Taking Root: The Artfields Collection at 701 CCA

Taking Root: The ArtFields Collection   

3/28/24   

6:00-8:00 

Taking Root: The ArtFields Collection is an exhibition presenting select pieces from the ArtFields Competition prize winners over the last 12 years. Figurative and representational work dominates the collection and the presentation shows the volume and expanse of southeastern talent. On view at 701 CCA March 28 through May 18th, this exhibition highlights the living, breathing proof of the power of art.  

Opening reception March 28, 6-8pm, in the Olympia Room, 2nd floor at 701 Whaley Street, Columbia, SC. 

*Cash Bar and light refreshments served. 

701 CCA Presents Fire & Flame with Elizabeth Brim and Shane Fero

From our friends at 701 CCA —Fire & Flame:

Elizabeth Brim and Shane Fero   

9/21/23   

6:30-8:30 

Fire and Flame: Elizabeth Brim and Shane Fero is an exhibition exploring the decades-long friendship and collaboration between two artists whose careers and acquaintance blossomed at the Penland School of Craft. Elizabeth Brim is a blacksmith, as well as a teacher, living in western North Carolina. She's best known for mastering the dichotomy of feminine imagery and ironwork. Shane Fero is a glassworker using flame to perfect his technique of 'lampworking' to envision intricate, delicate and ephemeral sculptures. Both are inspired by their environment and both's works are an allegory to their own human experience. 

Fire and Flame is a testament to this long nurtured friendship. Two individuals understanding the transformative power of fire and translating the process in iron and glass. Featuring signature works of their unique styles and collaborative works seamlessly joining their disparate materials, this exhibition ignites the understanding that all is possible through curiosity and dedication.

*Cash Bar and light refreshments served. 

701 CCA CALL to ARTISTS Biennial 2023 - Jurors Announced

701 Center for Contemporary Art in Columbia, SC seeks submissions for the 701 CCA South Carolina Biennial 2023, the center’s seventh survey exhibition of work by contemporary South Carolina artists. The exhibition will be held at the center in two parts with openings in November 2023 and January 2024. Artists working in all media and styles are encouraged to apply. Artists must be a current resident of South Carolina.

Exhibition Dates:

Biennial Part I- November 17 – December 30, 2023

Biennial Part II- January 12 – February 25, 2024

Selection Process:

A panel of three jurors representing local, regional, and national perspectives will review submitted materials and select artists for the exhibition. A 701 CCA curatorial team will select works for the exhibition from submitted images and when needed, through studio visits. 

Submission Materials

Submissions for the 701 CCA South Carolina Biennial 2023 should be made via Submittable (link below) and include the following:

• Ten images of work produced in the last two years that are representative of what will be available for inclusion in the Biennial. 

  • Images should be in a jpeg format with a minimum size of 1024 wide x 768 high ppi (pixels per inch) at 300 dpi resolution. 

  • File names should be numbered 1 through 10 followed by the artist’s last name and title of the work.

    • Example: 2_Smith_Good Morning.jpg

• List of Images: Create a list of your images with the following information: (PDF, MSWord Accepted)

  • File name, year, medium, and dimensions (H x W for 2-D; H x W x D for 3-D). 

• Brief Statement: Create a statement, not to exceed 200 words, about your work and how it addresses your intent. (PDF, MSWord Accepted)

  • Example: “I use recycled materials to address my concerns with climate change.”

• Resume/CV and/or biographical sketch, no more than 300 words, that includes the artist’s birth date, place of birth, and where they grew up. (PDF, MSWord Accepted)

*Artists need to make sure that they have work available for the exhibitions that reflects the art in their submission.

Fees:

The submission fee is $25.00 per artist. Your payment can be made through Submittable or checks can be made payable to 701 CCA.

Submission Deadline:

All materials should be submitted by Wednesday, August 16, 2023, by 11:59 p.m.

Notification:

Artists will be notified of the results of the selection process by Wednesday, August 30, 2023.

Timeline:

• Submission Deadline: August 16, 2023, 11:59 p.m.

• Jury Panel Meets: Between August 20–23, 2023

• Notification of Selections: August 30, 2023

• Artists’ Notifications to 701 CCA of Unavailable Work: September 3, 2023

• Notification of artists’ selection for Part I or Part II: September 15, 2021

• Delivery work for Part I: November 8-10, 2023

• Part I opens: November 17, 2023

• Artists’ Reception Part I: TBD

• Part I Closes: December 30, 2023

• Pick-up Work Part I: January 3-5, 2024

• Deliver Work for Part II: January 3-5, 2024

• Part II opens: January 12, 2024

• Artists’ Reception Part II: TBD

• Part II Closes: February 25, 2024

• Pick-up Work Part II: February 28-March 1, 2024

*Please submit further inquiries to director@701cca.org or call Caitlin Bright, Executive Director at 803.319.9949.

Introducing the Jurors for the Seventh Edition of the SC Biennial, produced and hosted by 701 Center for Contemporary Art

701 CCA is thrilled to announce that the 2023 SC Biennial will be juried by Lauren Jackson Harris, Bob Monk, and Aaron Levi Garvey. The gallery is currently seeking submissions for its seventh survey exhibition of works by contemporary South Carolina Artists. This year, 701 CCA has the honor of presenting submissions for review by some of the nation's leading figures in contemporary art. 

Lauren Jackson Harris is an independent curator, fine art management professional, and project manager from Atlanta, GA. She earned her BFA in Graphic Design and Art History from Howard University and her MA in Creative Leadership from SCAD. In 2019, she co-founded Black Women in Visual Art, an organization that connects, cultivates, and serves Black women arts professionals. With BWVA, Harris builds partnerships and develops programs that create further visibility and opportunity for Black women in art. As an independent arts worker over the last ten years, Harris has curated exhibitions and art experiences with organizations and art spaces such as For Freedoms, Facebook, MINT Gallery, Day & Night Gallery, The Gathering Spot, Stay Home Gallery, Living Walls, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and more. Harris also serves as the Co-Chair for the Beltline Public Art Advisory Council, as a Board member for Tessera Arts Collective, and is an active fine art advocate consulting with artists on their practice and career-based opportunities.

Bob Monk is the director of Gagosian Gallery NYC + LA. Serving in this position for over 30 years, Mr. Monk has curated countless exhibitions, and has worked closely with Ed Ruscha and Richard Artschwager. He has curated numerous exhibitions, including the 2005 American Pavilion for the Venice Biennale. He worked at Leo Castelli Gallery in New York (1974–84) and then founded Lorence Monk Gallery in 1986 featuring the works of Richard Artschwager, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, Bruce Nauman, and Barnett Newman. He is currently working on ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN, a retrospective of the artist's works on view at Gagosian Gallery September 10th, 2023. 
 

Aaron Levi Garvey is a Jewish-American Curator/Historian working and lecturing in Modern and Contemporary Arts and Culture. Currently, Garvey is the Chief Curator of the Andy Warhol Museum. Recent exhibitions include: The Hudson Eye a 10-day and 14-venue arts focused program in Hudson, New York, Arc of Life/Ark of Bones by Walter Hood and Migratory Roots by Kevin Brisco at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University, Flashing the Leather and The Drowned group exhibitions at Alabama Contemporary, Chiharu Shiota’s site-specific installation “Infinity Lines” at the SCAD Museum of Art, Sheida Soleimani “Oppress(er)(ed)” with Long Road Projects, “Ephemera Obscura” at the Contemporary Art Center of New Orleans and Manon Bellet's "MEMO" and Shikeith’s “notes towards becoming a spill” both at Atlanta Contemporary. Additionally Garvey curated "We Are What You Eat" the inaugural art exhibition at the United Nations headquarters in New York City in 2016 and co-curated the Atlanta Biennial (ATLBNL): Recent Correspondence at the Atlanta Contemporary in August 2016.

The application portal is open until August 16th and can be reached by following the link: >>

Submit Here. 

Storyboarding Workshop with Corey Davis at 701 CCA

Corey "Roc Bottom" Davis Storyboarding Workshop

701 Center for Contemporary Art

Saturday, July 15, 2023

1 pm to - 3 pm

Join multi-talented creative, Corey “Roc Bottom” Davis for a workshop exploring the process of storyboarding. In conjunction with Tyrone Geter’s Artist in Residence at 701 Center for Contemporary Art, Corey will guide the participants through the history of graphic novels while helping them develop their own hero’s storyline.

Corey Davis has vast knowledge and expertise in utilizing ink and pencils to create comics. He will explain how to communicate ideas through visual scenes in a sequence during this workshop. You will learn the step-by-step creative process to create your own storyboard. By the end of the session, you will have a storyboard outlined to take home and use again to develop your own characters and stories and share the new worlds you create with the community.

