There was an article offered by the Post & Courier on May 2, 2010, entitled – A New Palette, written by Adam Parker. The story detailed a deal reached by the trustees of the Gibbes and the City of Charleston – who share ownership of the structure, to renovate the aging facility.
I guess it’s a good thing for the Gibbes Museum of Art that they have managed to get the City of Charleston to help pay for a renovation since they continue to hold ownership in the facility, but I would have preferred to have read a story about the City giving up their half ownership hold on the building and announcing that they will finally start supporting the Gibbes like other cities do their art museums around the Carolinas.
Under the current situation with the economy and the fact that support of the Gibbes in the Charleston area has always had to take back seat to that of the three performing art organizations the City has adopted as their “too important to fail” children – this is the best the Gibbes could hope for. All three of these groups have Charleston in their name. If only we were talking about the Charleston Museum of Art – things maybe would be different.
But what puzzled me the most was the description of what the renovation was going to accomplish – an addition of just 2,000 square-feet of exhibit space, addition of working spaces for local & regional artists, add access to the back garden and add perhaps a cafe. It’s as if the Gibbes has given up on the idea of ever being a major art presenter and is going back to 1911 with a refocus on offering art classes.
Is this what the overall Charleston community needs? Is there a shortage of places to eat in Charleston? How many artist work spaces are they going to provide and to whom? And, is there really a shortage of places to get art lessons in this area?
It’s hard to see this as an exciting announcement in view of other developments going on in the art museum world around the Carolinas. The Mint Museum is involved in a major expansion project: the construction of a new 145,000-square-foot facility in uptown Charlotte, NC, and the reinstallation of the historic Mint Museum Randolph. Not to mention the new additions of the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts + Culture (formerly the Afro-American Cultural Center) and the new Bechtler Museum of Modern Art to uptown Charlotte.
In South Carolina, the Gibbes may have been the first art museum, but it is the last to not build a new facility, placing it behind Greenville, Columbia, and Spartanburg. In fact, the Columbia Museum of Art has a basement level which has yet to be totally developed for future expansion.
Look I’m not blaming the Gibbes for being the stepchild of the Charleston art community – at least in the eyes of the City and its Mayor, but I don’t see that they can do more than make the best of a bad situation. I blame James Schoolbred Gibbes for making a bequest that would tie these two parties together for 100 years – on paper – if not in spirit.
So, in this case being the first art museum in the region has left the Gibbes years behind its contemporaries – stuck in the 20th century.
One day, I hope to be reading and writing about a whole new Gibbes facility being built in New Charleston – that area between the crosstown and North Charleston – somewhere overlooking the Ashley River. But, then Charleston will need a new Mayor and new City Council for that to happen. Will that ever happen? I’m not holding my breath.
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Tags: Charleston SC, City of Charleston, Gibbes Museum of Art, James Schoolbred Gibbes