Exhibitions
With approximately six new exhibitions each year, there is almost always something new to see at the Gregg. These engaging shows present diverse artists, cultures, media, and techniques and examine the regions where art and design intersect with science, engineering, math, and technology. Many originate at the Gregg, while traveling exhibitions from other institutions are sometimes brought in to broaden the range of perspectives offered. Each offering is enhanced by related programming, and many are accompanied by thought-provoking publications.
All exhibitions are accessible, and admission is always free. Large-print gallery guides for visitors with low vision and other accommodations can be provided on request.
Curious about what’s next? Check out our Upcoming Exhibitions page here.
Current Exhibitions
Across the Threshold of India – Photographs by Martha Strawn, features photographs that make up a work of visual ecology that perceptively portrays one of India’s and the world’s longest and least-known religious practices—the art of sanctifying space through the creation of threshold diagrams. Objects from the Gregg Museum’s permanent collection will also accompany the photographs. Many of Strawn’s photographs are in the permanent collection of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, the nation’s foremost research center for Indian culture and art, and are featured in her book, Across the Threshold of India: Art, Women, and Culture. The exhibition is on view through November 12, 2022.
Chapel Hill artist Eric Serritella creates his ceramic sculptures as conduits to emotion through inquiry, recognition, and familiarity. Through aging and decay, Serritella’s sculptures challenge the viewer with both the nature of the material and the messages within. Each organic creation is filled with metaphor, both literal and implied. Anthropomorphic elements and vessel forms link humanity as timelessly inseparable from its interactions and relationships to its natural surroundings. Each sculpture in Eric Serritella–Trompe l’Oeil Ceramics fosters awareness to affect viewers’ behaviors toward the environment. Through this consciousness they can acquire new appreciations and ways of seeing. The exhibition is on view through December 3, 2022.
Roger Manley, director of NC State’s Gregg Museum of Art & Design, has been known to describe a collecting museum as a “climate-controlled attic of curiosities.” A fine example of the sort of treasures inside is now on display. The Gregg’s Egyptian Tent exhibition features a rare and colorfully appliquéd Egyptian tour tent – one of only six of its kind known in the world – and a number of pharaonic and geometric appliquéd tent panels, known as khayamiya, made in Cairo in the early 20th century. All objects represented are part of the Gregg Museum’s diverse and dynamic permanent collection of over 35,000 objects. Adding to its exotic provenance: the Egyptian tour tent was transferred to the Gregg Museum from the collection of North Carolina’s storied Chinqua-Penn Plantation.
Class Visits and Tours
Gregg exhibitions support and enhance the curriculum of the university’s classroom teaching by offering opportunities for professors to incorporate class visits, individual assignments, or research projects as well. Contact the museum’s Curator of Education to make arrangements; it may be possible to customize our offerings to meet the needs of particular courses or syllabi. K-12 teachers are also encouraged to consider making use of the Gregg’s exhibitions and resources.