Ackland Art Museum to Open Two Major Exhibitions Exploring Identity and Color

ARTS & CULTURE

Compiled By Michelle Cassell
Editor

CHAPEL HILL — The Ackland Art Museum will open two new exhibitions on Jan. 30, 2026, offering visitors distinct but complementary experiences that examine personal identity and the expressive power of color through photography and modern art.

Bill Bamberger: Boys Will Be Men, on view through April 12, 2026, presents introspective portraits of current and former male students from Durham School of the Arts (DSA), while Color Concentrated: A Salon-Style Show from the Robertson Collection will run through May 17, 2026, transforming a single gallery wall into a dense, immersive field of modernist color.

Vassily Kandinsky, Russian, 1866–1944, Study for Autumn Landscape with Boats (detail), 1908, oil on board. Lent by the Robertson Foundation in honor of Julian and Josie Robertson.

The Boys Will Be Men exhibition features the work of Bill Bamberger, a Durham-based photographer and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumnus, whose long-running series explores the diversity of American masculinity as experienced by young men as they come of age. The Ackland presentation includes 42 photographs selected from images created by more than 250 students over two academic years.

In addition to the portraits, the exhibition incorporates audio recordings drawn from long-form interviews with selected students, allowing visitors to hear their reflections on expectations, pressures and personal experiences surrounding adolescence and manhood.

Bamberger began the Boys Will Be Men series in 1984 while teaching at Deerfield Academy, an all-male private boarding school in Massachusetts, and returned to the project in 2000 as an artist-in-residence at Flint Central High School in Flint, Michigan. In 2022, the Ackland commissioned Bamberger to expand the project locally, partnering with Durham School of the Arts, a public magnet school focused on arts education.

Working on campus over two academic years, Bamberger photographed and interviewed students who volunteered to participate, emphasizing collaboration, trust and self-representation. The resulting portraits reflect a wide range of identities and emotional states, offering a nuanced view of youth at a pivotal moment in life.

Opening alongside Bamberger’s exhibition, Color Concentrated: A Salon-Style Show from the Robertson Collection offers a dramatic reimagining of works from the Ackland’s renowned Robertson Collection. The exhibition presents a striking counterpoint to the museum’s previous installation, Color Triumphant, which displayed the collection in a spacious, chronological format.

In contrast, Color Concentrated condenses the same modern artworks onto a single wall, creating a dense, immersive arrangement inspired by the crowded walls of 19th-century Parisian Salon exhibitions, the chance juxtapositions found on museum storage racks, and the Robertsons’ own approach to displaying their collection at home. The result highlights the expressive potential of color and invites viewers to experience the artworks through visual relationships rather than historical sequence.

The Robertson Collection was assembled by Julian H. Robertson Jr. and his wife, Josephine “Josie” Tucker Robertson. Julian Robertson, a Salisbury native and 1955 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, became widely known as a pioneer of the hedge fund industry and a mentor to generations of investors. Beginning in the 1980s, the Robertsons built a significant modern art collection and frequently lent works to the Ackland.

Color Concentrated is made possible by the Robertson Foundation. Bill Bamberger: Boys Will Be Men is supported by the late Barbara C. Newborg, M.D., and Karen and Chuck Lovelace, with additional support from Mimi Hock and Amir and Anna Barzin.

The Ackland Art Museum is located at 101 S. Columbia St. in Chapel Hill. Admission is free. Museum hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m., with extended hours until 9 p.m. on the second Friday of each month. The museum is closed Mondays and Tuesdays and on select holidays.

For more information, visit ackland.org.

Michelle Cassell is a seasoned reporter who has covered everything from crime to hurricanes and local politics to human interest over the course of 35 years. As editor, she hopes to encourage writers of a wide range of backgrounds and interests in TLR’s coverage of Southern Orange County news. This reporter can be reached at: Information@TheLocalReporter.press.