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November Issue 2003
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of NC and North Carolina Museum of Art Launch Year-Long Festival in Conjunction with Defying Gravity Exhibition
Fans of flight and art have fasten their seatbelts and prepared for take-off as the North Carolina Museum of Art offers a year-long celebration of aviation and the imagination with the festival with Into the Blue.
Presented by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of
North Carolina, Into the Blue is commemorating the 100th anniversary
of the Wright brothers' historic 1903 flight through concerts,
films, family events, workshops, lectures and more, culminating
in the Museum's ambitious exhibition Defying Gravity: Contemporary
Art and Flight, on view through Mar. 7, 2004.
"The exhibition is the heart of our centennial celebration,
but our visitors will also enjoy dynamic flight-related programming
inside the Museum and outdoors in the Museum Park," said
Museum Director Lawrence J. Wheeler. "Through our education
curriculum, we will reach schoolchildren across the state, right
in their own classrooms, providing them the opportunity to explore
the history of flight and the power of their own imagination."
"The partnership with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina will enable the Museum to serve as a hub of the state's celebration of the Wright Brothers' Kitty Hawk flight," said Bob Greczyn, president and CEO of BCBSNC. "We at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina could think of no better way to celebrate this historic achievement than by teaming with the North Carolina Museum of Art, the state's leading cultural organization, to carry the celebration throughout the state," he said. "We're doing more than commemorating an event that took place in North Carolina. We're celebrating the innovation and imagination that flight represents."
The Defying Gravity exhibition explores the relationship between aviation and the imagination and the timeless human desire to fly. As many as 70 works, covering two entire floors of the Museum and part of the surrounding grounds, will make up Defying Gravity, believed to be the largest flight-related contemporary art exhibition in the nation. Included are large-scale works such as Panamarenko's fantasy flying machine and the works of Malcolm Morley, who achieves a zany mix of history, culture and mythology, as well as curious contraptions, giant color photographs, intimate graphite drawings, film, video and installations simulating flight.
Into the Blue festivities began in Mar. 2003 with several flight-related films screened as part of the Museum's 2003 Winter Film Series, including the Academy Award-winning silent classic Wings and the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers film Flying Down to Rio. At the same time, artists began installing the first commissions for Defying Gravity.
The Museum's summer outdoor series included
juggling and acrobatics by the Flying Karamazov Brothers, an "Into
the Blues" blues concert and more, all taking place in the
Joseph M. Bryan, Jr., Theater in the Museum Park.
And the Museum's Education Department held a "Kite-flying
Capers" family event, an improvisational dance performance
by Even Exchange Dance Theater, numerous workshops and children's
programs, and an exciting series of lectures, including a presentation
by Robert Wohl, author of A Passion for Wings: Aviation and
the Western Imagination.
One of the largest Into the Blue programs is scheduled for Dec. 17, 2003, the centennial anniversary of the Wright brothers' flight. A highlight of this program will be a one-day installation by Triangle-based artist David Solow, who will create an airport runway on the Museum grounds using special luminaries. The Museum will keep extended hours on this day for visitors wishing to see Defying Gravity.
The Museum will also take the resources of
the exhibition and Into the Blue to communities across
North Carolina through the Internet. Web pages called "Flight
Plans" will include biographies of selected artists from
the exhibition, ideas for fun and educational activities in classrooms
and homes, a series of lesson plans for school courses, reading
lists, exhibition information and links to additional resources.
The "Flight Plans" Web pages are on-line at (www).
The lesson plans included on the Museum's Web site are also available
in other media for classrooms across the state. The lesson plans
are primarily designed for grades four and eight and for high
school students, with at least three different units for each
grade. Materials, including slide programs, are distributed without
charge to any school in North Carolina through the Museum's lending
service.
The sponsor is Blue Cross and Blue Shield of
North Carolina.
For more information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings,
call the museum at 919/839-6262, or on the web at (www.ncartmuseum.org).
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