Robert Ladislas Derr: New Day

Robert Ladislas Derr creates a new interactive performance titled New Day for Asheville Fringe Arts Festival, which departs from a painting of Asheville native and Black Mountain College alum, Kenneth Noland. Derr casts viewers as painters in a playful investigation of Noland’s New Day, 1967. The Modernist painting becomes a social experience with the community. Viewers apply the 41 color stripes in New Day to a transparent canvas while Derr films from the other side. Movement and indefinite continuation imbues as participants immerse into the imagination of time and space at the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center on Saturday, January 25, 2020, 11am-5pm.

Derr is known for performances from live to intervention and multimedia installations, which have been presented widely at such venues as Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Schirn Kunsthalle, and Irish Film Institute. From participatory to solitary experiences, Derr pivots others and himself in performances unfolding as experiential and gestural language. Each element unfurls taking the choreographed and unforeseen on his journey.

The Asheville Fringe Arts Festival provides artists with opportunities to explore the edges of their work, to collaborate across genres and to bring new and innovative performances to culturally adventurous audiences. The Festival’s continual goal is to curate experiences that expand the minds and hearts of its audiences and to be inclusive of artists who work within a myriad of genres, styles, and forms to create truly unique and original pieces in the community.

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) preserves and continues the legacy of educational and artistic innovation of Black Mountain College (BMC). It achieves its mission through collection, conservation, and educational activities including exhibitions, publications, and public programs.