For more information on Roc Bottom and to view his work please visit https://www.rocbottomstudios.com

For more information about the workshop please visit https://www.701cca.org/.../storyboarding-workshop-with.../

We are located at 701 Whaley Street, Columbia, SC 29201. Please take the elevator to the second floor to the Main Exhibition Gallery.

Rocbottom Studios

Call to Artists -- 701 CCA's 7th SC Biennial 2023

701 Center for Contemporary Art in Columbia, SC seeks submissions for the 701 CCA South Carolina Biennial 2023, the center’s seventh survey exhibition of work by contemporary South Carolina artists. The exhibition will be held at the center in two parts with openings in November 2023 and January 2024. The submission fee is $25.00 per artist.

Artists working in all media and styles are encouraged to apply. Artists must be current residents of South Carolina.

Deadline is August 16, 2023; 11:59 pm. SUBMIT HERE

For more information about the Biennial, CLICK HERE.

Monday Night - ONE NIGHT ONLY - Join 701 CCA for SWIM, a Unique Puppet Pool Experience by Tarish Pipkins

Tarish Pipkins, also known as Jeghetto, presents his newest installation and puppet show SWIM, at the 701 Center for Contemporary Art’s swimming pool. This will be a one night performance with limited capacity on April 10, 2023 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Pipkins has been using found materials to create puppets since the late 90s in Clairton, Pennsylvania. Currently, he is an Artist in Residence at the 701 Center for Contemporary Art. However, he got his start at the BridgeSpotters Collective, where he staged puppet street performances.

Some of Pipkin’s most major puppet projects include the Amazon Echo commercial featuring puppets of Alec Baldwin and Missy Elliot, as well as a Pharell Williams puppet in Elliot’s music video “WTF (Where They From).”

SWIM will be a performance dedicated to exploring the myth of the Dogon and Mer-People, and how these myths currently relate to our present collective history. As the 701 Center for Contemporary Art says, “This performance is a poem of hope and determination that will undulate through the glass floor under which it is performed and crash into the hearts of the audience.” 

You can find tickets for the one time, special event at by clicking here.

News from 701 CCA

Tarish Pipkins | Isaac Udogwu | Cedric Umoja

Happy to Share this News from our friends at 701 CCA:

n Oppositional Free Gazing Tarish Pipkins, Marcel Taylor, Cedric Umoja and Isaac Udogwu disrupt the power dynamics of American visual culture through traditional portraiture, artificial intelligence and machine learning, Afro futurist visual renderings of Black language, and narrative portraiture through puppetry.

The white gaze has long determined whose stories are seen, what artists' voices are valued. Taylor, Pipkin, Udogwu and Umoja create work that speaks directly to the Black experience from ordinary to the extraordinary. They speak directly to Black audiences in unapologetic fashion, locating their work in largely ignored cultural, historical and political experience that operates outside of a response to white supremacy.

With algorithms and machine learning as the media, Udogwu uses what scholar Nettrice Gaskins describes as “techno-vernacular creativity” Possessed of reappropriation, remixing, and improvisation. With nods to both Francis Bacon and Jacob Lawrence Udogwu centers the Black male figure seen through Black male eyes. In fact Umoja, Taylor, Pipkin and Udogwu each use these tools that form the foundation of America’s two original music forms, Jazz and Hip hop and are firmly rooted in Black cultural and creative practices.

Marcel Taylor uses an interplay of acrylic paint, transparent paper, photographic collage, remixes images of Black people living in urban centers and seeks to capture the vibrancy, joy and life found in these spaces. Taylor’s socially-critical abstract work depicts urban landscapes and portraits inspired by rampant gentrification processes occurring in his home city of Washington DC, and many other cities across the nation. These paintings conjure images of urban dynamism, commotion, pandemonium, and chaos. Tarish Pipkins continues this tradition in performance work that centers Black stories and draws the line between historic calculation and contemporary experience.

This artists conversation will be moderated by Dr. Frank C. Martin, II. Martin is a graduate of Yale University and the City University of New York, Hunter College, with additional study in contemporary art at the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of South Carolina. After working for more than 12 years as an Associate Manager of Education Services for the Department of Education Services in the Uris Center of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Martin transitioned to a position as Curator of Exhibitions and Collections, at South Carolina State University's I. P. Stanback Museum & Planetarium, where Martin currently serves as Director.

Art historian, art theorist, and critic of cultural interpretation, Martin has served as an academic advisor for the PBS documentary, Shared History and as contributing critic in the fine arts for The Charleston Post and Courier, one of the South’s oldest newspapers. Appointed as a Carolina Diversity Professors Doctoral Scholar in the Department of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina, Dr. Martin’s area of specialization is the study of axiology, concentrating in the field of aesthetics.

Martin, Pipkins, Udogwu & Umoja

September 28, 2022

6:30 PM

701 CCA Gallery

701 Whaley Street, 2nd floor

Columbia, SC 29201

In Memoriam: Wim Roefs 1959-2022

View fullsize

In Memoriam – Wim Roefs

This has been a particularly difficult week for the Columbia Arts Community. On Monday May 9th, Wim Roefs, founder and owner of If Art Gallery and one of the founders of 701 Center for Contemporary Art, suffered a crashing heart attack at his gallery on Lincoln Street. On Thursday, the 12th, Wim passed away, leaving his wife Eileen Waddell and hundreds, if not thousands, of international friends and colleagues behind.

The pain of the loss of Wim Roefs from our arts community cannot be overestimated. Wim brought a sense of gravitas to us that many people didn’t know was missing. He reminded us that while art is in no way an endeavor of the elite, it should be taken seriously and respected for the vital role it plays in daily life. Wim made contemporary art accessible to all of us and, thankfully, his legacy will live on as long as art in Columbia does.

When I first realized we would be losing Wim I felt certain that he had done his job well and that the cultural legacy he leaves behind would continue to thrive and inform us.

But I worried a bit about his social legacy. Social media being what it is,  there has been no shortage of folks chiming in about how “sweet” Wim was—that he was “nice” and “pleasant.” This disturbs me. I’m not saying Wim couldn’t be sweet or nice, but congratulations to those who had the unique experience of being around Wim when he was in such a mood.

For the most part, Wim did not indulge in the subterfuge of Southern hospitality or the artifice of American social politics. I don’t know if it was because he was Dutch or because he was Wim, but he and his personality defied any number of platitudes about how we are meant to interact with one another. Instead, he behaved with complete and transparent honesty. Wim was my favorite kind of person in that there was no second-guessing when it came to how he felt about you and your work. His honest and straightforward demeanor required a tough skin and a healthy sense of self. If you didn’t have both when you entered into a relationship with Wim, it was imperative that you develop them for your relationship to continue. I appreciated that.

Sweet? Sure, at times. Sincere? Always.

To that end, we turn this editorial over to some of the folks who knew Wim best and will miss him most. I asked them to share, with sincerity, their thoughts and feelings on the loss and legacy of Wim Roefs.

Condolences to all as we mourn the passing of one of our most respected—and beloved—community members.

And thank you, Wim, for everything you taught us.

-Cindi Boiter

Coming out of teaching at Benedict College Wim was well versed in Delta Americana and its accompanying political and social American commentary. I recall first meetings at his home where he and his wife Eileen would host cutting edge artist showings complete with an impressive euro cuisine and assemblage of artists that rarely ventured from their studios, which in turn led to incredible gatherings that ignited discourse on art and culture and cultivated  new friendships and ideas.

The  founding of if Art marked the debut of a New York standard gallery presence in Columbia. Early on, Wim populated the gallery with a cutting-edge stable of artists, local and international, all with a common thread of Art Spirit; art being who they are, not what they did, this often manifested itself by continuous exhibitions of work challenging patrons and the general public. This if Art gallery model presented a thoroughness which included artist cataloging, lectures, and talks with showings, and meticulous hanging and presentation, this would shortly expand to include poetry readings and exploratory music concerts as well.

Wim was quick to recognize the art spirit in young artists and go to lengths to encourage and supply support and materials to further their unique callings, he was also quick to herald  iconic artists such as Laura Spong and showcase their work as assets to the rich fabric of urban culture. He constantly pushed to highlight The Vista and its rightly achieved formal status as Cultural District in Columbia,  and knowingly worked consistently toward an ongoing goal of Columbia as a cultural destination for future citizens not  fixated on collegian over emphasis.      

Wim's youthful background as a former band drummer, and a political reactionary

surreptitiously pasting political bills at night served him well to establish his distinct curatorial criticism concerning art and culture. He united Columbia artist with our German sister city Kaiserslautern to produce an ongoing relationship of international exchange exhibitions and public sculpture. This in turn established the Lady Street Sculptural Corridor as a hallmark of urban design and international influence raising the bar for future architectural and green space concepts.

And, he loved his cats. 

