Mend: Love, Life, & Loss: Group exhibition

Curated by Mark Sloan

Oct - Dec, 2008
online exhibition »

This exhibition explores the paradoxical nature of the idea of mending--be it a human who is sick, a heart that is broken, or a profound grief over a death. The patch is often stronger than the original--hence the paradox. The artists in this show probe the dualities of strength/fragility, hope/despair, joy/grief, pretty/nasty, dainty/brutal, etc. using fiber as the key metaphor. Each of the ten nationally known artists employ the yoking of opposites as an expressive vehicle. All of the works in the show contain at least some sort of fiber--string, hair, thread, yarn, etc. Fiber is the central metaphor, as it is evidenced to be visibly fragile, yet through the mend, it becomes durable, and at times, indelible.

Faculty Spotlight: Installations by Loul Samater and Jarod Charzewski

Sep - Oct, 2008
online exhibition »

Loul Samater and Jarod Charzewski are visiting instructors in the Studio Art Department at the College of Charleston. Both artists will create large scale installations made from discarded materials creating environments that evoke the questions about our use of space and the physical debris we accumulate or refuse.

Richard McMahan's Minimuseum

April - June, 2008
online exhibition »

For the past eighteen years, Richard McMahan has been creating his own personal museum collection featuring miniature replicas of the world's greatest works of art. This Florida savant has an exceptional talent for producing tiny images representing famous art in museum collections such as the Hermitage, the Prado, the Louvre, the Metropolitan, and the Museum of Modern Art, among others. The online exhibition features videos, text and over 200 objects from this collection.

EMOTIONAL ARCHITECTURE: AZIMUTH OF FISSURE
WORKS BY CALIN DAN

April - June, 2008
online exhibition »

Calin Dan interweaves found photographs, sound, and manipulations of video to evoke the emotional and psychological experience of a place. That experience is first visual—made up of what is seen, what is remembered, and what can be projected onto an environment. I invited Calin Dan to Charleston hoping that this place would provoke and inspire him—the results of the encounter are found in the gallery under the title Azimuth of Fissure, a phrase drawn from a haunting photograph of a geological fissure left by Charleston’s 1886 earthquake.

Red State Blues

curated by Wim Roefs

January - March, 2008

Red State Blues displayed works by South Carolina artists who explore social and political commentary through their work. Visual artists often have the capacity to frame complex social and political dynamics in ways not reachable by language alone. Guest curator Wim Roefs knows South Carolina artists well and enjoyed the challenge proposed to him by the Halsey Institute to curate this exhibition. Artists to be included in the exhibition are Russell Biles (Greenville, SC), Steven Chapp (Easley, SC), Tonya Gregg (Hopkins, SC), Jean Grosser (Greenville, SC), Mana Hewitt (Columbia, SC), Deanna Leamon (Columbia, SC), Larry Merriman (Hartsville, SC), Alex Powers (Myrtle Beach, SC), Colin Quashie (Charleston, SC), Leo Twiggs (Orangeburg, SC), and John G. Wright (Varnville, SC).

Roefs states, "The art in the exhibition prods the often manufactured consent that much of society operates on. The art does so, however, not through the cheap-and-easy, single-minded shot of the hack-columnist but the subtle considerations of observers, in this case artists, not bound by particular party or interest-group politics but by notions of a just, open, healthy and sustainable society—locally, regionally and globally. Much of the work does not provide clear-cut answers or positions. Rather, it does what thoughtful art does best: trigger thought and discussion through visual means by providing a different point of entry into complex issues, asking questions rather than obscuring them with pat answers. In addition to providing food for thought, the art selected also achieves high formal and aesthetic qualities. Art has to be aesthetically interesting to be relevant because only art worth looking at can make a point—or points."