Calendar of Events
Upcoming events and things to do in Asheville, NC. Below is a list of events for festivals, concerts, art exhibitions, group meetups and more.
Interested in adding an event to our calendar? Please click the green “Post Your Event” button below.
TRASHVILLE – A Sculpture Show by Asher Bernstein
FREE ENTRY + Refreshments
Music by A Real MF (Audio Immune System)
March 8th, 2025
6-10 PM
At the Kevin Andrew Gallery located in the Phil Mechanic building at 109 Roberts St.
@asherbernsteinart
www.asherbernstein.com
Former New York City call girl Mary Goggin shares the true, award-winning story of her upbringing in the Bronx, from alcoholism and drug addiction to prostitution — a journey from utter darkness to joy told with humor and unflinching honesty.
Connect with the artist in post-show discussions.
DISNEY’S THE ARISTOCATS KIDS
Music and Lyrics by Richard M. Sherman, Robert B. Sherman, Al Rinker and Floyd Huddleston. Music Adapted and Arranged and Additional Music and Lyrics by Bryan Louiselle. Book Adapted and Additional Lyrics by Michael Bernard.
March 7-9, 2025
Friday at 7:30pm, Saturday and Sunday at 2:30pm
ABOUT THE SHOW
Based on the beloved Disney animated film, and featuring a jazzy, upbeat score, Disney’s The Aristocats KIDS is a non-stop thrill ride of feline fun with unbelievable twists and turns. In the heart of Paris, a kind and eccentric millionaire wills her entire estate to Duchess, her high-society cat, and her three little kittens. Laughs and adventure ensue as the greedy butler pulls off the ultimate catnap caper. Now it’s up to the rough-and-tumble alley cat, Thomas O’Malley, and his band of swingin’ jazz cats to save the day. Everybody wants to be a cat in this stage adaptation of the classic Disney movie.
The road to the NCAA Final Four starts in Asheville. Don’t miss this opportunity to see some of the nation’s best conference tournament action as the Ingles Southern Conference Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships will take place March 6-10, 2025 at Harrah’s Cherokee Center Asheville in downtown. SoCon Tournament week has become an annual rite of spring in the Asheville community. Enjoy spending time in a city you’ve heard so much about. With excellent restaurants, breweries, shopping and activities, Asheville is a city with something for everyone.
In partnership with Explore Asheville, the Southern Conference is directing a portion of premium level ticket sales to the Always Asheville Fund, an emergency grant program supporting small, independent travel and hospitality businesses as they recover from the impacts of Hurricane Helene. Additionally, there will be numerous onsite giving opportunities for fans.
8 silk brocades qi gong workshop is open to all levels. Each movement in this set of 8 represents our ancestry, epigenetics, and destiny. Learn all 8 exercises or drop in for just a few. Stance training, posture and meditative movements for your health. It’s a super sophisticated qi gong form but simple to learn. I would love to invite anyone who’s new to internal martial arts or is simply searching for more comfortable safe and inclusive space for LGBTQ plus. The class will be offered in person at Shaolin kung fu in West Asheville starting on Feb 16 on Sundays at 10am for six weeks. Suggested donation for each class but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
The Asheville Art Museum is proud to present Asheville Strong: Celebrating Art and Community After Hurricane Helene, a poignant and inspiring exhibition on view February 13–May 5, 2025, in the Appleby Foundation Exhibition Hall. This non-juried exhibition
showcases the works of artists from the Helene-affected Appalachia region, celebrating their
resilience, creativity, and strength while highlighting the power of art to inspire and bring communities
together.
This exhibition explores how the land, the people, and the built environment of Asheville and its surrounding environs were interpreted through early 20th century vintage postcards. Some images show the sophisticated architecture of the region, including views of downtown Asheville, the Biltmore Estate, and Grove Park Inn. Other images show views of the scenic mountains and landscapes that first drew tourists and outdoor enthusiasts to the region.
The road to the NCAA Final Four starts in Asheville. Don’t miss this opportunity to see some of the nation’s best conference tournament action as the Ingles Southern Conference Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships will take place March 6-10, 2025 at Harrah’s Cherokee Center Asheville in downtown. SoCon Tournament week has become an annual rite of spring in the Asheville community. Enjoy spending time in a city you’ve heard so much about. With excellent restaurants, breweries, shopping and activities, Asheville is a city with something for everyone.