-Stephen Chesley

It is difficult to express in words the void that's left by Wim Roefs departure. he set the standard for Contemporary Art in Columbia both through his gallery, and his advocacy work in civic organizations including 701 CCA.

His work throughout the state and southeast region as an independent curator was important in laying the path for new voices. He had exacting standards, he believed in risk taking and  championed challenging art and conversations. He made space for emerging talent. His interests were broad. Music, film, theatre, visual art, and dance. His politics were clear. he believed in and practiced inclusion, not as an exercise in political correctness, but as a way of living, a way of being. He brought lots of different kinds of people into shared orbits. He called bullshit when he saw it. He was sincere.

-Michaela Pilar Brown

Wim’s passing is a staggering loss. His passion, intellect, and commitment to the arts in this region are gigantic. We all loved to participate in his presentations of local and international talent. His carefully curated exhibits at If Art, 701CCA, and Art Fields have become a part of our cultural psyche. The wealth of talent here and abroad Wim found and represented is vast and diverse. His boundless energy has raised our cultural consciousness and will continue to elevate the visual arts throughout our community. Wim, Thank you. You are forever in our hearts and minds…

-Clark Ellefson  

Wim with the late Laura Spong

During the 11 plus years my office has been two doors down from if Art there were many days and nights where I was able to stop in and just enjoy a talk with Wim about any number of interests we shared. 

We both parked our cars in a garage a block away from our shops. For me, I walked past the large window at the entrance of If Art on my way to my car every day. This was the showcase window. It allowed anyone walking down Lincoln St., one of the busier pedestrian streets in Columbia, to walk past if Art and view what Wim had to showcase that day, week, or month. 

My thoughts in the past few days, walking past that large window, have turned to the fact that for the past 11 years I have seen every artist that Wim has hung in that window. There have been local, upcoming artists in that window. There have been nationally recognized and established artists in that window. I’ve seen beautiful small painting of flowers, and large painting that served as a bit of a middle finger to whoever walked by. Wim brought us the art he liked to champion and make no mistake, want you to buy so you could show it off to your friends. I was lucky enough to see it all. 

-Wade Sellers

Wim changed the landscape of visual arts in Columbia. He was a powerhouse of knowledge and his demand of excellence and passion helped to create an environment that thrust local artists to a whole new level. As a founder of 701 Center for Contemporary Art his vision helped to shape what has become a leading institution for contemporary art in the region. The team at 701 is saddened by his sudden departure and he will be greatly missed. But we are so grateful for all he has done to raise the bar for cultural arts in this town. 

-Lee Ann Kornegay 

Since I met Wim thirty years ago, he has been a constant force in the South Carolina arts scene, and it won’t be the same without him. He cultivated friendships and fostered collaborations among artists. His knowledge, enthusiasm, and passion for the arts and making things happen was unmatched in our arts community. Wim will not be forgotten and was a hell of a friend.

-Mike Williams

This is a devastating and sudden loss for our community, within which Wim was such a force at 701, at if Art, and beyond. Such a presence. Deep condolences to Eileen and to Wim’s family. I thought of him as the “old fashioned” type of gallerist: if Art is no pristine white cube with an intimidating attendant, but a jumble of walls and levels all filled with art and with books, open and inviting to all, presided over by Wim from his perch in the loft. There is no prevailing style or medium among the artists represented. Simply those Wim thought were good and to whom he was deeply committed. Wim ran if Art more as an art center than gallery, hosting musical events, performances, and book launches—including mine. When I asked Wim if we could do a launch in the gallery the answer was simply: “Sure, when do you want to do it?” No red tape to cut, no waivers to sign. Just set up the table, put out the books and the chairs and do it. He was always open to conversations and to events that would stimulate them. The first public event we attended during the depths of pre-vaccine COVID was at the gallery: Michaela Pilar Brown’s moving sculptural performance mourning her mother’s passing, compellingly enacted by her and Terrance Henderson. The set and the performances were extraordinary; but just sharing a live experience with other people was cathartic for us, as I hope it was for Michaela. Wim created a space in which you felt safe to have deep and perhaps unsettling aesthetic and emotional experiences like this, even during a pandemic. I hope that as a community we can find ways to honor Wim’s life and extend his legacy and commitment to creating spaces for art and experience.

-Peter Chametzky

Wim with Diane Gilbert, Kirkland Smith and James Smith

Wim was a giant in the art community and his passing  is such a loss for his family and friends! 

He made a lasting impact through his work with 701 CCA and his gallery if Art, as well as facilitating the artist exchange with our sister city Kaiserslautern, Germany. He  was passionate about the value of art and passionate about the artists he valued. He will be dearly missed. 

-Kirkland Smith

“I feel heartache for having lost a friend, but also for the wider loss to our art community and the direction of local art. His honesty, drive, and support are irreplaceable. Wim is irreplaceable.”

-Scotty Peak

We were introduced to Wim when we first arrived in Columbia. He and Eileen opened their home and hearts and welcomed us from the beginning. His smile, dry sense of humor, and strong opinion made him the kind of friend we valued and appreciated. We truly loved him. Wim will be missed, and we will miss his voice floating from the loft of If Art Gallery as he greeted us when we arrived.

-Thaddeus and Tanya Wideman-Davis

Wim did so much for Columbia arts and music. But for me personally, during my days at Free Times, his presence offered reassurance that approaching our small but determined creative community with honest criticism (and some well-intentioned snark) was not just OK but necessary for its continued growth. 

-Jordan Lawrence

Wim could be disagreeable and cantankerous and have a need to be right at the exact same moment he was incredibly kind and accepting. A person of great integrity who wasn’t above fucking with you in a good-natured way. Fun and sneaky funny. He was a fierce champion not only of the arts but of people. Mostly people. There was only one Wim. We were so lucky to know him. Zaire and Michaela myself will always remember the One Woman show he gave the Bird at If Art when she  was five(I think). Or how we used to talk about “real football “ , soccer. And how he was helpful . Always helping. Miss you man. Love you Wim. A singular presence in Columbia. 

-Darion McCloud

Wim Roefs was a gift pure and simple. 

-David Yaghjian

Book Presentation/Discussion--The Verdict: The Christina Boyer Case by Jan Banning @ 701 CCA

Book Presentation & Discussion:

JAN BANNING:

The Verdict: The Christina Boyer Case

Featuring Richland County Chief Public Defender Fielding Pringle

701 Center for Contemporary Art director Michaela Pilar Brown and

world-famous Dutch photographer Jan Banning

Monday, May 16, 2022

7:30 pm

Admission Free

Richland County Chief Public Defender Fielding Pringle and 701 Center for Contemporary Art director Michaela Pilar Brown will lead a conversation at 701 CCA with world-famous Dutch photographer Jan Banning during the first American presentation of his new book, The Verdict: The Christina Boyer Case. The conversation and book presentation will take place Monday, May 16, at 701 CCA.

Banning, a former 701 CCA artist in residence who has had two solo exhibitions at the center, makes the case for Boyer’s innocence in the death of her three-year-old daughter Amber in Carrollton, GA, in 1992. Boyer has been incarcerated for three decades after she accepted – under duress and after receiving poor legal representation – a prison sentence without pleading guilty to avoid a death penalty trial.

“For decades I have admired Jan Banning’s socially focused and engaging portrait projects on menial professions and human conditions otherwise ignored,” said Anne Wilkes Tucker, curator emerita of photography at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, one of many museums that has Banning’s work in its collection. “This moving book calls for what should be and could be done for Christina.”

Boyer’s “heartbreaking case infuriates me,” Tucker wrote, “but came as no surprise. Bullied and abused as a child, she is one of thousands of women without resources who weren’t believed, and had inadequate defense.”

The plight of especially poor defendants in the United States’ judicial system, in which 95 percent of cases never go to trial, will be part of the conversation with Banning. Public attorney Pringle has decades of experience representing indigent defendants.

Banning’s book presents a complex and multi-layered approach to the Boyer case. Two chapters, by Banning and Georgetown University law professor Marc M. Howard, discuss the case and the American judicial system. Photographed pages from the local newspaper provide media context and show the papers’ biased reporting on the case. “The Family Album” shows family photos of Boyer and her daughter, while another section shows hand-written pages from Boyer’s prison diaries. In “Imaginations,” Banning presents interpretive and conceptual photographs, mixing photojournalism and staged art photography, to illustrate aspects of the case, though not literally. “Christina’s Associations” presents Boyer’s written responses to Banning’s photos of the Southern environment, an environment that Boyer has not seen in person in decades.

Banning came across Boyer’s case when he was making portraits of inmates at Georgia’s Pulaski Women’s Prison for his 2016 book Law & Order: The World of Criminal Justice, which examines crime and punishment in five different countries through photos and text. Since then, Banning – by training a historian, with decades of experience as a photojournalist – has spent years researching the Boyer case, spending more than six months in the small town of Carrollton, Carroll County, and elsewhere in Georgia.

