Ackland holds humanities exhibit on the 'All About America' in American history

The Ackland Art Museum is about to get a lot more patriotic.

It will be hosting an exhibition of photographs titled “All About America” by Burk Uzzle, a North Carolinian photographer, from Friday to Sept. 11, 2016.

The exhibit is the third, last and largest of several local exhibits of Uzzle’s work to open this summer. The others were at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

“I think it’s a great visual cross-section of American history and geography,” said Emily Bowles, director of communications at the Ackland. “I think we, as Americans, whether young or old, can find ourselves in these photographs.” 

Uzzle describes the photos in the exhibit as deliberate in their Southern charm.

“It's a Southern sense of whimsy and charm with a little humor mixed in, all the time phrased with very careful graphics,” he said.

Along with the exhibit is a series of lectures titled “The Turbulent Decade: 1965-1975." The lectures are being presented this Friday and Saturday at the Ackland through the Program in the Humanities and Human Values at UNC. 

Although the lectures span a decade, Uzzle has photographs ranging from the 1960s to the present. 

“It’s been so beautifully curated by Patricia Leighton and Peter Nisbet,” Uzzle said. “The whole exhibit ends up being a tribute to the former director Emily Kass and her husband Charles Weinraub, because without their commitment to my work and legacy, the body of my work at the Ackland would not be there and I wouldn’t even be living in North Carolina.” 

The speakers will discuss the movements of the decade, ranging from black and native activism to the musical movements of Bob Dylan and the Beatles.

“It was probably the most convulsive decade, in my lifetime, at least,” said Ken Weiss, who will discuss the popular music of the era at “The Turbulent Decade.” “If you take a look at the arts, there was a creative explosion, even a Renaissance, if you will.” 

Uzzle said there seemed to be a more optimistic spirit in the United States from 1965 to 1975 than there is today, in spite of the many changes the decade held.

He also said people should come to the event if they are at all curious about the decade or his work.

"There's the presumed joy of sharing a unique vision,” he said.

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