Mint Museum will feature 60+ diverse Charlotte street artists in new exhibit
A pop-up exhibit on its way to Charlotte’s Mint Museum Uptown location addresses the reality that museums and cultural institutions are often seen as unwelcoming and uninviting places for minority artists and visitors.
This is the second year the LOCAL/STREET exhibit will be running, and this time it will feature 60+ local street artists who are defining Charlotte’s 21st century visual identity. Visitors will browse sculptures, paintings, multimedia works and more from June 17-24.
“After one year, the exhibition is beginning to take shape as a citywide representation of Charlotte’s artists and creatives,” local artist Carla Aaron-Lopez said in a statement.
Aaron-Lopez wants to prevent Black Lives Matter mural artists in Charlotte from getting “pigeonholed” by this one work. “A lot of the times, artists will get known for one thing and you’ll never see what else they do,” she said.
The mural was painted on an uptown block of South Tryon Street last summer. Local artists came together after 11 nights of protests in Charlotte in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others at the hands of the police. The mural spells out “Black Lives Matter,” and each letter was painted by a different artist or artists.
Aaron-Lopez curated the LOCAL/STREET exhibit along with Mint Museum’s chief curator and curator of contemporary art, Jennifer Sudul Edwards.
The goal of the exhibit is to bring attention to local artists of color and strengthen the relationship between them and the greater Charlotte community, Edwards said. “The first LOCAL/STREET was a complete explosion of color, style and exceptional talent. I can’t wait to see what the second installment brings,” she said.
Aaron-Lopez also worked with Charlotte Is Creative on the exhibit. Charlotte Is Creative’s co-founder Matt Olin helped secure a grant from the North Carolina Arts Council to support Carla’s vision and the second annual installation of the exhibit. “We believe in making the creative conditions in Charlotte whereby artists can thrive where they can have successful careers,” he told CharlotteFive.
Last year’s exhibit was a success, featuring over 40 diverse street artists who had never held exhibits in museums or galleries — and the show attracted over 1,000 visitors. This year’s exhibit will be even bigger, with more than 60 local artists represented. A few of them:
Mint Museum Uptown
Location: 500 S Tryon St, Charlotte, NC 28202
Neighborhood: Uptown Charlotte
What: LOCAL/STREET pop-up exhibit
When: June 17-26
Hours: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wednesday and Friday and 1-5 p.m. on Sunday.
Price: $15 per adult, $10 per college student and senior and $6 per child ages 5-17.
Tickets: Purchase your ticket online at https://mintmuseum.org/ticketing/
This story was originally published June 15, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
