut in your carriage when you wear a nice hat. There's something special about you." If a hat says a lot about a person, it says even more about a people - the customs they observe, the symbols they prize, and the fashions they fancy.
Copies of Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats are available in SECCA's Centershop.
In SECCA's Potter Gallery will be the exhibition, D. F. Miller: Real Thing, which will be on view through Apr. 15. Kansas City native D. F. Miller creates large-scale machine-based installations that simulate natural environments. Using a bevy of pulleys, motors and over three miles of monofilament line that provides the mechanism to propel thousands of small bits of fabric, the artist will transform SECCA's Potter Gallery into what audiences have described as fields of swarming insects, showers of confetti or raging snow flurries. One reviewer called the work "... a truly amazing sight... a testament to controlled order... a scary revelation; but in the hands of Miller, a damn fun one to stumble onto."
This magical work speaks not only of man's place in nature and the machine's place in our environment but also to memory, harmony and the cycle of life. This installation will be the largest that the artist has done to this date.
In conjunction with these exhibitions, SECCA will present a free Community Day featuring live music, refreshments and hands-on activities for all ages on Feb.10 from 1-4pm. Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry will also be present to sign copies of their new book, Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats.
For further information check our NC Institutional
Gallery listings or call SECCA at 336/725-1904 or visit our web
site at (http://www.secca.org).
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