Virtual concerts and films from Bechtler Museum of Modern Art

Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, at 420 S. Tryon Street, has opened for visitors, with limited capacity. Make sure to check out this Groupon for a discount!

You might also be interested in the reopening plans for other Charlotte museums.

Read on to learn about some free virtual events, as well as the Bechtler’s newest exhibits.

Upcoming Virtual Events

Virtual Modernism + Film — Frey: Part 1 The Architectural Envoy
Thursday, November 19th, 2020
7 p.m.
Free, but registration is required

Albert Frey, the unpretentious Swiss-born mid-20th century architect, aided in the introduction of Corbusian-influenced modernism to the United States and through an innate curiosity of the American landscape, developed an extraordinary design style, blending industrial techniques and a love of nature.

Virtual Music and Museum — 1 Cent Life
Sunday, November 22nd, 2020
6 p.m.
Free, but registration is required

In conjunction with the Bechtler exhibition, 1 Cent Life, this month’s virtual concert will engage with themes present in the exhibition and feature work by Pulitzer Prize winning composer, Zhou Long (Chinese, b. 1953). Long is a pioneer in translating the sounds and techniques of ancient Chinese musical traditions to modern Western instruments and ensembles.

Virtual Jazz at the Bechtler — Holiday Jazz
Friday, December 4th, 2020
7 p.m.
Free, but registration is required

Kick off your holiday season Friday, December 4, as the the Ziad Jazz Quartet with Ziad Rabie (tenor saxophone) Al Strong (Trumpet), Ron Brendle (Acoustic Bass), Al Sergel (Drums), and Noel Freidline (Piano) present Holiday Jazz, one of the most popular Jazz at the Bechtler shows of the year. Classic holiday favorites such as Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer (arranged by Nicolas Payton), Deck the Halls (arranged by Herbie Hancock and Chick Correa), Frosty the Snowman (arranged by Roy Hargrove) and multi-cultural melody commemorating Chanukah, Eid and Kwanzaa will be performed alongside other jazz holiday renditions that are quickly becoming new classics.

Exhibits at The Bechtler Museum of Modern Art

Experience the debut of the museum’s newest exhibition, 1 Cent Life, which will be on display through January 3rd, 2021.

1 Cent Life, which will be on display in the Bechtler’s intimate second-floor gallery, features the work of Chinese-American visual artist and poet, Walasse Ting.

From the Bechtler Museum’s website:

Walasse Ting (1929–2010) was a Chinese-American visual artist and poet. Born in Shanghai, he left China in 1946 and lived in the British colony of Hong Kong for six years before settling in Paris where he anglicized his Chinese name, tacking on “sse” in emulation of the famed painter Henri Matisse. In Paris, Ting became associated with the CoBrA group whose expressionist style of painting was inspired by the art of children. In 1957, bolstered by newfound success as a painter, he relocated to the United States and settled in New York City.

In 1961, while living in a one-room studio near Times Square, Ting wrote a series of sixty-one poems. These poems communicate the wide-eyed ambition of a recent immigrant. They are simultaneously spiritual and secular, jarring and joyful. His use of free form text references both the tone and metrical patterns of classical Chinese poetry and the rhythm of the American Beat prose, Jazz music, and the urban environment. Each page radiates with a breathless immediacy that exudes a sense of the vital dynamism of New York City in the early 1960s as Ting was experiencing it.

I wrote 61 poems in ’61 in a small black room like coffin, inside room only salami, whisky…photographs from Times Square …no cookbook, no telephone book, no check-book. Two short fingers, typing talking about World & Garbage, You & I, Egg & Earth. – Walasse Ting

On display in the Bechtler’s intimate second-floor gallery, this exhibition features a rare signed limited edition of the 1 Cent Life portfolio and eighteen lithographs from the Bechtler’s collection alongside a selection of Ting’s poetry. Related educational programs will explore themes of the immigrant experience and identity and engage with the regional poetry scene.

The resulting portfolio stemmed from Ting’s desire to capture the zeitgeist of a creative community caught between European abstraction and Pop Art, specifically those artists who, like Ting, bridged both the European and American avant-garde movements. Containing sixty-two lithographs by twenty-eight artists, reproductions of French, Japanese, and American advertisements, postage stamps, photographs, Chinese seals, and sixty-one letterpress poems by Ting set in multicolored inks, the portfolio was edited by Sam Francis and printed in Paris by Maurice Beudet with typography by George Girard. In 1964, the1 Cent Life portfolio was published and distributed by E.W. Kornfeld in Bern, Switzerland, where the Bechtler Family purchased their edition.

Also on display:

Ten
On display until January 31st, 2021

Since the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art opened our doors in 2010, we have hosted more than thirty modern art exhibitions. TEN features a selection of works from sixteen past fourth-floor exhibitions, all brought together to showcase the excellence and share the joy of the Bechtler collection as we look back at the past decade in celebration of our ten-year anniversary. Exhibitions featured include: School of Paris: Abstraction Post World War II, Niki de Saint Phalle: Creation of a New Mythology, Geometry and Experimentation: European Art of the 1960s and 1970s, Mid-Century Modernism: 1957 and The Bechtler Collection, Giacometti: Memory and Presence, Artistic Relationships: Partners, Mentors, Lovers, Modernism in Changing Times: Works from 1968, British Invasion, The Art Books of Henri Matisse, Sam Francis: Rapid Fluid Indivisible Vision, The House That Modernism Built, Bechtler Collection: Relaunched and Rediscovered, Celebrating Jean Tinguely and Santana, Wrestling the Angel: A Century of Artists Reckoning With Religion, and Bechtler Unseen: Works from the 50s and 60s.

The following weekend, October 3-4, is a Bank of America Museums on Us weekend where the Bechtler and other participating museums are free to BOA cardholders the first full weekend of every month.

The Bechtler Museum will continue to provide virtual programs, including music and film programs, which you can watch for free from home.