Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center www.blackmountaincollege.org

The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center preserves and continues the legacy of educational and artistic innovation of Black Mountain College. We achieve our mission through collection, conservation, and educational activities including exhibitions, publications, and public programs.

Meet our third and final BMC Active Archive Resident for the Fall 2026 cohort, Trinh Lê! All three residents are current...
09/04/2026

Meet our third and final BMC Active Archive Resident for the Fall 2026 cohort, Trinh Lê! All three residents are currently at the historic campus site of Black Mountain College where they are spending a ten-day period generating new work in response to the College's legacy. ⁠

Trinh Lê (she/they) is a poet, printmaker, and performance artist based in San Francisco. Also a researcher and educator, she currently serves as community archivist at the Bay Area Le***an Archives. Through her printmaking and performance practice, she creates ritual objects from her encounters with the archive, a process she calls foremothering. A 2024 Pushcart Prize Nominee, Trinh holds a BA in Political Science from UC Berkeley and MFA from San Francisco State University where she was awarded the 2025-2026 Poetry Coalition Fellowship. She continues to work in the archives of the SFSU Poetry Center today.

The BMC Active Archive Residency, a partnership between Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and Camp Rockmont, is a unique program that invites artists to develop work inspired by the history and philosophy of Black Mountain College. The residency takes place at the historic site of the College, aiming to recreate the dynamic and creative atmosphere that made BMC a powerful incubator for new ideas. Throughout the residency artists have access to Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center’s extensive collection of archival materials related to the history of the College, available for research and inspiration.

Thank you to Robert Alan Grand for the short and sweet review of our soon-closing exhibition, Black Mountain COLL(A)GE! ...
09/03/2026

Thank you to Robert Alan Grand for the short and sweet review of our soon-closing exhibition, Black Mountain COLL(A)GE! September 5th, 2026, will be the last day to explore all things collage at BMC, view some amazing contemporary works situated within the BMC legacy, and make your own collage at our Material Exploration Station.

"Before irony became contemporary art’s M.O., Ray Johnson was the king of cutting up—evident in his campy, whip-smart paper medleys, ones often snail-mailed to fellow creatives as an invitation or part of the punch line. The exhibition ‘Black Mountain COLL(A)GE’ in downtown Asheville is a testament to and a thank-you for his biting commentary, which brought levity and play to a group of astute modern artists who maybe took themselves too seriously. (Johnson’s 1974 collage, featuring brutish, brooding Ad Reinhardt as a greeting card Cupid, is a highlight here.) What else counts as COLL(A)GE? Class notes from Mary Parks Washington—one of 1946’s two Black students—scrapbooked into posters alongside Franz Kline’s paint-splattered work table constructed from curbside trash. Most inspiring, though, are the present-day works on view. In two over-embellished beekeeper costumes made by local artist collective Swannatopia, hodgepodged remnants of an absurdist performance, one can see how this ragtag bunch conceptually connects to the College’s legacy. Across generations, the works on view show creatives adopting a more speculative approach to avant-garde art and drawing inspiration from the ecological wonders of western North Carolina, all while reminding us that making art also means having fun with it."

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Text is from Robert Grand’s Substack exhibition review, 200 Words on Black Mountain COLL(A)GE, Asheville, NC. on Substack.

This collage by Terence Burns is on view for just a couple more days as part of the current exhibition, Black Mountain C...
09/03/2026

This collage by Terence Burns is on view for just a couple more days as part of the current exhibition, Black Mountain COLL(A)GE!

Full of recognizable figures (most notably, Chester Cheetah and Christ) as well as heavily textured paper, this collage is by Black Mountain College student Terence Burns. Burns graduated from Hope High School in Providence, RI and attended Black Mountain College in the early and mid-1950s. He studied under Franz Kline, Charles Olson, and Joseph Fiore. After his time at BMC, he served in the U.S. Air Force until 1960. He lived most of his life in Rhode Island, continuing to make collage work.

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Terence Burns, Stockton Boulevard, 1994. Collage on foamcore board. Loaned by the Burns Family

Meet our second BMC Active Archive Resident from the Fall 2026 cohort, Matt Rich! Matt, along with our 2 other artists-i...
09/02/2026

Meet our second BMC Active Archive Resident from the Fall 2026 cohort, Matt Rich! Matt, along with our 2 other artists-in-residence, is currently living and working at the historic Black Mountain College campus for a ten-day period, physically immersed in the College's legacy.

Matt Rich (https://www.mattrich.com/) is a visual artist working with painting as expanded into architectural, social and public modes of engagement. He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a BA in Visual Art and History of Art and Architecture from Brown University and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Drawing.

Recent projects include a mural for the Murals of La Jolla, collaborative work with Victoria Fu featured in a set of public performances at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, and a commission to produce a permanent public art piece for the new VA/Westwood LA Metro station set to open in 2028. He is a Professor of Visual Arts at the University of San Diego where he has taught since 2017.

