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A Night of Art, Music and Craft Beer at Nasher Museum

Next Brew & View party set for July 3 at the museum

A recipe for a perfect summer evening: A tour through the Nasher Museum of Art's galleries, accompanying music to enhance the art, finished off with tasty hors d'oeuvres, cold craft beer and good conversation.

That's the idea behind the new Brew & View events sponsored by the Nasher during the summer.  The series launched this past Thursday with a guided tour led by Ruth Caccavale of the "Sound Vision: Contemporary Art from the Collection" exhibition.

The exhibit highlights recent acquisitions from the museum, including paintings, prints, videos, sculptures and installations.  The exhibition uses music to connect the visitors to the work.  As the crowd floated through the maze of rooms dedicated to the exhibit, Caccavale and her husband John played music from an iPad, a record player and a cd player that paired with the inspired paintings.

One of these was a screenprint on paper titled Ladies and Gentlemen, created in 1975 by Andy Warhol who used Polaroid shots of various models and layered them with 3-D colored paper collages. That work was paired with Nina Simone’s “Ain’t Got No (I’ve Got Life).”

Another work was "Haunted by You," a four-minute performance video by Japanese artist Taiyo Kimura in which the artist has fun with his turntable, replacing the arm with a chicken leg and slicing an apple placed on the record with a knife attached to his face.

Duke economics professor Tim Bollerslev and his wife, Marian, who are both friends of the Caccavales, said the combination of beer and art made for a wonderful summer evening. Their attention was particularly drawn to the Kimura video.

“That was fun for art because sometimes it’s just good to be weird, that was actually very entertaining, I think,” Marian Bollerslev said.

Following the tour, the conversation continued over beer in the museum's Rollins Terrace.  For $5, visitors would sample a 2-4 ounce pour of each of the five Anderson Valley Brewing Company brews featured at the event: Boont Amber Ale, Hop Ottin’ IPA, Belk’s Extra Special Bitter, Summer Solstice Ale, and Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout.

Aiden Peters, kitchen manager for the Nasher Museum created a special menu for the event with appetizers entrees and salads to go with the beer selections. The crowd pleasing favorite Boont Amber Ale could be enjoyed with a grilled hanger steak with marinated tomatoes, smoked asparagus and creamed potatoes. There was also the option of pairing the roasted flavors of the Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout with smoked chicken ravioli in a shitake and portabella mushroom ragu with grana padano.

The Nasher Museum's external public relations manager Emily Smith said she and Peters came up with the idea when brainstorming themes for the Summer Days, Nasher Nights events.

“We wanted to reach out to more grad students during the summer and beer’s the way to do it,” said Smith. “It’s just a fun, casual, relaxing evening.”

Two more Brew & Views are forthcoming on July 3 and July 31.

The Sound Vision: Contemporary Art from the Collection is on view until August 3.

Leah Montgomery, Taylor Blakeney and Steven Neal are NC Central University students serving as summer interns at the Office of News and Communication and the Nasher Museum of Art.