The North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, North Carolina, is currently undergoing some major changes. The museum is in the middle of a reinstallation, entitled “The People’s Collection: Reimagined.”
The People’s Collection is how the museum refers to its vast collection of art spanning thousands of years. The collection is housed in several buildings, as well as the Ann and Jim Goodnight Museum Park. The 160-acre park displays many pieces of art and provides unique walking and biking trails on the edges of Raleigh that connect to many of the metropolitan spaces in the city.
Credit: North Carolina Museum of Art
The museum was started in 1924 through a collaboration of the state of North Carolina and the North Carolina State Art Society.
“From our roots, the museum recognizes that the State Art Society wanted to build a museum and art collection that spoke to the local North Carolina community,” said Miles Hall, tour administrator of the North Carolina Museum of Art. “It has grown to incorporate a global perspective.” This is part of the reason for the reinstallation.
The existing menu of tours the museum offers will change. Several new and many reimagined tours will be offered. One of the new tours will be a deep dive into North Carolina artists and art forms. This tour will showcase the different personalities, topics and representations of what it means to be from North Carolina. Another new tour will be Becoming the NCMA: Ten Decades of Collecting, a highlight of how the museum’s permanent collection has been built from the 1920s to 2020s.
One of the big changes is a switch from chronologically organized tours to thematic tours. Artwork will be displayed together based on theme or art form to show similarities and differences across large spans of time.
The museum officially rolled out the reinstallation on Oct. 7, with the new tours beginning Oct. 21.
“Our vision is to be a vital cultural resource for the entire state and a national leader in creating a welcoming experience of belonging and joy,” Hall said. “You don’t necessarily have to be a resident of Raleigh to come to the North Carolina Museum of Art and feel at home. You can be from anywhere and still find something that speaks to you. The People’s Collection is for all people, and we want to encourage everyone to make their way to Raleigh, North Carolina, visit our museum, see the works of art that we have and be inspired.”
Main image and credit: North Carolina Museum of Art
Article by Danielle DeVota
