Continuing Conversations

December 23, 2021 - June 5, 2022

Mint Museum Uptown

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About

Continuing Conversations is designed to include works of art that spark conversation about relevant cultural happenings.

Located in the Gorelick Galleries on Level 3 of Mint Museum Uptown, the gallery is divided into a project space with a thematic installation and a new works space that includes recent acquisitions, items on loan, or objects rarely seen in the Mint’s collection.

Continuing Conversations: Yesterday and Today pairs contemporary artists creating work in conversation with traditional craft or decorative works to explore how simple household objects embody cultural histories that continue to define social structures today.

The pairings and references are as varied as the media, but the consistent theme is personal identity defined by society. Centuries-long prejudices against Asians are reflected in the 19th-century Union Porcelain Works Pitcher and countered by the contemporary craft by artists MyLoan Dinh and Beth Lo.

Nadia Meadows’ incorporation of American quilt patterns that reference African-American enslavement with their European sources, as well as with their possible use in Abolitionist campaigns are seen in Subtle Oppression. And how something can act as both memorial and marginalization is seen in the use of hair in works by Nadia Meadows, Sharon Norwood, as well  Victorian memento mori jewelry. 

Of the more than 50 works on view in the installation, 39 are from the Mint’s permanent collection, and 13 are objects on loan or new acquisitions, including works by Charlotte-based artists de’Angelo Dia, MyLoan Dinh, Julio Gonzalez, Nadia Meadows, and Lydia Thompson. 

New Works

The new works section of the exhibition includes Daytona Vortex by New York-based artist E.V. Day. On loan from Jimmie and Chandra Johnson, the sculpture is made from the fire suit Jimmie Johnson wore when he took the win at the 2006 Daytona 500. Jimmie Johnson commissioned Day to create the sculpture using the fire suit. For decades Day has constructed sculptures that question social structures and perceptions around gender and sexuality, as seen in her Exploded Couture series that includes Transporter, which is on view in the Mint’s permanent collection galleries on Level 4 at Mint Museum Uptown. 

Daytona Vortex is one of 23 works in the exhibition which have never been seen before at the Mint, including one by Charlotte native and artist Romare Bearden.

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