New York Emmy-winning production company Latchkey Films, contributors to the Netflix series The Innocence Files, is making a documentary about the Boyer case and Banning. Banning’s and Boyer’s exhibition about the case, The Verdict: Beyond A Reasonable Doubt?, opened in February at the Nederlands Fotomuseum, the national Dutch Photo Museum, in Rotterdam.

Banning was born in 1953, in Almelo, The Netherlands. His work has been exhibited in some 30 countries and is in the collections of many museum, including the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Atlanta’s High Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Banning has published more than a dozen books of photography. Among his books and exhibitions are Bureaucratics, about government officials in several countries, including the United States; Comfort Women, about Indonesian women forced into sexual slavery by Japan during World War II; Traces of War, about forced laborers who survived the Japanese Burma and Sumatra Railways building project during the same war; and Down and Out in the South, about homeless people in Columbia, SC, Atlanta and the Mississippi Delta. Both Bureaucratics and Down and Out were exhibited at 701 CCA, where a residency for Banning provided the impetus for and beginning of the Southern homeless project.

701 CCA is a non-profit visual arts center that promotes understanding, appreciation and enjoyment of contemporary art, the creative process and the role of art and artists in the community. The center also encourages interaction between visual and other art forms. 701 CCA is located at 701 Whaley Street, 2nd Floor, Columbia, SC 29201.

Columbia Open Studios April 2nd & 3rd -

By Emily Moffitt

48"x60" oil on canvas, Walking a Tightrope by Christopher Lane

Columbia Open Studios returns on April 2nd and 3rd! The event is a “self-guided, weekend-long, free tour of artists’ studios in the Greater Columbia, South Carolina area, including all of Richland and Lexington Counties” and gives South Carolinians an opportunity to check out some of the most prominent inventive minds Columbia has to offer.  

It is a free event that offers time to meet with the participating artists individually at the Preview Party, and the event aims to create a direct connection between the artists and audiences both in person and on the web through social media promotion and interpersonal marketing.  

Patrons get to have a sneak peek into the individualized studio life of their favorite local artists by touring their studio spaces.  

Many artists who participate in COS are repeat participants; 2022 will be the fourth year that Christopher Lane participates in the event. A highly successful artist with a passion for making large format paintings that make large statements and one who finds beauty in every inch of landscape that South Carolina offers, Lane finds great value in being a part of the COS artists. “I enjoy it immensely as it allows patrons to observe my work in a more intimate setting and connect in a way we can’t always do in galleries.”  

This sentiment is surely shared amongst the other participants, both on the part of the artists and the audiences. The participant roster features a wide variety of artists from multiple disciplines, with painters, ceramicists, and everything in between, creating lots of chances for visitors to find a new artist’s body of work to fall in love with.  

The event will be free to the public and last from 10 AM to 6 PM on Saturday April 2nd, and from 12 PM to 6 PM on Sunday April 3rd.  

For more information, you can check out their website columbiaopenstudios.org and subscribe to their newsletter! The participating artists with pertinent information about their work and locations are all featured on the website.

Jean-Marie Mauclet and Gwylene Gallimard present DISPLACEMENT, MEMORY, ERASURE Collaborative Challenges in Three Parts at 701 CCA

G & M is not just our favorite place to grab a croque monsieur and a nice Chablis in Charleston, it’s also the initials of the artists who have an exciting installation and program of art at 701 CCA opening next week.

According to our friends at 701 CCA –  

The artist-activist duo Gwylene Gallimard & Jean-Marie Mauclet are back at 701 Center for Contemporary Art in Columbia, SC, with Displacement, Memory, Erasure: Collaborative Challenges in Three Parts. A dozen years after the duo’s memorable, gallery-wide Olympia installation at 701 CAA, the French couple and Charleston, SC, residents present a three-part project at the center, where they are currently in residence. 

The exhibition opens Thursday, March 24, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m., with a meet-and-greet-the-artists opening event. On Saturday, April 9, the Charleston collective TINYisPOWERFUL, of which Gallimard and Mauclet are members, will present an all-day communication and learning workshop. On Sunday, April 24, 3:00 – 5:00 p.m., the exhibition closing reception will take place. 

Gallimard’s part of the exhibition, called In Progress…, presents large canvases with drawings, collage and artifacts that relay decades of the duo’s unique art-and-activism collaborations with artists and non-artists alike. “The canvases are dedicated to our many collaborations and our explorations of art in and with communities,” Gallimard says. “It also perpetuates and honors those collaborations.” 

Mauclet’s 3-D constructions in the exhibition are excerpts from A Tale of Charleston, an installation-in-the-making that critiques issues of wealth, class, culture, and race in Charleston. The tale central to the installation, Mauclet says, “actualizes a dream in which the city of Charleston has turned into a living garden. Wealth, class, cultures, race have become assets, a place for all to belong.” Several of Mauclet’s constructions refer to tiny downtown Charleston businesses that are either for sale or no longer exist. 

The project’s third component is the April 9 workshop of TINYisPOWERFUL. The day-long workshop explores art tools and other techniques for collective social engagement, communication, and learning. The workshop, open to the public, will consist of five sessions exploring ways of engaging with and in the community and exploring art as tools for social engagement, activism, and growing communities. The workshop is from 9;30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. and will be a hybrid event with an online and in-person component. For more information, go to www.701cca.org.

About the Artists -

Gallimard (b. 1948, Paris, France) and Mauclet (b. 1942, Meru, France), Charleston residents since 1984, have worked independently and collaboratively for some four decades. Their collaborative works include Charleston’s popular community-oriented French café Fast & French, which they owned for decades, and which was conceived to offer “all the features of an art, social justice and economic sustainability project.” The duo has created installations and exhibitions tackling the health insurance industry, fast food, religious beliefs, refugees and how the past is memorialized. A 2006–08 collaboration, You Comin, brought eight artists and educators to the World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya. Their long-running project The Future Is On The Table between 2001 and 2013 was at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg and in Lexington, KY, Charleston, SC, and Jackson, MS. The project led Gallimard and Mauclet to residencies in India and France and an experimental conference on the Trans-Siberian train. Why do they want to be rich without us? in 2007 was part of the project The Changing Face of Charleston. Gallimard & Mauclet 2009 residency and 2010 exhibition Olympia at 701 CCA explored the history and culture of the historic mill district in Columbia where the center is located. Conversations With Time was a 2011 intergenerational art project in West Baltimore, MD. 

Gallimard & Mauclet’s work has received support from France’s Ministère de la Culture; the South Carolina Arts Commission; Charleston’s Spoleto Festival; Alternate ROOTS; Alternate Visions; the Humanities Foundations; and the National Endowment for the Arts. Mauclet studied at the University of Paris, France; the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he received an MFA; and New York City’s Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture. Gallimard studied at Paris’ Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs and received an MFA from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. 

The TINYisPOWERFUL collective believes that art and tiny businesses are nimble, adaptable, and profitable for the people. The collective argues that belonging means celebrating many histories and cultures and together becoming all we can be. 

701 CCA is located at 701 Whaley Street, 2nd Floor, Columbia, SC 29201.

Dates to Remember: 

Thu, March 24, 6:00 – 8:00 pm, Meet The Artist Exhibition Opening

Sat, April 9, 9:30 – 5:00, TINYisPOWERFUL Workshop

Sun, April 24, 3:00 – 5:00 pm, Exhibition Closing Reception

For further inquiries contact Michaela Pilar Brown at director@701cca.org or (803) 319-9949.

CALL for Site Specific Visual Art via Our Friends at CCA

701 CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ART 

MILL DISTRICT PUBLIC ART TRAIL OPPORTUNITIES 

We were excited to hear about this unique opportunity for visual artists to break into site specific/public art offered by the good folks at 701 CCA that we wanted to help them spread the word.

Here’s what we know —

701 Center for Contemporary Art (CCA) is seeking artists to develop and execute site-specific works for five gate houses located on the grounds of the historic Granby and Olympia Mills as part of CCA’s Mill District Public Art Trail. The mills are twin Romanesque Revival style, four-story structures designed by W.B. Smith Whaley & Company - the leading mill architects of their time. Once considered two of the most architecturally significant textile mills in South Carolina, today the two massive buildings have been repurposed for residential mill living.  

The application deadline is Wednesday, March 9, 2022.

Budget 

The budget for each gate house is $3,000

Public Art Opportunities

Five gate houses located in front of the two mill buildings offer unique opportunities for site-specific works. The structures were built during WWII.  Designed to compliment the architectural elements of the mill buildings, the Olympia Mill gate houses feature arch-shaped windows and a frieze consisting of terracotta arches. The less decorated Granby Mill gate houses feature dentil brick molding and sash windows.  

