Year's best in Triangle art

In art, plenty to see from ancient to modern

No blockbusters dominated the Triangle art scene this year, but there were plenty of shows of interest.

"States of Mind: Dan and Lia Perjovschi," Nasher Museum of Art

The Duke University museum, which opened in 2005, hit its stride with two powerful and challenging shows, "Street Level" and "States of Mind." With "States of Mind," guest curator Kristine Stiles provided a fascinating first retrospective of the husband-and-wife Romanian artists. Now at midcareer, they've been steadily gaining ground in the international art scene, Dan Perjovschi with his cartoon-style drawing installations, Lia Perjovschi with her conceptual pieces.

"Street Level," Nasher Museum of Art

Curator Trevor Schoonmaker chose works by three artists that spoke to urban art-making. Mark Bradford's monumental paintings, created from peeled layers of colored billboard papers, were a revelation, contrasting with William Cordova's gold-flecked miniatures and Robin Rhode's stop-action photographic frames and videos.

"Contemporary N.C. Photography From the Museum's Collection," N.C. Museum of Art

The Raleigh museum honored the contributions of 10 of the state's best photographers in the second rotation of a two-part show that began in fall 2006. Part two might have been even better than the first.

"A New World: England's First View of America," N.C. Museum of History

The British Museum rarely takes its John White watercolor drawings out of storage. This year it loaned the works to the history museum in Raleigh, which gave visitors a chance to see what White -- governor of the 1587 colony on Roanoke Island and grandfather of Virginia Dare -- rendered on his expeditions for Sir Walter Raleigh.

"Temples and Tombs," N.C. Museum of Art

In another loan from the British Museum, treasures from ancient Egypt tapped the timeless appeal of a wondrously elegant visual culture. Nearly 60,000 people saw these works.

"Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism," N.C. Museum of Art

The touring show from the Brooklyn Museum of Art made a fitting coda to last year's blockbuster "Monet in Normandy." "Landscapes" contained four wonderful Monets and a host of other famous impressionist names, both French and American, and demonstrated how the style evolved and spread beyond France to indelibly influence American painting.

"Fashioning the Divine," Ackland Art Museum

The Ackland, at UNC-Chapel Hill, published a long-awaited catalog and presented its scholarly findings on its selection of South Asian sculpture.

"Toshiko Takaezu: The Art of Clay," Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art

Hawaiian-born Takaezu, of Japanese descent, created a poetic landscape at the Greensboro art center with her imposing totemlike monoliths, delicate closed-form vessels and vast weavings. A longtime teacher at Penland, Takaezu also taught courses at UNC-Greensboro.

Catherine Opie: '1999' and 'In and Around Home,' Weatherspoon Art Museum

The Weatherspoon, at UNC-Greensboro, presented one of the nation's most acclaimed contemporary photographers with exhibits from two of her series. Keeping pace with the year's triumph of photography in museums nationally and internationally, Opie's potent visions were given ample space and light in the Weatherspoon's elegant upper-floor main gallery.

Beverly McIver, NCCU Art Museum and Tyndall Galleries

McIver returned to the state with "Raising Renee and Other Themes," a career retrospective at NCCU in Durham, and brand new work at Tyndall in Chapel Hill. These exhibitions showed why her work has remained both personal and universal. Her fearless, bravura brushwork defines these ambitious canvases.

Also notable: Fazal Sheikh at John and June Allcott Gallery, UNC-CH; "LeWitt x 2" at the Weatherspoon; Robert Broderson at Gallery C, Raleigh; Andre Leon Gray at Litmus Art Gallery, Raleigh; "Everlasting," installation by Ann Fessler at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke; "Collected Identities: Works From the Collection of E. Blake Byrne" at the Nasher; Charlotte Robinson at Lee Hansley Gallery in Raleigh; Bill Thelen at Branch Gallery in Durham; and Tom Spleth at the Gregg Museum of Art & Design at N.C. State University.