Asheville Art Museum - North Carolina museum exhibiting 20th century American art

Too Much Is Just Right: The Legacy of Pattern and Decoration features more than 70 artworks in an array of media from both the original time frame of the Pattern and Decoration movement, as well as contemporary artworks created between 1985 and the present. The artworks in this exhibition demonstrate the vibrant and varied approaches to pattern and decoration in art. Sections will explore the history of pattern and decoration’s use in American art during and after the now formally recognized movement was established. Artworks from the 21st century elucidate contemporary perspectives on the employment of pattern to inform visual vocabularies and investigations of diverse themes in the present day. 

The artworks in this exhibition reveal the breadth of possibilities and unique qualities that exist when artists choose to employ and even create handmade paper. From the colored paper of Sol Lewitt’s Eight Pointed Stars to the work of artists like Paul Wong and Nancy Cohen made in collaboration with the preeminent handmade paper studio Dieu Donné, paper is transformed from support to conceptual center.

An enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Luzene Hill advocates for Indigenous sovereignty—linguistically, culturally, and individually. Revelate builds upon Hill’s investigation of pre-contact cultures. This has led Hill to incorporate the idea of Olin—the Nahuatl word for the natural rhythms of the universe—in Aztec cosmology in her work. Before Europeans arrived in North America, Indigenous societies were predominantly matrilineal. Women were considered sacred, involved in the decision-making process, and thrived within communities holding a worldview based on equilibrium. Olin emphasizes that we are in constant state of motion and discovery. Adopted as an educational framework, particularly in social justice and ethnic studies, Olin guides individuals through a process of reflection, action, reconciliation, and transformation. 

The selection of objects displayed illustrates how Bresler’s eye for collecting craft not only draws attention to nature and artists’ interest in it, but also accentuates her role as a natural collector with an intuitive ability to identify themes and ideas that speak to one another.

DIGITAL EXHIBITION: Dear Lorna, Love Ray features letters written by Ray Johnson to Lorna Blaine Halper while Johnson was a student at Black Mountain College. The letters reveal snippets of daily life at the college, Johnson’s experience of his growth as an artist, and early examples of Mail art, a movement that Johnson helped found.

DIGITAL EXHIBITION: This exhibition follows select artists from their time at Black Mountain College (BMC) through their early years in the Beat scene of 1950s San Francisco.