In partnership with Explore Asheville, the Southern Conference is directing a portion of premium level ticket sales to the Always Asheville Fund, an emergency grant program supporting small, independent travel and hospitality businesses as they recover from the impacts of Hurricane Helene. Additionally, there will be numerous onsite giving opportunities for fans.
Pieces made from nylon fabric ripstop, which keeps tears from spreading, invite viewers into created, fantastical worlds, only to highlight the complex—even impossible—architectures of their construction. Before the pandemic, Adrian primarily focused on personal experiences and interrogations of queerness, identity, and sexuality. Since then, the work has zoomed out in its scope, still centering identity but placed in larger infrastructure and surveillance systems that mediate, manipulate, and control desire.
Adrian counts queer fiber art, BDSM and kink culture, theatre, camp horror, puppetry, and drag among his many influences. Works in RIPSTOP, like the modernist bounce house sculpture A Fallible Complex (2021), evoke spaces for play, beckoning visitors in through their alluring aesthetic and then blocking their entrance or revealing structural instabilities, like missing floors. Others, like The Sensational Inflatable Furry Divines (2017-19), use sensual materials, like faux fur, spandex, and pleather, which connect to theatrical performance and counterculture. The materials “play on people’s initial associations and serve as a gateway into greater conversations about identity construction, performance, desire, and technology,” he shares.Pieces also nod to the history of quilting, including the AIDS Memorial Quilt, another influence on Adrian’s work. “Even when pieces aren’t explicitly making quilt references, I want the history of quilting and sewing-based craft to be part of the conversation of the work,” he says. “Craft is so much about the processes and histories behind materials. It’s about connecting with communities of people who practice those techniques. It’s about material and technique being a doorway into a greater relationship with an object.”
Themes of transformation—of structures, identities, and bodies—run throughout the show. “What I love about drag and puppetry is the sense of transformation and play, specifically with bodies,” Adrian says. “Within these art forms, a body can become mutable and capable of performing and becoming in unexpected states.” The sculptures also transform throughout viewers’ experiences, going through stages of inflation and deflation and existing in many different states.
RIPSTOP’s constant interplay between surface and depth, assumption and reality, are all a part of what Adrian describes as “looking behind the curtain,” which they trace back to the theatre. “When I’m thinking about systems, and the systems desire fits into, I’m thinking of stage construction, the backstage, the things that go on behind the show, and performance of our desires,” they explain.
As a craft artist, Adrian’s philosophy “comes down to having an intentional relationship with material, process, and technique,” he says. “Those aspects of art making are just as – if not more – important than an intellectualized concept being illustrated by an artwork.”
“Broadened definitions of craft that highlight communities of practice are foundational for the Center for Craft’s new strategic direction,” explains Executive Director Stephanie Moore. “Max Adrian’s work in RIPSTOP exemplifies the expansive and meaningful forms craft can take.” The Center for Craft is an institution Adrian credits for their professional growth. “The Center for Craft has felt like such a supporting institution for me specifically and for so many other craft artists I know,” they note. “To be able to bring this amount of work to Asheville is pretty cool.”
See Max Adrian: RIPSTOP at the Center for Craft Beginning July 26. A reception will be held on August 15. RIPSTOP is organized by Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and curated by Sarah Darro.
Pieces made from nylon fabric ripstop, which keeps tears from spreading, invite viewers into created, fantastical worlds, only to highlight the complex—even impossible—architectures of their construction. Before the pandemic, Adrian primarily focused on personal experiences and interrogations of queerness, identity, and sexuality. Since then, the work has zoomed out in its scope, still centering identity but placed in larger infrastructure and surveillance systems that mediate, manipulate, and control desire.
