Ann and Jim Goodnight Museum Park

You & Me is an interactive work that requires two people's participation. There are seven pairs of platforms throughout the Park. Use the You & Me map, which you can pick up at the West Building Information Desk, to find a pair of platforms and have your partner stand on one platform while you stand on the other. When in position, each of you will appear  to the other to be on or in a nearby work of art.

Watch this video to see just how it works.

Take photos of what you see and share them on social media using #NCMAyoume. 

The Rodin Garden, outside West Building, is one of the most stunning places on the Museum campus. Delicate bamboo shoots tower overhead, and a reflecting pool with gorgeous water lilies sets off the remarkable life-size Rodin bronzes.

Rodin’s The Three Shades was originally conceived for The Gates of Hell. In the Inferno Dante describes three shades, souls of his departed countrymen, who danced in a circle as they told of their woeful state in Hades. In the plan of The Gates of Hell, the shades pointed downward to an inscription: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

Auguste Rodin, The Three Shades, modeled circa 1886, enlarged circa 1901, Musée Rodin cast 1981, bronze, H. 75 1/2 x W. 75 1/2 x D. 42 in., Gift of the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation, 2009

The honeycombed layers of Ursula von Rydingsvard’s sculptures consist of roughly hewn cedar blocks cut and stacked to create vessel-shaped forms that also make reference to the rocky cliffs of a natural landscape, the human body, and architectural structures. She creates her sculptures intuitively, layer by layer, without preliminary sketches or models, and the irregular markings that cover the surface remind the viewer that this is a labor-intensive process. The artist says:

My love for wood is part of my history. I come from a long line of Polish peasant farmers, and they were surrounded with wood—wooden homes, wooden fences, domestic implements, wooden tools to farm the land. When you enter any of those houses you’ll see right outside a huge stack of firewood, usually quite beautifully stacked, with smoothly cut ends. There is, I guess, a feeling of familiarity, a feeling of comfort and grace. And at the same time, because of the familiarity, I can really push it around.

Ursula von Rydingsvard, Ogromna, 2009, cedar and graphite, H. 20 ft. 7 in x W. 12 ft. 4 in. x D. 11 ft. 8 in., Commissioned with funds from the North Carolina State Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest)

Askew is part of a series of works that Roxy Paine describes as “dendroids,” treelike forms with elaborate branching structures. His sculptures are inspired by real trees but never truthful depictions of actual species. “I’ve processed the idea of a tree and created a system for its form," Paine says. "I take this organic, majestic being and break it down into components and rules. The branches are translated into pipe and rod.” 

The stainless steel surfaces of the work change dramatically with the light—mirroring, absorbing, and reflecting the tree’s environment, and turning the colors of the natural world into a brilliant metallic light show.

Roxy Paine, Askew, 2009, stainless steel, H. 46 ft. 8 in., Gift in honor of Julia Jones Daniels, chairman of the Board of Trustees of the North Carolina Museum of Art (1998–2002) and member of the Board of Trustees (1983–95)

This prolific sculptor made work in wood, stone, and bronze. As a student in London, Henry Moore absorbed the influences around him, both the work of his contemporaries and the pre-Columbian and ancient art in the British Museum. It is easy to see a connection between Large Standing Figure and ancient art. Moore called an earlier version of this work Winged Victory, acknowledging the Louvre’s Hellenistic Nike of Samothrace.

Moore liked the shape of bones. He studied and drew them and had the idea to model a work on the knife-edge thinness of a bird’s breast bone. He worked up the maquette in clay, adding vestigial head and arms and elaborating the torso with drapery—thus drawing out an affinity with Greek sculpture. The sculpture retains a suggestion of a wingspread and, with the wings’ diagonal orientation, a sensation of rising skyward.

Henry Spencer Moore, Large Standing Figure: Knife Edge, 1961, cast 1976, bronze, H. (including base) 137 1/2 in., Bequest of Gordon Hanes

Henry Moore admired the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncuși for returning sculpture to uncomplicated, basic shapes, a lesson he took to heart. A striking formal simplification is a hallmark of Moore’s oeuvre.

The soft curves and bulges of Large Spindle Piece reflect the artist’s abiding interest in organic form, yet its pointed projections—echoing machine parts—demonstrate that he was not unaffected by modern technology. Moore’s concern was not just with nature and the human figure, but with their relationship to the man-made environment.

Sited to honor Moore’s intention that the work be viewed from different angles, Large Spindle Piece is perhaps best seen against the backdrop the artist preferred above all others, the sky.

