Irwin Kremen: Beyond Black Mountain (1966 to 2006)

The Nasher Museum presents a retrospective of the work of Irwin Kremen, a North Carolina artist and retired Duke professor whose work had been shown nationally and abroad. Irwin Kremen: Beyond Black Mountain (1966 to 2006) included collage, painting and sculpture spanning each of the 40 years of the artist’s career. Kremen’s abstract collages are often composed from pieces of weathered paper he gathered during his travels. In the 1940s, Kremen took classes from poet M.C. Richards at Black Mountain College, a progressive liberal arts school near Asheville, N.C. Later, in 1951, he became friends with Black Mountain artists John Cage, Merce Cunningham and David Tudor. After playing with different materials, Kremen began to make intensely beautiful collages, mostly created from scraps of weathered paper he gathered during overseas travels. His sculptures are composed of iron, saw blades and steel, among other materials. Kremen’s work has been shown in more than 30 venues at museums and contemporary art centers nationally and abroad.