Adrian counts queer fiber art, BDSM and kink culture, theatre, camp horror, puppetry, and drag among his many influences. Works in RIPSTOP, like the modernist bounce house sculpture A Fallible Complex (2021), evoke spaces for play, beckoning visitors in through their alluring aesthetic and then blocking their entrance or revealing structural instabilities, like missing floors. Others, like The Sensational Inflatable Furry Divines (2017-19), use sensual materials, like faux fur, spandex, and pleather, which connect to theatrical performance and counterculture. The materials “play on people’s initial associations and serve as a gateway into greater conversations about identity construction, performance, desire, and technology,” he shares.Pieces also nod to the history of quilting, including the AIDS Memorial Quilt, another influence on Adrian’s work. “Even when pieces aren’t explicitly making quilt references, I want the history of quilting and sewing-based craft to be part of the conversation of the work,” he says. “Craft is so much about the processes and histories behind materials. It’s about connecting with communities of people who practice those techniques. It’s about material and technique being a doorway into a greater relationship with an object.”
Themes of transformation—of structures, identities, and bodies—run throughout the show. “What I love about drag and puppetry is the sense of transformation and play, specifically with bodies,” Adrian says. “Within these art forms, a body can become mutable and capable of performing and becoming in unexpected states.” The sculptures also transform throughout viewers’ experiences, going through stages of inflation and deflation and existing in many different states.
RIPSTOP’s constant interplay between surface and depth, assumption and reality, are all a part of what Adrian describes as “looking behind the curtain,” which they trace back to the theatre. “When I’m thinking about systems, and the systems desire fits into, I’m thinking of stage construction, the backstage, the things that go on behind the show, and performance of our desires,” they explain.
As a craft artist, Adrian’s philosophy “comes down to having an intentional relationship with material, process, and technique,” he says. “Those aspects of art making are just as – if not more – important than an intellectualized concept being illustrated by an artwork.”
“Broadened definitions of craft that highlight communities of practice are foundational for the Center for Craft’s new strategic direction,” explains Executive Director Stephanie Moore. “Max Adrian’s work in RIPSTOP exemplifies the expansive and meaningful forms craft can take.” The Center for Craft is an institution Adrian credits for their professional growth. “The Center for Craft has felt like such a supporting institution for me specifically and for so many other craft artists I know,” they note. “To be able to bring this amount of work to Asheville is pretty cool.”
See Max Adrian: RIPSTOP at the Center for Craft Beginning July 26. A reception will be held on August 15. RIPSTOP is organized by Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and curated by Sarah Darro.
SHUCKED is the Tony Award®–winning musical comedy The Wall Street Journal calls “flat out hilarious!” And nobody knows funny like economists. Featuring a book by Tony Award winner Robert Horn (Tootsie), a score by the Grammy® Award–winning songwriting team of Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally (Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow”), and directed by Tony Award winner Jack O’Brien (Hairspray), this corn-fed, corn-bred American musical is sure to satisfy your appetite for great musical theater.
SHUCKED is recommended for ages 10+. SHUCKED contains adult themes, moments of adult language, and a harvest of corny innuendo.
Pieces made from nylon fabric ripstop, which keeps tears from spreading, invite viewers into created, fantastical worlds, only to highlight the complex—even impossible—architectures of their construction. Before the pandemic, Adrian primarily focused on personal experiences and interrogations of queerness, identity, and sexuality. Since then, the work has zoomed out in its scope, still centering identity but placed in larger infrastructure and surveillance systems that mediate, manipulate, and control desire.
Adrian counts queer fiber art, BDSM and kink culture, theatre, camp horror, puppetry, and drag among his many influences. Works in RIPSTOP, like the modernist bounce house sculpture A Fallible Complex (2021), evoke spaces for play, beckoning visitors in through their alluring aesthetic and then blocking their entrance or revealing structural instabilities, like missing floors. Others, like The Sensational Inflatable Furry Divines (2017-19), use sensual materials, like faux fur, spandex, and pleather, which connect to theatrical performance and counterculture. The materials “play on people’s initial associations and serve as a gateway into greater conversations about identity construction, performance, desire, and technology,” he shares.Pieces also nod to the history of quilting, including the AIDS Memorial Quilt, another influence on Adrian’s work. “Even when pieces aren’t explicitly making quilt references, I want the history of quilting and sewing-based craft to be part of the conversation of the work,” he says. “Craft is so much about the processes and histories behind materials. It’s about connecting with communities of people who practice those techniques. It’s about material and technique being a doorway into a greater relationship with an object.”