Henry Spencer Moore, Large Spindle Piece, 1974, from the model of 1968–69, bronze, 128 x 127 in., Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Hanes

Auguste Rodin, Naked Muse, without Arms (study for “The Monument to Whistler”), modeled 1905–06, enlarged 1907–08, Musée Rodin cast 1991, bronze, H. 88 x W. 35 1/2 x D. 42 7/8 in., Gift of the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation

While you’re exploring the Museum Park, look for 14 metal plates with etchings of native plants and animals. They were designed by artist Tim Purus as reliefs that show the connection between art and the natural world. Bring paper and crayons with you, and you can make your own work of art, a plate rubbing, to take home.

Tim Purus, A Closer Look, 2010, etched aluminum, 14 plates

The largest work of art at the NCMA was a collaboration between textual artist Barbara Kruger, architects Henry Smith-Miller and Laurie Hawkinson, and landscape architect Nicholas Quennell. Giant letters that stretch across the amphitheater and outdoor stage spell out PICTURE THIS. The 80-foot-long letters are sculpted into the landscape from a variety of materials and sprawl over more than two acres.

Barbara Kruger, Henry Smith-Miller, Laurie Hawkinson, and Nicholas Quennell, PICTURE THIS/Museum Park Theater, designed 1992–94, constructed 1994–97, various materials and dimensions

A World War II veteran, Vollis Simpson built his first wind machine as a power source while stationed on the island of Saipan. He started creating kinetic sculptures out of found objects when he retired in 1985 in eastern North Carolina. Made of discarded parts from cars, trucks, bicycles, farm machinery, streetlights, and highways signs, Simpson’s whirligigs transform everyday objects and industrial materials into whimsical sculptures.

Vollis Simpson, Wind Machine, 2002, steel and other media, H. 30 x W. 30 x D. 15 ft., Commissioned by the North Carolina Museum of Art with funds from the William R. Roberson Jr. and Frances M. Roberson Endowed Fund for North Carolina Art

South African artist Ledelle Moe works in steel and concrete to create larger-than-life figurative sculptures. Collapse I sprawls across the top of a ridge in the Museum Park, a massive human form lying on its side. Her Untitled sits along the trail deeper in the woods, a boulderlike form of a human figure curled into a ball. Inside West Building is another of her works, Congregation, in which she incorporated soil from the Park.

Ledelle Moe, Collapse I, 2000, concrete and steel, H. 9 x W. 34 x D. 12 ft., Courtesy of Ledelle Moe

Untitled, Ledelle Moe, 2007, concrete and steel, H, 72 x W. 108 x D. 96 in., Courtesy of Ledelle Moe

This shelter operates as an oversized camera obscura or pinhole camera. A small aperture in the roof projects an inverted image of the sky onto the floor of the chamber, an effect that seems to pull the sky down to the viewer. Inside, one’s perspective is turned upside down. Instead of looking up at the sky, trees, or clouds, one looks down on them from above.

Chris Drury, Cloud Chamber for the Trees and Sky, 2003, stone, wood, and turf, approx. Diam. 12 ft., Commissioned by the North Carolina Museum of Art with funds from the North Carolina State Art Society

This sculpture was created on site by North Carolina artist Thomas Sayre. A backhoe was used to dig three elliptical trenches that were filled with concrete and steel bars. After the concrete curves cured for a month, a crane lifted the rings from the ground and lowered them into their existing location. The title Gyre refers to a circular or spiraling motion—gyration—and a spiraling shape, like a vortex or tornado.

Thomas Sayre, Gyre, 1999, three ellipses of concrete, colored with iron oxide, reinforced with steel, and mottled with dirt residue from earth casting,overall length 150 ft. Gift of Artsplosure, City of Raleigh, and various donors

Designed and built specifically for this site by an artist and a designer who both live and work in Raleigh, this “art-as-shelter” project blends easily into its natural surroundings. The perforated, metallic skin of the pavilion, inspired by the transparent quality of a dragonfly’s wings, changes with the time of day and the quality of light—reflecting its natural surroundings and taking on the colors of the trees, grass, and sky—or nearly disappearing into a shimmering pattern of light and shadow.

Mike Cindric and Vincent Petrarca, Lowe’s Pavilion, 2007, steel, wood, aluminum, and concrete, H. 20 x W. 26 x L. 48 ft., Commissioned with funds from the Lowe’s Charitable and Educational Foundation

Placed at the threshold between the field and forest, Crossroads/Trickster I marks a transitional point from public to private, manmade to natural, open to enclosed. The sculpture combines brightly colored Italian glass tiles, carnelian stones, and shattered bricks (recycled from the Polk youth correctional facility, located on this property from 1920 to 1997). The artist has described her use of the prison bricks as “time capsules,” a way of creating a new work of art that speaks to the historical significance of this place. The sculpture is also closely connected to the surrounding landscape. Rooted in the ground, its shape and scale echo the tree trunks in the forest behind it, and its earth-toned palette of red, brown, and orange ties it to the natural world.

