Global Contemporary Art Galleries

The NCMA’s collection of global contemporary art encompasses works created in the present day and going back twenty-five years. In this timeframe contemporary art has become a more worldwide, cross-cultural exchange fostered by digital technology, international trade, and travel. As you will see in these galleries, artists working today are promoting the exchange of ideas and images, cultivating essential developments in new and experimental media, and continuing to cross boundaries between artistic disciplines.

At the NCMA we have made a concerted effort to acquire works that diversify our collection, expanding cultural and regional representation and exemplifying transnational connections. In particular we put North Carolina artists in dialogue with creatives from varied cultural backgrounds to challenge how we define and engage art across experience, time, and place. These conversations demonstrate the artistic merit from within our state and the South’s influence on global trends as a whole.

Throughout these galleries you will see works by contemporary artists exploring and redefining a wide range of artistic mediums, including painting, sculpture, photography, video, and new-media art. The space opens with an installation that highlights contributions to contemporary art by women and artists of color, focusing on individual and communal formations of identity throughout time.

The global contemporary collection continues in a group of galleries that display abstract representations of multinational issues, artists’ interpretations of war and its aftermath, as well as the innovation of mediums and materials over the past twenty-five years.

Maya Brooks
Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art

Linda Johnson Dougherty
Chief Curator and Curator of Contemporary Art