The gate houses will function as changing exhibition spaces for temporary public art projects. The projects will be installed for a minimum of one year.  Each gate house is 10’x10’ with a modest interior and lighting. Access to the interior is through doors on the rear or side of each structure. The gate houses are not air-conditioned or heated. Artwork must be able to withstand extreme weather conditions. 

The exteriors of the gate houses are protected under the City of Columbia historic preservation ordinance. Attachments to the exterior are not allowed. 

Eligibility 

Artists working in media appropriate for non-conditioned environments and styles are eligible for consideration. Artists may submit individually or as a team. Artist teams must designate one artist as the lead contact. This opportunity is open to professional artists 18 and over. 

Selection Process

A panel of arts professionals will review artists qualifications and make a selection of artists who will be invited to submit a full proposal. Selections will be based on artistic merit, experience with public art commissions and/or installation art and the ability to complete and install the project by June 20, 2022.

RFQ Requirements

1. Images of up to five completed commissions/installations that demonstrate your qualifications for the project. Please include the title, medium, dimensions, year completed, location, and a short description. 

2. Artist resume demonstrating a minimum of five years of professional visual art experience. If submitting as a team, a current resume should be submitted for each team member.  Please compile resumes into one document.

3. Statement of interest in this particular Mill District opportunity

4. References that include the names and current contact information for three individuals with whom you have worked, collaborated, or who have commissioned your work in the past. References may be contacted for artists invited to develop a proposal for the commissions

   Timeline

Call for RFQ - February 9, 2022

Zoom Q&A - February 14

Zoom Q&A - February 28

Deadline for RFQ - March 12 

Panel Review & Selection - March 13

Notification to Artists - March 15

Deadline for Proposals - April 4

Finalist(s) Notification - April 8 

Finalist(s)  Interviews/Presentation of Proposals on Zoom - April 11

Notification to Finalists - April 13

Site Availability - April 14

Deadline for Installed Works - June 20

Please submit questions to Michaela Pilar Brown at director@701cca.org. Questions and answers will be posted on our website at www.701cca.org. 

701 CCA presents - South Arts Southern Prize & State Fellows 2021

Shared by our friends at 701 Center for Contemporary Art

Marielle Plaisir R. Bridges.

An exhibition series that in 2019 originated at 701 Center for Contemporary Art in Columbia, S.C., and is rapidly becoming the most important annual show of contemporary art made in the U.S. South is coming to 701 CCA for the second time. South Arts Southern Prize & State Fellows 2021 will open at the center on January 20 and run through March 6, 2022. Due to an increase in COVID-19 cases in South Carolina, there will be no opening reception, but 701 CCA hopes to present several events to accompany the exhibition. The show will include Charleston, S.C., artist Fletcher Williams III, who was the 2021 Southern Prize Finalist, or runner-up, and Florida’s Marielle Plaisir, the 2021 Southern Prize Winner. After 701 CCA, the 2021 exhibition’s second stop, the show will travel to North Carolina and Florida.

701 CCA initiated the first Southern Prize exhibition in 2019 in partnership with South Arts, the umbrella organization for state arts agencies in nine Southern states. South Arts launched the Southern Prize & State Fellows awards project in 2017, the first two years without an exhibition component. The inaugural 2019 exhibition traveled from 701 CCA to the Bo Bartlett Center in Columbus, Ga., which since also has hosted the 2020 and 2021 exhibitions.

“Each year that South Arts makes these awards, we are awed by the depth and artistry in our region,” South Arts president and CEO Suzette M. Surkamer, a former head of the South Carolina Arts Commission, wrote in the exhibition catalogue. When South Arts in 2017 launched the first cycle of Southern Prize and State Fellowships recipients, Surkamer wrote, “we did not know what to expect and were positively blown away by the response.” The current cohort, Surkamer wrote, reminds us “what it means to be resilient.” The emotionally taxing times of COVID-19, political upheaval and urgent calls “for long overdue justice and equity” did not stop the 2021 South Arts fellows, Surkamer added. “Each artist took what 2020 gave them and declared that 2021 will be brighter and stronger.”

For the Southern Prize, artists from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina and Tennessee can submit a portfolio of their work. An independent jury selects one fellow from each state, from which a second jury panel selects two finalists for the Southern Prize. Each state fellow receives $5,000, the Southern Prize runner-up receives and additional $10,000, and the winner, and additional $25,000. Both finalists also receive a residency at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences in Rabun Gap, Ga. South Arts has so far awarded $400,000 through the project to contemporary artists living and working in the South.

Joyce Garner Pears

In addition to Williams and Plaisir, the artists in the current exhibition are Tameca Cole of Alabama, Raheleh Filsoofi of Tennessee, Joyce Garner of Kentucky, Myra Greene of Georgia, Jewel Ham of North Carolina, Ming Ying Hong of Mississippi and artists duo Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick of Louisiana.

The 2021 cohort of South Arts fellows is the most diverse group to date. Of the six American-born artists, all but Garner are African American. Filsoofi is from Iran, Plaisir was born in France but has roots in Guadeloupe and Hong was born in China but raised in Los Angeles.

Saturday, January 20 – March 6, 2022

More about SC artist Fletcher Williams III

North Charleston, SC, native and resident Fletcher Williams III (b. 1987) has shown his work in more than two dozen exhibitions since receiving his BFA at New York’s Cooper Union in 2010. Among the mixed media artist’s five solo exhibitions are Traces at 701 Center for Contemporary Art in Columbia, SC, in 2018 and Promise Land in 2020 at the historic Aiken-Rhett House in downtown Charleston, SC. The latter was a venue-wide exhibition in which Williams engaged the urban plantation’s grounds and indoor spaces with his paintings, sculptures and installations. Among the group shows that included Williams’ work are those at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art, the Caribbean Cultural Center and Cooper Union, all in New York City; Gateway Project Spaces in Newark, NJ; the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art + African American Museum of Fine Art in California; the Mint Museum and Hodges Taylor Gallery in Charlotte, NC; the Mann-Simons Site and McKissick Museum in Columbia, SC; and several venues in Charleston and elsewhere in South Carolina. At the Mint Museum, Williams was included in Coined in the South, a 2019–2020 overview of art in the US South. Williams’ work is in the permanent collection of Charleston’s Gibbes Museum, where he was a visiting artist in 2019. He worked on the set of the Amazon Prime series The Underground Railroad, and his work has been discussed in some two-dozen publications, including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

Featured CCA Biennial Artist Reclaims the Feminine Through “Monstrous” Installation

“…rather than reiterating these narratives throughout history of what makes women ‘women,’ or what makes women monstrous, I think women should be the ones to decide and to retell those narratives.”

Think of your favorite werewolf. Are you a traditionalist watching American Werewolf in London? Maybe your high school years were filled with Team Jacob debates or MTV made you a Scott McCall fan. Regardless, think about what all these representations have in common. What would these look like if the main monsters were women? 

This is what new South Carolinian, artist Marina Shaltout, asks in her installation Bad Bitch. Told best in her own words, this installation is a “meta-camp, multi-channel video installation that tells the story of a female werewolf exhibiting three symptoms of PMS (Ravenous, Reckless, and Raging).” 

A female werewolf being new or surprising is inherently ironic—women are no strangers to being portrayed as monsters. However, the feminine monster is typically just that: feminine. Think Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy or Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique; even in a non-human form they remain feminine, complete with sexual organs and rife with sensuality.

 If women are ever portrayed as fur-covered monsters, they are rarely allowed to be seen as women, losing all sense of femininity. This is the dichotomous relationship of the female monster, either too feminine or not feminine at all.

 Shaltout relates this in part to the experience of women portrayed by the media, saying, “It's this really interesting process where we women have this notion of, ‘I want to be this woman, but society hates this woman and deems her crazy or problematic or undesirable, so I also hate this woman and therefore I hate myself.’”

 With her own body, Shaltout resists this patriarchal narrative that defines the feminine by its standards. In these installation videos, she dons a full-body wolf costume and dresses it up with wigs, jewelry, and nails. She refuses to let the monster lose its femininity and refuses to let that femininity be comfortable.

“I explore mythologies of females throughout history and the way that we conflate femininity with evil and societal problems. I specifically consider how female monsters are sexualized while male monsters are bad-ass grotesque figures, and I'm interested in flipping those gender notions of what a monster has to be,” Shaltout reveals, “But rather than reiterating these narratives throughout history of what makes women ‘women,’ or what makes women monstrous, I think women should be the ones to decide and to retell those narratives.” 

This narrative consists of three videos, featured on three individual, decorated TVs. Each video presents the main character—Shaltout in costume—in three action sequences: in one, she is eating cakes messily, surrounded by purple fur and the moon that beckons her; in the second, she is putting on makeup at a light blue vanity with its shattered pieces creating the frame itself; and in the third, she is dancing, moving with glitter and framed by the oxymoronic exotic yet inherently natural foliage. All three parts of this installation coalesce at a peak wherein the character at their center stops existing to please the watcher.