Martha Jackson-Jarvis, Crossroads/Trickster I, 2005, brick, steel, mortar, glass tile, and stone, H. 20 ft. x Diam. 23 in., Commissioned by the North Carolina Museum of Art with funds from Wachovia Bank and the North Carolina Department of Transportation Enhancement Program

Al Frega, an artist who lives in Durham, recycled and repurposed metal bars and other materials from a youth correctional facility that once stood on this land.

Al Frega, Benches and bicycle racks, 2005, wrought iron, steel, various dimensions, Commissioned with funds from the North Carolina Department of Transportation Enhancement Program and the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources Adopt-a-Trail Grant Program

Park Pictures, large-scale outdoor pictures in three locations along the greenway, are changed regularly to feature different artists.

The presentation of Park Pictures at the NCMA is part of an ongoing series of outdoor art projects, Art Has No Boundaries, to encourage visitors to actively explore the Museum Park, and made possible by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina.

Steed Taylor’s temporary “road tattoos” will eventually disappear as the paint is worn away by weather and traffic. The design for Invasive is based on 18th-century European floral fabric patterns and contemporary tattoo designs. Before the final pattern was painted, names of invasive plants were written within the outlines of the design and then painted over, a symbolic act of containment.

Steed Taylor, Invasive, 2008, high-gloss latex paint, various dimensions, Museum commission funded by the John Rex Endowment through the Physical Activity and Nutrition Branch of the N.C. Division of Public Health

Bill and Mary Buchen, Flight Wind Reeds, 2003, aluminum, stainless steel, and brass, five elements, each approx. H. 25 ft., Commissioned by the North Carolina Museum of Art with funds from the North Carolina State Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest)

Ronald Bladen, Three Elements, 1965, fabricated 1966–67, painted and burnished aluminum over welded steel structures, three parts, each element: H. 120 3/8 x W. 48 3/8 x D. 21 1/2 in., Purchased with funds from the North Carolina State Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest) in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Hanes

The sculpture is made from metal crowd-control barricades and is designed to resemble a brain if viewed from above. By elevating the barricades, the artist subverts their original use and intention: visitors are not kept out, but rather invited in to freely wander through the work.

Yoan Capote, Open Mind (Barricades), 2014, metal, installed dimensions approx. H. 11 x W. 98 x D. 72 ft., Gift of anonymous donor, © 2014 Yoan Capote, Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Special thanks to Mac and Keats for the installation of Open Mind at the North Carolina Museum of Art.

Shaped like cartoon speech bubbles, these sculptures offer visitors a place to sit and interact with the works of art and with each other. The artist states, “When viewers occupy the piece, they are encouraged to contemplate what it means to inhabit their own speech and beliefs.”

Hank Willis Thomas, Ernest and Ruth, 2015, steel plate and pipe, H. 83 x W. 96 x D. 48 in., Gift of Pat and Tom Gipson

Mark di Suvero, No Fuss, 2003–08, steel, H. 32 x W. 50 x D. 30 ft., Courtesy of the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York
 

Mark di Suvero, Ulalu, 2001, stainless steel and painted steel, H. 319 x W. 360 x D. 180 in., Courtesy of the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York
 

SCULPT. C is one in a series of large-scale whimsical sculptures titled Tiovivo (which translates as carousel or merry-go-round) by Spanish artist, Jaime Hayon. Covered with a colorful pattern and scaled for children, his engaging sculpture encourages play and interaction.

Known for his figurative sculptures that use Dutch wax cloth (popular throughout Africa) to explore cultural identity, Yinka Shonibare here transforms a wisp of the same fabric into a playfully monumental sculpture that captures the wind like a giant sail. Wind Sculpture II is one of Shonibare’s first large-scale outdoor works and was featured in his career retrospective exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in England.

Awilda & Irma are portraits of a mother and daughter. The enormous scale of the heads blurs and softens individual features, making it difficult to discern race or age or gender, resulting in more universal portraits. Plensa wants his sculptures to speak to a collective human identity, to an essential human existence, and to what we hold in common as human beings.  

Lunar Bird by Joan Miró resembles ancient votive sculptures and reflects his interest in the cosmos, with its crescent moon–shaped face and arms reaching toward the sky. A figure in the early-20th-century surrealist art movement, Miró saw art as a way for the subconscious mind to express itself.

George Rickey’s Three Red Lines is a kinetic sculpture composed of three pointed arms that gracefully move in an arc. He utilized ball bearings, pendulums, counter-weights, and pivot points to predetermine the path that the arms of the sculpture take.

The abstract sculpture Untitled, part of Ellsworth Kelly’s “rocker” series, was conceived when the artist took a plastic coffee lid from his local deli, cut out a flat section, folded it in half, and rocked it back and forth on a table. The sculpture plays with depth and dimension, as the rounded edge of the ellipse contrasts with the extreme flatness of the sculpture’s surface.