Themes of transformation—of structures, identities, and bodies—run throughout the show. “What I love about drag and puppetry is the sense of transformation and play, specifically with bodies,” Adrian says. “Within these art forms, a body can become mutable and capable of performing and becoming in unexpected states.” The sculptures also transform throughout viewers’ experiences, going through stages of inflation and deflation and existing in many different states.
RIPSTOP’s constant interplay between surface and depth, assumption and reality, are all a part of what Adrian describes as “looking behind the curtain,” which they trace back to the theatre. “When I’m thinking about systems, and the systems desire fits into, I’m thinking of stage construction, the backstage, the things that go on behind the show, and performance of our desires,” they explain.
As a craft artist, Adrian’s philosophy “comes down to having an intentional relationship with material, process, and technique,” he says. “Those aspects of art making are just as – if not more – important than an intellectualized concept being illustrated by an artwork.”
“Broadened definitions of craft that highlight communities of practice are foundational for the Center for Craft’s new strategic direction,” explains Executive Director Stephanie Moore. “Max Adrian’s work in RIPSTOP exemplifies the expansive and meaningful forms craft can take.” The Center for Craft is an institution Adrian credits for their professional growth. “The Center for Craft has felt like such a supporting institution for me specifically and for so many other craft artists I know,” they note. “To be able to bring this amount of work to Asheville is pretty cool.”
See Max Adrian: RIPSTOP at the Center for Craft Beginning July 26. A reception will be held on August 15. RIPSTOP is organized by Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and curated by Sarah Darro.
The Asheville Art Museum is proud to present Asheville Strong: Celebrating Art and Community After Hurricane Helene, a poignant and inspiring exhibition on view February 13–May 5, 2025, in the Appleby Foundation Exhibition Hall. This non-juried exhibition
showcases the works of artists from the Helene-affected Appalachia region, celebrating their
resilience, creativity, and strength while highlighting the power of art to inspire and bring communities
together.
This exhibition explores how the land, the people, and the built environment of Asheville and its surrounding environs were interpreted through early 20th century vintage postcards. Some images show the sophisticated architecture of the region, including views of downtown Asheville, the Biltmore Estate, and Grove Park Inn. Other images show views of the scenic mountains and landscapes that first drew tourists and outdoor enthusiasts to the region.
Pieces made from nylon fabric ripstop, which keeps tears from spreading, invite viewers into created, fantastical worlds, only to highlight the complex—even impossible—architectures of their construction. Before the pandemic, Adrian primarily focused on personal experiences and interrogations of queerness, identity, and sexuality. Since then, the work has zoomed out in its scope, still centering identity but placed in larger infrastructure and surveillance systems that mediate, manipulate, and control desire.
Adrian counts queer fiber art, BDSM and kink culture, theatre, camp horror, puppetry, and drag among his many influences. Works in RIPSTOP, like the modernist bounce house sculpture A Fallible Complex (2021), evoke spaces for play, beckoning visitors in through their alluring aesthetic and then blocking their entrance or revealing structural instabilities, like missing floors. Others, like The Sensational Inflatable Furry Divines (2017-19), use sensual materials, like faux fur, spandex, and pleather, which connect to theatrical performance and counterculture. The materials “play on people’s initial associations and serve as a gateway into greater conversations about identity construction, performance, desire, and technology,” he shares.Pieces also nod to the history of quilting, including the AIDS Memorial Quilt, another influence on Adrian’s work. “Even when pieces aren’t explicitly making quilt references, I want the history of quilting and sewing-based craft to be part of the conversation of the work,” he says. “Craft is so much about the processes and histories behind materials. It’s about connecting with communities of people who practice those techniques. It’s about material and technique being a doorway into a greater relationship with an object.”
Themes of transformation—of structures, identities, and bodies—run throughout the show. “What I love about drag and puppetry is the sense of transformation and play, specifically with bodies,” Adrian says. “Within these art forms, a body can become mutable and capable of performing and becoming in unexpected states.” The sculptures also transform throughout viewers’ experiences, going through stages of inflation and deflation and existing in many different states.
RIPSTOP’s constant interplay between surface and depth, assumption and reality, are all a part of what Adrian describes as “looking behind the curtain,” which they trace back to the theatre. “When I’m thinking about systems, and the systems desire fits into, I’m thinking of stage construction, the backstage, the things that go on behind the show, and performance of our desires,” they explain.
