Video: New Morning Gallery holds reopening reception
Asheville glassblower Sarah Garrard speaks during New Morning Gallery’s reopening reception June 20, 2025, in Historic Biltmore Village.
- Rivers Wall Art ranked Black Mountain College Museum Site No. 13 in its top 125 best art installations in the U.S.
- Cloud Chamber for the Trees and Sky in Raleigh, NC, ranked No. 8 nationwide.
A list of the country’s best art installations in 2025 contained a number of North Carolina locations, including an Asheville-area location in the top 15.
The list, created by art company Rivers Wall Art, included a broad range of entries from gardens to arts centers to sculpture parks, and beyond. The list, which consisted of 125 entries, was compiled through data from an online panel survey of 3,002 respondents.
Here’s what we know about the WNC pick that made it to the top 15, plus the names of each N.C. site on the list, and the top 10 across the country.
Black Mountain College Museum Site
The Black Mountain College Museum site made it into the top 20 best art installations in the country at No. 13. The college museum honors the history and legacy of Black Mountain College, which the museum’s website describes as “an experiment in community and arts-centered education near Black Mountain, NC, open from 1933 until 1957.”
With free admission, visitors can view historic and contemporary exhibitions, a variety of events and more. One previous event included “Music for Modernist Shapes,” an installation and performance complete with folded paper costumes, light projections and live music. A recent “fashion/puppet show” featured an improvised live scored orchestra and themed costumes.
Best art installations in North Carolina 2025
Though Black Mountain was the only Western NC location on the list, it was far from the only N.C. location included countrywide. In fact, the state received special mention from the list’s writers for the amount of times it appeared, calling its art “wildly varied but consistently grounded in local identity.”
In total, five N.C. art installations made it onto the list of 125, three of which were in the top 20:
- No. 8 – Cloud Chamber for the Trees and Sky, Raleigh, North Carolina
- No. 13 – Black Mountain College Museum Site, Asheville, North Carolina
- No. 14 – Minnie Evans Bottle Chapel – Airlie Gardens, Wilmington, North Carolina
- No. 27 – Magic Carpet Murals, Charlotte, North Carolina
- No. 92 – Vollis Simpson Whirligig Installation, Wilson, North Carolina
Best art installations in the U.S. 2025
The overall top 10 art installations in the nation, including one in N.C.:
- No. 1 – Kakaʻako Street Art, Honolulu, Oʻahu, Hawaii
- No. 2 – Coral Castle, Homestead, Florida
- No. 3 – Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, Washington
- No. 4 – Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau Wooden Carvings, Big Island, Hawaiʻi
- No. 5 – Beale Street Brass Notes Walk of Fame, Memphis, Tennessee
- No. 6 – Music Box Village, New Orleans, Louisiana
- No. 7 – Wild Blueberry Land, Columbia Falls, Maine
- No. 8 – Cloud Chamber for the Trees and Sky, Raleigh North Carolina
- No. 9 – The Whale Bone Arch, Barrow (Utqiaġvik), Alaska
- No. 10 – Sun Tunnels, Great Basin Desert, Utah
Iris Seaton is the trending news reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at iseaton@citizentimes.com.