The Asheville Art Museum seeks applicants for the inaugural NEA GAP Curatorial Residency. The Curatorial Residency is a dynamic opportunity offering a one-year appointment to emerging curators from regional Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s).

Subject Fields:

Area Studies / African American and Diaspora Studies / Art, Art History & Visual Studies / Cultural History / Digital Humanities / Fine Arts / Humanities / Research and Methodology / Social History / Women's & Gender History

Description:

The Asheville Art Museum seeks applicants for the inaugural NEA GAP Curatorial Residency. The Curatorial Residency is a dynamic opportunity offering a one-year appointment to emerging curators from regional Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s). The successful appointee will conceptualize, develop, and organize a collections-based exhibition to be installed in a museum gallery, with the opportunity to translate it into a digital exhibition.

During their tenure, the appointee will be an active member of AAM’s curatorial department, contributing to all related matters of collections development, presentation, and community engagement, and will work closely with the Learning & Engagement, Communications, and Visitor Services Departments. The Resident Curator will have a dedicated mentor and be exposed to professional development opportunities throughout their tenure.

Salary: $50,000 plus benefits

Additional funds for research and/or professional development: $2,000

Location: This position is full-time and in-person in Asheville, North Carolina.

Requirements:

Applicants must be a graduating college or university senior, a recent MA recipient, or a recent college graduate who has finished within the past three years.

Though not a requirement, applicants will preferably have an academic background in one or more of the following: Art History; Visual Studies; African American and Diaspora Studies; Women’s and Gender Studies; Cultural Studies

Application Materials:

• ·         CV
• ·         Letter of interest
• ·         Writing sample; no more than ten pages, preferably a seminar paper

• ·         Two letters of recommendation: one from the Chair or Director of Undergraduate/Graduate Studies from the applicant’s home department, one from the applicant’s academic advisor

Please send all application materials to Jessica Orzulak, Ph.D., Associate Curator and Curatorial Affairs Manager, at jorzulak@ashevilleart.org using the subject line “NEA GAP Curatorial Residency”

Letters of recommendation should be sent separately from your referees to Jessica Orzulak, Ph.D., Associate Curator and Curatorial Affairs Manager, at jorzulak@ashevilleart.org using the subject line “NEA GAP Curatorial Residency Letter of Recommendation”

Timeline:

Application Deadline:             December 15, 2024 Residency period:                                     June 2025-June 2026

About the Asheville Art Museum (AAM)

Established by artists and incorporated in 1948, the Asheville Art Museum is committed to being a vital force in community and individual development and to providing life-long opportunities for education and enrichment through the visual arts. The Museum, accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, is in the urban center of the 10,601-square mile Appalachian region, which is comprised primarily of rural mountain communities in Western North Carolina with a total population of over 1.4 million. In 2022, the Museum was awarded the National Medal for Museum and Library Services-the nation's highest award that recognizes excellence in museums.

The Museum is an educational and collecting institution, providing an overview of significant movements and trends in American art in the 20th and 21st century and art of import to the Southeast. The Museum's Permanent Collection of 7,500+ objects, includes new acquisitions of works of art by women, African American, Eastern Band Cherokee Nation, LGBTQ artists and more. The Museum is committed to maintaining community connectedness and education with its diverse exhibitions and educational programs that the region can experience regardless of socioeconomic status or disability.

About the Collection

The Museum actively collects art of the United States from the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as select works after 1850. Within the larger context of American art, is a concentration on work with significance to the Southeast and regional contributions in three central categories:

• ·         Artists related to Western North Carolina (WNC) and Southern Appalachia
• ·         Artists who studied or taught at Black Mountain College (1933-1957)
• ·         Fine handmade objects created in the region— including historic and contemporary work by artists belonging to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians nation, historic regional craftspeople, and contemporary studio craft as exemplified by the Penland School of Craft

Works by artists of the region make up approximately one-half of the Museum’s Collection. This includes work by Joshua Adams, Rob Amberg, Cynthia Bringle, Virgil Crowe, Margaret Curtis, Douglas D. Ellington, Maud Gatewood, Hoss Haley, Eric Knoche, Anne Lemanski, Sallie Ellington Middleton, Kenneth Noland, Mark Peiser, Will Henry Stevens, Lucille Stonier, and Bob Trotman. Self-taught artists of the region include Raymond Coins, C.J. Dobbins, Kate Clayton “Granny” Donaldson, and James Harold Jennings.

