About

LOCAL: art + ideas is a think tank based in Wilmington, NC, that champions nonhierarchical approaches to artistic production and reception. We promote regional artists and introduce their work to new audiences nearby and nationally through a variety of programming, including private art viewings, site-specific installations, and IRL + online exhibitions. We seek to showcase art and ideas that flourish beyond dominant cultural networks and geocentric metropolis, aka in the periphery. We are: intentionally unpolished and flaunt our lack of social-media savvy; jugglers of money-making jobs and payless creative endeavors; overeducated and unnecessarily intellectual; and believers in the validity of artistic practices that reside outside celebrated and sanctioned contexts.

Beth Handler Riebe founded LOCAL in 2013. Beth worked in the NYC art world for twenty years, with curatorial stints at The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Paula Cooper Gallery. She also served as an art consultant to Donald B. Marron (one of ARTnews’ top 200 collectors). She is a former Trustee of the Cameron Art Museum and occasionally teaches art history at UNCW.  Beth received a BA from Oberlin College, and an MA and a PhD. from Yale University, with all three degrees in art history. She and her family moved to Wilmington in 2010.