 All the materials seen in the videos and on their frames are either handmade or personally sourced by Shaltout. The vanity was found, while the pieces on the frame were created to simply look like the broken furniture in the video. The cake fixtures actually came first with the pastries in the video baked by Shaltout to match. These “moments of artifice,” as she calls them, are key to her work and bridge the faux with authenticity. 

Learning what to create and what to reuse is key to ensuring her process moves along seamlessly, and Shaltout’s varied artistic background surely helps. Though born in Missouri, she grew up in Illinois where she went to college and received her BFA in Jewelry and Metalsmithing before doing a residency at New Mexico State University and finally becoming an MFA candidate in 3D and Extended Medium at the University of Arizona.

 Her work with 3D sculpture aids in hands on work, like wrapping violet fur or placing robin egg blue wood on a TV frame. Her work creating appendages supports her visual eye, seen in the careful cultivation of wardrobe or recreation of baked goods. And her work with body-based installation and performance allows her to blur the line between self and other. 

“Visuals is my favorite part. It's me saying does this glittery dress work for this? It's a gathering of materials and then kind of playing around to see what will work, and a lot goes into it,” she intimates, “I think I debated about the color of the wig for two weeks straight. These little things—they're arbitrary and yet hold so much weight—and at the end of the day, I get to make those decisions myself, which is really cool.” 

Video installation adds a fresh layer to performance in this ability to shift visuals and have multiple takes and edits. There are never many cuts, but Shaltout is able to play with lighting and color, even recreating sound. There always is an organic element, however, to what happens when the camera is turned on, and some things, like breaking the vanity, can only happen once.  

“I do script; I storyboard. But I'm more of a writer, so I'll write out the sequence of actions that I plan to take in my videos. And I kind of have that as like a blueprint, but a lot of times my work is improv,” Shaltout describes, “I set myself up with my props and with the general idea, but a lot of it is just kind of going with the feeling in the moment.”

 Donning these costumes and props both makes Shaltout appear as if she could be anybody and specifically embodies a particular part of femininity and perception of the feminine. What at first glance could appear as a strange, silly Halloween costume is a rumination on the very control of women’s bodies and personas, and by turning our expectations of both storytelling and genre on their head, Shaltout is able to reclaim the monstrous feminine.  

In the future, Shaltout aims to continue these stories in different, yet perpetually linked, personas. Her current idea involves mimicry, flowers, and phallic-shaped foods, but that’s your sneak peek for now. Regardless, she will continue to assert that if you’re going to represent me as a monster, I’m going to make you look at me as the “monster” I truly am. It is her, and our, narrative now. 

So—why are there no woman werewolves? They make people in a patriarchal world uncomfortable. They represent a breaking of boundaries and a power that makes people scared. But they should be. And we, as women, should be comfortable and proud of our power, fur and claws included. 

Bad Bitch is currently on display at 701 Whaley’s Center for Contemporary Art as part of their “Biennial Part 1,” which is up until November 14th. Read more about the Biennial here:

Shaltout now resides in Hartsville, South Carolina, teaching at Coker University as a Visiting Assistant Professor. You can follow her journey at her website.

-Christina Xan

Zachary Diaz and the Recycled Parts of Life

“If you’re always following the recipe, that’s as good as it’s ever going to taste.”

Zachary Diaz’s upcoming Stormwater show started with a ball of paper.

Years ago, Diaz wrote (and quickly discarded) an emotional letter to an ex, only to find the wadded paper months later. Capturing the words he had written on the page in a still life, Diaz hesitantly included the drawing of the letter in an earlier exhibition at Stormwater Studios. 

Several people pointed out the piece to him in the show, and Diaz started to realize a point of connection. “If that’s one way that I can connect with total strangers, how many more ways can we connect with other people? What other experiences or memories or reflections do we have that coincide with how someone else has felt?” Diaz asks. From that moment, a residency was born.

Diaz’s residency at 701 Center for Contemporary Art expanded this idea of unsent letters by outsourcing writing. Participants wrote letters to people or experiences, which were published anonymously on Diaz’s website. Several were selected to be the subjects of drawings that will be featured in his upcoming exhibition, which shows at Stormwater Studios from October 8-17.

This show is a combination of work from this residency and an earlier show called Cloudwalker, both of which were partially released online due to the pandemic.

Cloudwalker features clouds, as its title suggests, birds, and varying figures hidden in the compositions. “I like creating narrative stories that the viewer can make up themselves… I sort of lay the groundwork — I give them all the accents— and they can kinda come up with their own imagination what’s really going on,” Diaz says. He likes making work that makes people think.

The Letters portion of the show is ongoing throughout the duration of the exhibition. Viewers will be invited to submit their own letters, all of which will culminate in an installation that will be featured in the show’s closing reception on October 17 from 6-8pm.

While Diaz is still conceptualizing how the installation will look, he plans on ordering the letters in a way that reflects their content, identifying themes such as love, forgiveness, and varying emotions.  

Since starting the Letters project, Diaz says he’s become a lot more interested in how he feels when he’s making. His earlier creative process involved stricter planning and reference sketching. Now, Diaz works more intuitively, which, in turn, has made projects go faster and made him more aware of what he’s creating.

Diaz tends to mix mediums in nontraditional ways, layering oil paint over gessoed paper and drawing on top with charcoal. “I don’t think there’s any concrete way to create something” Diaz says. “If you’re always following the recipe, that’s as good as it’s ever going to taste.”

By making the letters in this show anonymous, Diaz says that he gives people a shield to really be honest. This openness displays his belief that so many experiences in life are shared, whether you know it or not.

Diaz describes the exhibition as a dive into his mind. “If you’re interested in learning more about everyone around you through the eyes of an artist, then come to the show,” Diaz says. “It’s a story in two parts… Cloudwalker is about how I see the world and everything around me. Letters is about how you see the world and learning more about the people around you.”

The opening reception for the exhibition is October 9 from 5-8pm. Whether by attending the show or submitting an anonymous letter yourself, Diaz wants to help create connections.

“Artists are gardeners. We make roses from the recycled parts of life,” Diaz says. To see how one crumpled piece of paper turned into a show, stop by Stormwater Studios before October 17.

 - Stephanie Allen

Opening at 701 CCA -- Greenville artist Kent Ambler: Into the Wood

In March 2020, 701 Center for Contemporary Art in Columbia, S.C., will open a solo exhibition of Greenville, S.C., artist Kent Ambler, presenting woodcuts, related sculptures, and architectural installation of woodblocks. The exhibition, entitled Into the Wood, will run from March 12 – April 26, 2020. The opening reception is Thursday, March 12, 7:00 – 8:30 p.m., preceded by an artist’s talk at 6:30. 

Ambler is one of South Carolina’s most prolific and successful woodcut artists. His work impresses art professionals and more casual art lovers alike. Ambler’s surroundings provide his subjects, whether they are birds, dogs and goats; trees, mountains and neighborhoods; ice cream; or beer and bananas. His approach is intuitive and aesthetic rather than conceptual. 

The exhibition will be Ambler’s largest solo exhibition to date, with his largest-ever three-dimensional component. The show will present three dozen woodcut prints, 20 woodcut-collage house sculptures, and an installation of a shed-sized house structure built from old, carved wood blocks. 

“My work is autobiographical,” Ambler says. “It is derived from my life and surroundings, my observations. It usually starts with an observation or a quick sketch. While the imagery in my art is generally subject- or object-oriented, the visual appearance of each piece is of most importance to me. I try not to overthink or over-plan my work. I generally do my best work when my brain is ‘turned off’, so to speak. I am inspired by the simplicity of idea and image addressed by genuine folk artists.”

Hammond, Indiana, native Ambler (b. 1970) has been a full-time artist since 1997. He has had dozens of exhibitions, including solo shows in Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Maryland, Tennessee, New York, Michigan and Virginia, as well as Taiwan.  Ambler is represented by eight galleries throughout the country and sells his work at high-end art fairs throughout the Southeast and beyond. He received a BFA from Indiana’s Ball State University in 1992 and did graduate studies at Clemson University in 2001-2002.

“Kent is an interesting case as an artist who is deeply respected by his peers for the quality and breadth of his work, and at the same time appeals to a very wide audience,” said 701 CCA board chair Wim Roefs, who curated the exhibition. “The everyday nature of his subject matter certainly helps with this appeal since it provides easy entry points into the work. But at the same time, Ambler often presents an interesting take and surprising angle, the latter literally and figuratively. And there’s a good bit of humor in the work, too, both in the imagery and in his use of text. The work possesses a lot of energy and movement, and shows mastery of the woodcut medium -- giving the work a raw quality, too.”