One of the major focuses of the Collection is works of significance by artists associated with Black Mountain College (BMC), which was located 15 miles east of Asheville. From 1933 to 1957, BMC was a unique experiment in American education and a center for experimentation in all areas of the arts. Because of the College’s regional and international significance, and the impact that its revolutionary educational style had on modern art, the Museum is committed to preserving the legacy of BMC, with 1,500+ objects and documents by faculty and alumni such as Anni & Josef Albers, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence, and Robert Rauschenberg. Within the BMC Collection, the Museum is also the repository of the Lorna Blaine Halper Estate.

The Museum has been particularly active in collecting historic and contemporary craft and studio glass with a focus on the Southeast and WNC, covering all media and dating from the early part of the 20th century through the present. Significant holdings by early 20th-century artists include William Waldo Dodge, Jr. and Walter B. Stephen. Important contemporary craft and studio craft collections include works by Cynthia Bringle, Shane Fero, Richard Jolley, Jon Kuhn, Robert Levin, Lore Lindenfeld, Harvey Littleton, Ben Owen III, Mark Peiser, Richard Ritter, Norm Schulman, Billie Ruth Sudduth, and Jeff & Yaffa Todd.

The Museum’s collection of photography has grown significantly over recent years, now holding over 2,200 photographic objects. The photography collection spans a majority of the timeline of photography with objects dating from 1865 to the present day and covers a multitude of photographic processes from daguerreotypes and photogravures to pinhole photography and wet-plate processes, to Polaroid and digital images.

A small but growing part of the Museum’s Collection is 65+ objects by Cherokee artists and artisans from the 19th century to the present, particularly by members of the Eastern Band of

Cherokee, a tribe based on the Qualla Boundary in nearby Cherokee, NC, and the Cherokee Nation. Traditional media, including wood carving, stone carving, ceramics, and basketry, as well as contemporary art are represented

The Museum’s Collection, by the Numbers

8,100+ total works

750+ paintings. Artists include: George Bireline, Roger Brown, S. Tucker Cooke, Pierre Daura, Joseph Fiore, Ida Kohlmeyer, McKendree Robbins Long, Beverly McIver, Jo Sandman, Roger Shimomura, Tula Telfair, and Eugene Thomason.

750+ drawings. Artists include: Charles Alston, George Charles Aid, Beverly Buchanan, Minnie Evans, Gustave Falk, Lorrie Goulet, Ray Johnson, Anthony Lord, Elaine Schmitt Urbain, and George Widener.

1,450+ prints in a variety of techniques such as etching, lithography, screenprint, monotype, and woodcut. Artists include: Anni Albers, Josef Albers, Thomas Hart Benton, Judy Chicago, Helen Gerardia, Jerome Kaplan, Robert Rauschenberg, Joe Chris Robertson, Donald Sultan, and Ernest Trova.

2,250+ photographs by artists such as Hazel Larsen Archer, Bruce Davidson, Jade Doskow, Sally Gall, Walter Iooss, Robert Glenn Ketchum, David Levinthal, Joel Meyerowitz, Barbara Morgan, Benjamin Porter, Mike Smith, Joyce Tenneson, Kent Washburn, Carrie Mae Weems, and Jonathan Williams.

175+ sculptures and installations with crossovers into Cherokee art, craft, and Self-taught art. Artists include: Minnie Adkins, Ruth Asawa, Cristina Córdova, David Ellsworth, Dorothy Gillespie, Lonnie Holley, Robyn Horn, Stoney Lamar, Joe Minter, Randy Shull, and Kenneth Snelson.

1,000+ studio and contemporary craft objects including glass, ceramic, fiber, metal, wood, and mixed media. Artists include: Rowena Bradley, Ken Carder, Dale Chihuly, William Waldo Dodge, Jr., Mary Gregory, Karen Karnes, Harvey K. Littleton, Joel Queen, Norm Schulman, Walter B. Stephen, and Billie Ruth Sudduth.

In addition, the Museum holds 4,700+ architectural drawings that document the built environment of Asheville and its surroundings by Richard Sharp Smith (and Albert Heath Carrier) and Douglas D. Ellington.