The BMC Active Archive Residency, a partnership between Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and Camp Rockmont, is a unique program that invites artists to develop work inspired by the history and philosophy of Black Mountain College. The residency takes place at the historic site of the College, aiming to recreate the dynamic and creative atmosphere that made BMC a powerful incubator for new ideas. Throughout the residency artists have access to Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center’s extensive collection of archival materials related to the history of the College, available for research and inspiration.

It's the last week to see our current exhibition, Black Mountain COLL(A)GE! Which also means it's the last week to creat...
09/01/2026

It's the last week to see our current exhibition, Black Mountain COLL(A)GE! Which also means it's the last week to create your own collage at the Material Exploration Station. The last day of the exhibition is this Saturday, September 5, 2026. Afterward, the Museum will close for 3 weeks while we turn over the exhibitions. We will reopen on September 25, 2026 for our next exhibition, "Imaginary Landscapes: Black Mountain College Architecture and Design."

The Museum is open 11AM - 5PM Tuesday through Saturday!

This week, we are thrilled to welcome our Fall 2026 cohort of BMC Active Archive Residents to the historic campus of BMC...
08/31/2026

This week, we are thrilled to welcome our Fall 2026 cohort of BMC Active Archive Residents to the historic campus of BMC, where they will spend a week generating work inspired by the legacy of Black Mountain College. Meet the first of three artists from the cohort, Alex Branch 👋⁠

Alex Branch (https://alexbranch.com/)is an interdisciplinary artist whose work often requires or implies the involvement of a human body to activate and realize the piece. The objects and installations she makes can be architectural, acoustic, kinetic. A person can be housed inside them, traverse the water in them. They can be worn or flipped through. They can be played or simply looked at but even in the looking, the body is imagined. Time and the cycles of nature are an important theme in Branch's work. Recently she has been exploring ice as material and water as a metaphor for bodily existence. Branch holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a MFA from State University of New York, Purchase. She currently lives in Denver, Colorado, where she is an Artist in Residence at Redline Contemporary Art Center.

The BMC Active Archive Residency, a partnership between Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and Camp Rockmont, is a unique program that invites artists to develop work inspired by the history and philosophy of Black Mountain College. The residency takes place at the historic site of the College, aiming to recreate the dynamic and creative atmosphere that made BMC a powerful incubator for new ideas. Throughout the residency artists have access to Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center’s extensive collection of archival materials related to the history of the College, available for research and inspiration.

08/30/2026

We recently had the pleasure of hosting a a Faith in Arts Conversation between Annie Berman and Ralph Burns. In this video conversation, Berman discusses the process and journey behind her recent film, THE FAITHFUL: The King, The Pope, The Princess. This is a excerpt of the full conversation, which is available to watch free online at www.blackmountaincollege.org/faith-in-arts-annie-berman

Annie Berman is a media artist living and working in New York City. Named one of Independent Magazine’s 10 Filmmakers to Watch, her films, videos, performances, and installations have shown internationally in cinemas, festivals, galleries, universities, and conferences, including the MoMA Documentary Fortnight, Le FIFA International Festival of Films on Art, and more.

About Berman’s film, THE FAITHFUL: A Pope John Paul II lollipop. An Elvis Presley shower curtain. A Princess Diana teacup. These are just some of the countless pieces of memorabilia that these pop culture icons’ most devoted fans collect and cherish – but why? The Faithful‘s director, Annie Berman, explores the deep veneration and legacies of the Pope, the Princess, and the King. Over the course of 20 years, Berman profiles these figures’ biggest fans and makes numerous pilgrimages to Vatican City, Graceland, and Kensington Palace. As the years go by, the film itself becomes increasingly entwined with Berman’s daily life and identity, much like how the officially licensed knick-knacks define the fans she filmed.

There's just one week left of the current exhibition, Black Mountain COLL(A)GE! This self-portrait featuring a young Rob...
08/29/2026

There's just one week left of the current exhibition, Black Mountain COLL(A)GE! This self-portrait featuring a young Robert Rauschenberg is currently on view as part of the exhibition. From the backwards "R" to the depictions of materials like paper and pencil, this collage-style lithograph captures more than just Rauschenberg's physical likeness.

Robert Rauschenberg accompanied Susan Weil to Black Mountain College in Fall 1948. He studied with Josef Albers and returned sporadically over the next several years as student, teacher, and artist-in-residence. Rauschenberg’s enthusiasm for popular culture and his rejection of the seriousness of the Abstract Expressionists led him to search for a new way of working. He found his signature mode by embracing materials previously unconsidered in an aesthetic context.

As part of the work program at BMC, Rauschenberg and Weil were on trash duty, making trips to the dump with trash from the college. We can only speculate as to how these experiences might have led him to find new materials to incorporate into his work, which is known for its legendary use of unusual, often found, materials—combining aspects of collage, sculpture, and formal painting.

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Robert Rauschenberg, Self Portrait for Dwan Gallery, 1965. Offset lithograph. Collection of Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. Gift of Betty Jane Weil.

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