Opening Reception: Thursday, March 12, 7 – 8:30 pm

Artist Talk: Thursday, March 12, 6:30 pm

Exhibition: March 12 - April 26, 2020

Admission: Free; $5 suggested donation 

701 Center for Contemporary Art

701 Whaley St., 2nd Floor, Columbia, SC 29201

Dadaesque Exhibit at 701 CCA

If someone had told me ten years ago that Columbia would be hosting an international exhibit of Dada-inspired art tonight, like 701 CCA is in fact doing, I'd have have smiled and nodded before rolling my eyes enough to make me dizzy, not sure if many of us had even heard of  the Swiss-inspired Dada movement, much less have an appreciation for it.

But such is the caliber of arts interest in 2016 Columbia, SC.  And much of this interest is built on the backs of previous arts intensives provided by Columbia Museum of Art and Columbia College whose exhibitions and attached programs dedicated to the likes of Andy Warhol and Georgia O'Keeffe have stimulated and nurtured what is becoming a passion for arts history and arts appreciation in the city. We are growing in our desire for not only more challenging art, but for the ability to understand what it is that makes some art more challenging.

Kudos to  701 Center for Contemporary Art for presenting Dadaesque, which is the culmination of their 701 CCA's Dada Days in Columbia, a series of programs through which the center has been marking the one hundredth anniversary of the Dada movement, which many art historians recognize as the impetus for most of what we now perceive as contemporary art.

“The exhibition will surprise people in that it shows the scope of Dada’s influence on contemporary art,” says 701 CCA board chair Wim Roefs, who curated the exhibition. “It’ll be surprising to know, for instance, that Columbia mainstays such as Mike Williams and Clark Ellefson create works that are firmly rooted in the Dada movement. While, like many other artists in the show, they don’t see themselves as Dada artists, they would readily acknowledge that it was the innovations of Dada that informs and facilitates at least part of their artistic output.”

The group exhibition period will run from April 13 through June 5 and in addition to featuring Columbia-based artists Clark Ellefson and Mike Williams will also feature Jason Kendall of Columbia and Colin Quashie, whom we'd still like to call our own and Hilton Head's Aldwyth. Our artists will be joined by artists from throughout the US as well as sound poet and 701 visiting resident artist Jaap Blonk and Janke Klompmaker, both from The Netherlands. There will be a Gallery Talk at 2 pm on Sunday, May 15th.

What You Need to Know About Dadaism

Need to brush up on your Dadaism? Here's a very brief primer on how this strange arts movement, which was very much anti-arts movement, fits into the bigger picture.

"Dada was born out of negative reaction to the horrors of the First World War. This international movement was begun by a group of artists and poets associated with the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich. Dada rejected reason and logic, prizing nonsense, irrationality and intuition. The origin of the name Dada is unclear; some believe that it is a nonsensical word. Others maintain that it originates from the Romanian artists Tristan Tzara's and Marcel Janco's frequent use of the words "da, da," meaning "yes, yes" in the Romanian language. Another theory says that the name "Dada" came during a meeting of the group when a paper knife stuck into a French–German dictionary happened to point to 'dada', a French word for 'hobbyhorse'."

-- Dona Budd, the Language of Art Knowledge

• Dada or Dadaism was a form of artistic anarchy born out of disgust for the social, political and cultural values of the time. It embraced elements of art, music, poetry, theatre, dance and politics.

• “The beginnings of Dada,” poet Tristan Tzara recalled, “were not the beginnings of art, but of disgust.”

• For Dada artists, the aesthetic of their work was considered secondary to the ideas it conveyed. “For us, art is not an end in itself,” wrote Dada poet Hugo Ball, “but it is an opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in.”

• Dadaists both embraced and critiqued modernity, imbuing their works with references to the technologies, newspapers, films, and advertisements that increasingly defined contemporary life.

KEY WORDS --> EXPERIMENTAL. PROVOCATIVE. UNORTHODOX.  SPONTANEOUS. IRREVERENT. READYMADE. RADICAL. SUBVERSIVE. VARIED.

 For more on Dadaism click here and here, too.

CALL for Artists: Deadline for 701 CCA Prize 2014 Nears

701 Center for Contemporary Art in Columbia, S.C., announces the second installment of the 701 CCA Prize, an art competition and exhibition for professional South Carolina artists 40 years and younger occurring every other year. The project will take place this year with a juried process resulting in a October – December exhibition for the competition’s three finalists and an award celebration announcing the winner. Eligible artists are invited to apply for the 701 CCA Prize by completing and submitting the application package by September 8, 2014.

“With this second installment of the 701 CCA Prize, 701 Center for Contemporary Art continues to add a crucial component to the eco-system and infra-structure for artists and the visual arts in South Carolina,” 701 CCA board chair Wim Roefs said. “The 701 CCA Prize is the most important platform to highlight some of the extraordinary young talent in South Carolina, and as such, this competition and exhibition has come to fill a void, not unlike 701 CCA South Carolina Biennial has with respect to a regular overview of contemporary art in our state.”

The project’s purpose is to identify and recognize artists 40 years and younger whose work is exemplary in its originality, shows awareness of artistic developments and is of high artistic merit. The 701 CCA Prize will be awarded to one young professional South Carolina artist for outstanding art production since January 1, 2012. Aside from the age requirement, eligible artists must currently live in South Carolina. They must have or have had a solo exhibition in a museum, art center, regular commercial gallery or a designated gallery space in a cultural facility between September 1, 2012 – September 1, 2014. They also must fulfill several practical requirements outlined in the application guidelines. The application fee is $25.

An independent jury of three art professionals will select three finalists for the 701 CCA Prize. The three finalists will be included in the 701 CCA Prize Exhibition from October 30 – December 21, 2014, at 701 CCA. The exhibition’s opening reception will be October 30. The 701 CCA Prize Winner will be announced during the 701 CCA Prize Celebration on November 27, 2014.

The 701 CCA Prize Winner will receive a six-week, paid residency at 701 CCA; a solo exhibition at 701 CCA; consultation services from a professional advertising and marketing firm; and an ad in a national publication. The jurors for the 701 CCA Prize 2014 will be announced later.

“The 701 CCA Prize is loosely based on the Turner Prize for artists in the United Kingdom,” board chair Roefs said. “The Turner Prize is one of the most prestigious art awards in the world and generates a lot of exposure for and excitement about the finalists. While the 701 CCA Prize differs in several ways from the Turner Prize, we hope that with a South Carolina context, it will trigger similar interest and excitement.”

For further inquiries, contact director@701cca.org or call Sheldon Paschal at (803) 319.9949.

