Emerson Woelffer solos at Black Mountain College Museum

Written by Dean Malchow Thursday, 24 March 2011 23:46

Asheville, NC - From February 1 to May 31, 2008, the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center will present a one-person show, Emerson Woelffer: At the Center and At the Edge, curated by Brian Butler. The opening reception will be from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. on Friday, February 1st. Butler will give a curator’s talk at 7:00 p.m.

Emerson Woelffer, a first-generation Abstract Expressionist, taught painting and drawing at Black Mountain College in the summer of 1949 at the request of Buckminster Fuller. Born in Chicago, he taught at the New Bauhaus there, as well as later in Colorado (at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center). Ultimately he settled in Los Angeles where he influenced countless artists through his teaching at Chouinard, Cal Arts and at the Otis Art Institute.

Black Mountain College was a center of modernist and alternative education in the United States. People affiliated with Black Mountain College include John Dewey, Josef Albers, Robert Motherwell, Charles Olson, Buckminster Fuller, John Cage and others. A friend of Motherwell, Olson, and Jonathan Williams, Woelffer’s connection with Black Mountain College ranged far wider than the one summer he was on the North Carolina campus.

The title of the show “At the Center and At the Edge” highlights how Woelffer’s career paralleled the history of Black Mountain College. Both were highly influential, and yet both were not at the center of the physical hot spots of the artworld of their time. Further, both are currently being seen to have had far more significance than was apparent during their lifetimes. The title also references an essay “Circles” written by the source of Woelffer’s first name – Ralph Waldo Emerson. In the essay Emerson (Ralph Waldo) likens the growth of ideas to the proliferation of circles drawn off the edges of other circles. The pieces on exhibit will survey the full reach of his career with a slight emphasis on works done around and in relationship to the time of his affiliation with Black Mountain College.

The curator of the show, Brian Butler, was a student of Emerson Woelffer at the Otis Art Institute. Currently the Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, Butler has advanced degrees in law, philosophy and art. Before moving to Asheville, Brian Butler worked as a preparator at the Newport Harbor Art Museum as well as wrote reviews and articles for the New Art Examiner, Visions, Artweek and the L..A. Weekly. He is also a founding member of Asheville’s only non-profit alternative arts space, the Flood Gallery.

People and institutions loaning work to the show include: Brian Butler, Roy Dowell, Joe Goode, Hackett Freedman Gallery, Hamilton Press, James S. Jaffe, Tobey C. Moss Gallery, Manny Silverman Gallery, and Jonathan Williams.

Founded in 1993 by Mary Holden, the Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center aims to honor and pay tribute to the spirit and history of Black Mountain College and to acknowledge the College’s role as a forerunner in progressive, interdisciplinary education with a focus on the arts. Through exhibitions, publications, lectures, films, seminars, and oral history interviews the Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center is committed to spreading awareness of Black Mountain College and its legacy. Visit : www.blackmountaincollege.org