As a craft artist, Adrian’s philosophy “comes down to having an intentional relationship with material, process, and technique,” he says. “Those aspects of art making are just as – if not more – important than an intellectualized concept being illustrated by an artwork.”
“Broadened definitions of craft that highlight communities of practice are foundational for the Center for Craft’s new strategic direction,” explains Executive Director Stephanie Moore. “Max Adrian’s work in RIPSTOP exemplifies the expansive and meaningful forms craft can take.” The Center for Craft is an institution Adrian credits for their professional growth. “The Center for Craft has felt like such a supporting institution for me specifically and for so many other craft artists I know,” they note. “To be able to bring this amount of work to Asheville is pretty cool.”
See Max Adrian: RIPSTOP at the Center for Craft Beginning July 26. A reception will be held on August 15. RIPSTOP is organized by Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and curated by Sarah Darro.
The Asheville Art Museum is proud to present Asheville Strong: Celebrating Art and Community After Hurricane Helene, a poignant and inspiring exhibition on view February 13–May 5, 2025, in the Appleby Foundation Exhibition Hall. This non-juried exhibition
showcases the works of artists from the Helene-affected Appalachia region, celebrating their
resilience, creativity, and strength while highlighting the power of art to inspire and bring communities
together.
This exhibition explores how the land, the people, and the built environment of Asheville and its surrounding environs were interpreted through early 20th century vintage postcards. Some images show the sophisticated architecture of the region, including views of downtown Asheville, the Biltmore Estate, and Grove Park Inn. Other images show views of the scenic mountains and landscapes that first drew tourists and outdoor enthusiasts to the region.
Fishes of the Southern Appalachians with Carlton Burke
ON-SITE | Thursday, March 13 | 12 – 4 pm
Blue Ridge Naturalist – Wildlife of the Blue Ridge Core Credit
The Southern Appalachian region is rich with a variety of fish species. These include not only the better known species of game fish that we love to catch for sport or food, but also include an incredible diversity of smaller, lesser-known non-game fish, which play an important role in the ecology of our aquatic mountain habitats. In this class we will discuss many of the fish species found in the mountain region and learn about their classification, habitat, life cycles, and their identifying features.
This program includes a lab portion of the class where students will see some features of fish hands on with real fish specimens.
Winner of the 2018 Tony Award for Best Play
Weaving together nearly two centuries of family history, this epic theatrical event charts the humble beginnings, outrageous successes and devastating failure of the financial institution that would ultimately bring the global economy to its knees.
Performances of The Lehman Trilogy will be held on the days and times listed below. The lobby and concessions area will open one hour prior to showtime. Concessions may be taken into the theatre during the performance.
March 13 – April 6, 2025
Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 7:00pm (please note, the 7pm start time is earlier than for other shows)
Sundays at 2pm
Friday 3/14 and 3/21 at 7:00pm
Friday 3/18 and 4/4 at 2pm
SHUCKED is the Tony Award®–winning musical comedy The Wall Street Journal calls “flat out hilarious!” And nobody knows funny like economists. Featuring a book by Tony Award winner Robert Horn (Tootsie), a score by the Grammy® Award–winning songwriting team of Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally (Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow”), and directed by Tony Award winner Jack O’Brien (Hairspray), this corn-fed, corn-bred American musical is sure to satisfy your appetite for great musical theater.
SHUCKED is recommended for ages 10+. SHUCKED contains adult themes, moments of adult language, and a harvest of corny innuendo.
Pieces made from nylon fabric ripstop, which keeps tears from spreading, invite viewers into created, fantastical worlds, only to highlight the complex—even impossible—architectures of their construction. Before the pandemic, Adrian primarily focused on personal experiences and interrogations of queerness, identity, and sexuality. Since then, the work has zoomed out in its scope, still centering identity but placed in larger infrastructure and surveillance systems that mediate, manipulate, and control desire.