About the 701 CCA Prize:  The 701 CCA Prize, organized by 701 Center for Contemporary Art in Columbia, S.C., is an art competition and exhibition for young professional South Carolina artists. The project’s purpose is to identify and recognize artists 40 years and younger whose work is exemplary in its originality, shows awareness of artistic developments and is of high artistic merit. The 701 CCA Prize will be awarded to one artist for outstanding art production since January 1, 2012. Summary of Procedures Applications must be in the possession of 701 CCA by September 8, 2014, 5:00 p.m. An independent jury of three art professionals will select three finalists for the 701 CCA Prize based on, first, artistic merit as shown through provided images and, second, supporting materials about the applicants’ art production and career. The three finalists will be included in the 701 CCA Prize exhibition at 701 CCA. Works by each finalist for the 701 CCA Prize exhibition will be selected by a 701 CCA curatorial team.   The 701 CCA Prize winner will be selected from the three finalists by the independent jury based on the artists’ applications. The 701 CCA Prize winner will be announced during the 701 CCA Prize Celebration on November 27, 2014. The Prize Package The 701 CCA Prize winner will receive: ■ A six-week, paid residency at 701 CCA; ■  A solo exhibition at 701 CCA; ■  An ad in a national art publication concurrent with the solo exhibition. ■  Consultation services from a professional advertising and marketing firm; Members of the 701 CCA Prize 2014 jury will be announced later. Crucial Dates July 11 – September 8, 2014 Application Period September 16 Public Screening of Selected Prize Applicants September 17 – 19 Jury Selections September 24 Announcement of Three Finalists October 30 Exhibition Opens October 30 Exhibition Opening Reception November 27 Prize Celebration and Announcement of Winner December 21 Exhibition Closes Application Fee The application fee is $25, which must be included with the completed application. Eligible Artists Eligible artists must: ■ Currently live in South Carolina; ■ Be a professional artist 40 years or younger on October 30, 2014; ■ Have had or have a solo exhibition in a museum, art center, commercial gallery or a designated gallery space in a cultural   facility between  September 1, 2012 – September 1, 2014 (exhibitions in venues that are, as determined by 701 CCA, not  professional art institutions and/or primarily an art institution, such as restaurants, coffee shops, stores, bars, etc., are not    eligible); ■ Have by September 24, 2014, available a body of work in one or more visual art medium/media completed after January 1,    2012, substantially enough to fill approximately one-third of the 2,500 square feet gallery space at 701 CCA. In case of    performance art work, high quality DVD representations of past performances must be available.  Performance artists will be    required to provide a schedule of no less than 3 public performances during the exhibition period.  In case of site-specific    installation art, artists must be willing and able to create a site-specific installation at 701 CCA for the 701 CCA Prize exhibition    between October 23 – 28, 2014.  ■ Agree to deliver art works selected for the 701 CCA Prize exhibition with requested paperwork to 701 CCA on Friday or   Saturday, October 19 or 20, 2014.  ■ Be available to attend the opening reception of the 701 CCA Prize exhibition on October 30, 2014, AND the 701 CCA Prize    celebration on November 27, 2014, during which the 701 CCA Prize winner will be announced. Required Application Materials To apply, the following materials must be provided on DVD or CD unless otherwise noted: 1. The completed and signed Application Form. (Hard Copy) 2. Ten (10) high-quality, digital images, 300 dpi or more (visual and craft artists) or 3 videos (media and performance artists) of art works completed since January 1, 2012. The images must show art works strongly related to what would be available for the 701 CCA Prize exhibition. 3. The images or videos must be accompanied by a completed Checklist Form. The information in the image documents headers must first list the artist’s last name, then the number corresponding to the image’s number in the checklist, then the checklist information. 4. Documentation of one solo exhibition fitting the criteria described under “Eligible Artists.”   The solo exhibition documentation MUST include: a).  A completed Solo Exhibition Documentation Form signed by the artist AND the director, curator, board chair, owner or    other person in charge of the art venue where the exhibition took place. (Hard Copy)  b).  An original invitation to the solo exhibition (Hard Copy).                 c).  Gallery installation shots, reviews, exhibition brochures, publications, articles, etc., that document the solo exhibition. 5. A resume/CV. 6. A bio of no more than 300 words. 7. An artist’s statement of no more than 300 words addressing the applicant’s general artistic vision and how this vision applies to   his or her art production since January 1, 2012, as shown in the images included with the application. 8. A check for $25 payable to 701 CCA. Submitting Applications Applications containing the DVD/CD with all required forms and materials, hard copies of other required forms and the artist’s solo exhibition invitation and a check for $25 should be received no later than September 8, 2014, 5:00 p.m., at 701 CCA. Questions: Contact us at director@701cca.org or contact Sheldon Paschal at 803.319.9949. Mail application to: 701 CCA 701 CCA Prize P.O. Box 12822 Columbia, S.C. 29211 Application materials will not be return

Columbia Open Studios returns with fresh artists, April 5-6

 

Like the other Open Studios events around the country – unaffiliated, much like the First Thursdays phenomenon – Columbia Open Studios has grown to be a widely anticipated annual art event around the Midlands. Presented by 701 Center for Contemporary Art, the free, self-guided tour opens the doors to visual artists’ studios across the region on April 5 and 6, 2014.

The first weekend in April, thousands of people will venture out to chat with artists about every aspect of their work, meet fellow art lovers and purchase favorite pieces, if they wish, at zero markup. Guidebooks are available at various locations around town and at 701 CCA, located inside historic 701 Whaley on the 2^nd floor. Nearly a dozen of these artists are new or returning to the tour after a hiatus, yielding a variety of new stories, inspirations and techniques for tour goers. Artists take full advantage of their personal backgrounds, favorite art-making tools and studio spaces, proving that inspiration can be found in the most typical and seemingly mundane places.

Curious about the kind of experience you’ll get during Columbia Open Studios?

Learn more about a few of the tour’s newest artists before mapping out your weekend of studio-hopping.

Renea Eshleman, Cayce   Renea Eshleman serves as the Associate Director of Academic Affairs for the S.C. Commission on Higher Education. Such a hefty title could certainly mean a challenging work day – which is why she sees art as her therapy.   Eshleman makes her own jewelry and is also a painter, using her “mother-in-law-suite”-turned-studio to house her supplies. The studio is readily accessible for loading/unloading art and supplies from the adjoining garage, which also serves as a spill-over space for too-good-to-pass-up art display units and frames.   A small porch and French doors to the outside inform her jewelry-making, providing a source of inspiration outside her chaotic yet comfortable space.          

Jean Capalbo, Shandon Extensive travel and a professional background in education are Jean Capalbo’s muses. In fact, she was in Tanzania in March, observing animals on the Serengeti and other African plains. (Her painting in the near future will undoubtedly be influenced by this trip.)   She has served as a school administrator and a teacher, enjoying the field in its entirety due to its creative core. Specializing in acrylic and oil painting, Capalbo is always searching for unique mediums to craft surface designs, including everything from plastic doilies to foam stamps.   Capalbo has recently relocated to the Carolinas from Sedona, AZ. She has painted all her life, taking time to study the field at UCLA, Santa Monica College, USC (our USC that is) and Sedona Art Center in Arizona.

Charlene Wells, Melrose Heights/Millwood Wells is one of four Open Studios artists operating out of Viridian Gallery & Studio on Carlisle Street. She refers to the area as a developing “art block,” boasting not only another studio, but also several other artists, an architect and an interior decorator.   Wells has studied under many accomplished artists. While painting under Reuben Gambrell, she met a handful of fellow artists with whom Viridian was later formed. Her paintings of subjects from the created world are allegorical expressions that she hopes will inspire a viewer to pause, study and decipher the symbol - while also noting her expression of color and value.

Returning to the tour are Tim Floyd and Jan Swanson. Other newcomers are John & Venetia Sharpe, Patrick Mahoney, Lindsay Wiggins, Lisa Strally and Mary Lynn Williams.

• Find out more about your old favorites as well as the new talent on 701 CCA’s Columbia Open Studios website: www.columbiaopenstudios.org.
• Get a guide at 701 CCA (701 Whaley, 2^nd floor) or at art-loving venues around town.
• Preview Party Thursday, April 3, 7-10pm at 701 CCA, $5/$10 with cash bar and complimentary hors d’oeuvres.
• Tickets: http://www.701cca.org/columbia-open-studios-preview-party/
• The Columbia Open Studios tour Presented by 701 Center for Contemporary Art Saturday and Sunday, April 5-6, 2014
• Free!

bittersalt bittersweet -- Michaela Pilar Brown's new performance art opens this Thursday at 701 CCA

 

Michaela Pilar Brown's 

bittersalt bittersweet

Thursday, December 19, 2013, 7;00 p.m. 

701 Center for Contemporary Art -701 Whaley Street, 2^nd Floor

Admission Free

Performance: “the most immediate art form… for it means getting down to the bare bones of aesthetic communication—art/ self-confronting audience/ society.”—Lucy Lippard

Performance art is a generic term that encompasses such styles as conceptual art, body art, and feminism, as well as very specific art movements like Fluxus and Viennese Actionism. The style gained popularity in the 1960s when visual artists began abandoning the object for a more direct mode of expression. Subverting linear theatrical narratives for spontaneous and honest interaction with audiences in response to social and political concerns connect the artworks placed within this classification.

Parallels can be drawn between Michaela Pilar Brown’s performance, Bittersalt Bittersweet, and a myriad of influential performance pieces including Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece (1964) and Marina Abramović’s The Artist Is Present (2010). Her piece also follows in the tradition of African-American artist Adrian Piper’s conceptual work that first brought race and gender into the conversation, as well as the Kara Walker and Lorna Simpson’s deconstruction of stereotypes. The strength of this performance is that it combines elements of all of the aforementioned sources. Here, Brown forces participants to engage on an intimate level with her, while having to make difficult decisions about her, which have the potential to elicit unexpected responses in both the sitter and audience. Challenging inappropriate modes of representation of marginalized people, Brown stages the performance within a tent, clearly referencing P.T. Barnum’s commodification and exploitation of Joice Heth. The setting also works in concert with sideshow exhibits featuring “exotic” peoples from other countries. The Dahomey Village, one of the Midway attractions at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition nicknamed “The White City,” comes to mind and reinforces the Baudelairian voyeurism made prominent by Barnum. Looking from past to present, Brown’s work is analogous with Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gómez-Peña whose performance, Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West (1992), blurred the lines between fiction and reality. The stereotypes personified were sometimes believed to be historically accurate, sometimes feared for the anxiety-inducing unknown of what the performers might do, and sometimes irritating because of the overt commentary on racism and oppression. Bittersalt Bittersweet continues the debate about race in America, but it is more focused on the treatment of women. On an even deeper level, this performance is a personal exploration into the psyche of the artist as she rejects societal definitions ascribed to African-American women for the preferred titles of daughter, sibling, partner, lover, caregiver, and role model.

By Lana A. Burgess, Ph.D.

Faculty Curator, McKissick Museum

University of South Carolina