Adrian counts queer fiber art, BDSM and kink culture, theatre, camp horror, puppetry, and drag among his many influences. Works in RIPSTOP, like the modernist bounce house sculpture A Fallible Complex (2021), evoke spaces for play, beckoning visitors in through their alluring aesthetic and then blocking their entrance or revealing structural instabilities, like missing floors. Others, like The Sensational Inflatable Furry Divines (2017-19), use sensual materials, like faux fur, spandex, and pleather, which connect to theatrical performance and counterculture. The materials “play on people’s initial associations and serve as a gateway into greater conversations about identity construction, performance, desire, and technology,” he shares.Pieces also nod to the history of quilting, including the AIDS Memorial Quilt, another influence on Adrian’s work. “Even when pieces aren’t explicitly making quilt references, I want the history of quilting and sewing-based craft to be part of the conversation of the work,” he says. “Craft is so much about the processes and histories behind materials. It’s about connecting with communities of people who practice those techniques. It’s about material and technique being a doorway into a greater relationship with an object.”
Themes of transformation—of structures, identities, and bodies—run throughout the show. “What I love about drag and puppetry is the sense of transformation and play, specifically with bodies,” Adrian says. “Within these art forms, a body can become mutable and capable of performing and becoming in unexpected states.” The sculptures also transform throughout viewers’ experiences, going through stages of inflation and deflation and existing in many different states.
RIPSTOP’s constant interplay between surface and depth, assumption and reality, are all a part of what Adrian describes as “looking behind the curtain,” which they trace back to the theatre. “When I’m thinking about systems, and the systems desire fits into, I’m thinking of stage construction, the backstage, the things that go on behind the show, and performance of our desires,” they explain.
As a craft artist, Adrian’s philosophy “comes down to having an intentional relationship with material, process, and technique,” he says. “Those aspects of art making are just as – if not more – important than an intellectualized concept being illustrated by an artwork.”
“Broadened definitions of craft that highlight communities of practice are foundational for the Center for Craft’s new strategic direction,” explains Executive Director Stephanie Moore. “Max Adrian’s work in RIPSTOP exemplifies the expansive and meaningful forms craft can take.” The Center for Craft is an institution Adrian credits for their professional growth. “The Center for Craft has felt like such a supporting institution for me specifically and for so many other craft artists I know,” they note. “To be able to bring this amount of work to Asheville is pretty cool.”
See Max Adrian: RIPSTOP at the Center for Craft Beginning July 26. A reception will be held on August 15. RIPSTOP is organized by Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and curated by Sarah Darro.
The Asheville Art Museum is proud to present Asheville Strong: Celebrating Art and Community After Hurricane Helene, a poignant and inspiring exhibition on view February 13–May 5, 2025, in the Appleby Foundation Exhibition Hall. This non-juried exhibition
showcases the works of artists from the Helene-affected Appalachia region, celebrating their
resilience, creativity, and strength while highlighting the power of art to inspire and bring communities
together.
This exhibition explores how the land, the people, and the built environment of Asheville and its surrounding environs were interpreted through early 20th century vintage postcards. Some images show the sophisticated architecture of the region, including views of downtown Asheville, the Biltmore Estate, and Grove Park Inn. Other images show views of the scenic mountains and landscapes that first drew tourists and outdoor enthusiasts to the region.
Protecting our Native Hemlocks: Treatment Demonstration with Hemlock Restorative Initiative
ON-SITE | Friday, March 14 | 1 – 4 pm
Blue Ridge EcoGardener – Elective Credit
Join Hemlock Restoration Initiative staff for a demonstration and workshop in the Arboretum forest to learn the fundamentals of treating hemlock trees to protect them from the invasive insect, hemlock woolly adelgid. Designed for a general audience, this workshop is great for homeowners who steward hemlocks on their property or for anyone interested in learning treatment basics. Today hemlock management is simpler and less expensive than ever before!
Winner of the 2018 Tony Award for Best Play
Weaving together nearly two centuries of family history, this epic theatrical event charts the humble beginnings, outrageous successes and devastating failure of the financial institution that would ultimately bring the global economy to its knees.
Performances of The Lehman Trilogy will be held on the days and times listed below. The lobby and concessions area will open one hour prior to showtime. Concessions may be taken into the theatre during the performance.
March 13 – April 6, 2025
Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 7:00pm (please note, the 7pm start time is earlier than for other shows)
Sundays at 2pm
Friday 3/14 and 3/21 at 7:00pm
Friday 3/18 and 4/4 at 2pm
Pieces made from nylon fabric ripstop, which keeps tears from spreading, invite viewers into created, fantastical worlds, only to highlight the complex—even impossible—architectures of their construction. Before the pandemic, Adrian primarily focused on personal experiences and interrogations of queerness, identity, and sexuality. Since then, the work has zoomed out in its scope, still centering identity but placed in larger infrastructure and surveillance systems that mediate, manipulate, and control desire.
Adrian counts queer fiber art, BDSM and kink culture, theatre, camp horror, puppetry, and drag among his many influences. Works in RIPSTOP, like the modernist bounce house sculpture A Fallible Complex (2021), evoke spaces for play, beckoning visitors in through their alluring aesthetic and then blocking their entrance or revealing structural instabilities, like missing floors. Others, like The Sensational Inflatable Furry Divines (2017-19), use sensual materials, like faux fur, spandex, and pleather, which connect to theatrical performance and counterculture. The materials “play on people’s initial associations and serve as a gateway into greater conversations about identity construction, performance, desire, and technology,” he shares.Pieces also nod to the history of quilting, including the AIDS Memorial Quilt, another influence on Adrian’s work. “Even when pieces aren’t explicitly making quilt references, I want the history of quilting and sewing-based craft to be part of the conversation of the work,” he says. “Craft is so much about the processes and histories behind materials. It’s about connecting with communities of people who practice those techniques. It’s about material and technique being a doorway into a greater relationship with an object.”
Themes of transformation—of structures, identities, and bodies—run throughout the show. “What I love about drag and puppetry is the sense of transformation and play, specifically with bodies,” Adrian says. “Within these art forms, a body can become mutable and capable of performing and becoming in unexpected states.” The sculptures also transform throughout viewers’ experiences, going through stages of inflation and deflation and existing in many different states.
RIPSTOP’s constant interplay between surface and depth, assumption and reality, are all a part of what Adrian describes as “looking behind the curtain,” which they trace back to the theatre. “When I’m thinking about systems, and the systems desire fits into, I’m thinking of stage construction, the backstage, the things that go on behind the show, and performance of our desires,” they explain.
As a craft artist, Adrian’s philosophy “comes down to having an intentional relationship with material, process, and technique,” he says. “Those aspects of art making are just as – if not more – important than an intellectualized concept being illustrated by an artwork.”
“Broadened definitions of craft that highlight communities of practice are foundational for the Center for Craft’s new strategic direction,” explains Executive Director Stephanie Moore. “Max Adrian’s work in RIPSTOP exemplifies the expansive and meaningful forms craft can take.” The Center for Craft is an institution Adrian credits for their professional growth. “The Center for Craft has felt like such a supporting institution for me specifically and for so many other craft artists I know,” they note. “To be able to bring this amount of work to Asheville is pretty cool.”
See Max Adrian: RIPSTOP at the Center for Craft Beginning July 26. A reception will be held on August 15. RIPSTOP is organized by Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and curated by Sarah Darro.
The Asheville Art Museum is proud to present Asheville Strong: Celebrating Art and Community After Hurricane Helene, a poignant and inspiring exhibition on view February 13–May 5, 2025, in the Appleby Foundation Exhibition Hall. This non-juried exhibition
showcases the works of artists from the Helene-affected Appalachia region, celebrating their
resilience, creativity, and strength while highlighting the power of art to inspire and bring communities
together.
This exhibition explores how the land, the people, and the built environment of Asheville and its surrounding environs were interpreted through early 20th century vintage postcards. Some images show the sophisticated architecture of the region, including views of downtown Asheville, the Biltmore Estate, and Grove Park Inn. Other images show views of the scenic mountains and landscapes that first drew tourists and outdoor enthusiasts to the region.
SHUCKED is the Tony Award®–winning musical comedy The Wall Street Journal calls “flat out hilarious!” And nobody knows funny like economists. Featuring a book by Tony Award winner Robert Horn (Tootsie), a score by the Grammy® Award–winning songwriting team of Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally (Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow”), and directed by Tony Award winner Jack O’Brien (Hairspray), this corn-fed, corn-bred American musical is sure to satisfy your appetite for great musical theater.
SHUCKED is recommended for ages 10+. SHUCKED contains adult themes, moments of adult language, and a harvest of corny innuendo.