Last year it was the exhibit, Richard McMahan’s Mini Museum, on view in the Sanders Rotunda at the Addlestone Library at the College of Charleston. McMahan has been creating his own personal museum collection featuring miniature replicas of the world’s greatest works of art. This was an unbelievable display of one person’s effort to recreate all the art treasures of the world which fit into a 20 foot square space. It was really unusual.
This year, it’s the exhibit, Hair on Fire, featuring works by Caryl Burtner, Sonya Clark, Talia Greene, Ruth Marten, Althea Murphy-Price, and Loren Schwerd, on view at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston’s School of the Arts. This exhibit will still be up through June 15, 2009 – so hurry and go see it if you haven’t.
I was lucky the gallery was open when I was delivering our June issue of Carolina Arts at the Simons Center for the Arts at the College of Charleston. As I walked in the door Mark Sloan was there and he quickly pointed out the exhibit by Caryl Burtner, of Richmond, VA, which consisted of a hair cutting station with many small baggies of people’s hair in them. He asked if I would make a contribution. My first reaction was – hey, my hair is in short supply. I’ve been losing it since I was a senior in high school, but Sloan told me it doesn’t have to be hair off the side of my head and he pointed to his contribution of beard hair. That was a different matter all together – that hair grows like my lawn – so I made a deposit to Burtner’s collection. Her entire contribution to this exhibit was the hair cutting station and the bags of hair contributed by people coming to this exhibit. Pretty funky – right. It’s just the beginning.
But, if it wasn’t for Sloan, the first thing that would have grabbed my attention was a fairly large miniature house – made of hair in the middle of the downstairs part of the gallery made by Loren Schwerd, a former professor at the College of Charleston who now lives and works in Baton Rouge, LA. This house, the largest of her works in the exhibit was made of synthetic hair extensions rescued from the debris of a flooded hair salon from Hurricane Katrina. The rest of Schwerd’s works (upstairs) make up a series of portraits of dilapidated post-Katrina houses in New Orleans. Except for the large house, she included small photos of the original houses the works are modeled after. Some also used real human hair.
Downstairs were also works by Sonya Clark, also of Richmond, VA. Her works were various sculptures made from using her own hair and that of friends and family. Some looked like they could be jewelry pieces. The strangest work was a very small hair hand with a small hair ball in it. That was a little creepy. It reminded me of the story of the Monkey’s Paw.
Also, downstairs was a display of items from the collection of the Charleston Museum showing items made using hair – like watches with wristbands made of hair. This showed that making items out of hair was nothing new.
In the gallery’s upstairs space I found prints and drawings, with hair as a featured item, by Ruth Marten of New York City. These works were the most normal items in the exhibit – sort of. They were normal in so far as the medium goes, but the subjects were a little weird.
Althea Murphy-Price of Bloomington, IN, demonstrated the formal possibilities inherent in synthetic hair as wall reliefs, sculpture, and throw rugs. Just another medium for construction of art like handmade paper or plaster.
The final artist contributing to the exhibit was Talia Greene of Philadelphia, PA. She digitally modifies 19th century photographic cabinet cards featuring portraits of individuals with unusual hair styles – hair made of flies. Greene would show four identical portraits of a person, each showing various hairdos – starting from flies in controlled formation to flies out of control. You can just about imagine the portrait setting. The subject gathering the flies in the proper formation, the photographer snapping the first image, the flash scaring the flies – they scatter into different formations around the head and face and then the following photos are taken in rapid succession.
I don’t have any photos of this exhibit to offer, which is best, as you should really make an effort to see this exhibit. But, if you’re in a position where you just won’t be able to make it – check the gallery’s website. The exhibit is on view Mon.-Sat., from 11am-4pm.
It’s exciting to wonder what Sloan will be doing with the much larger exhibition space which will be opening later this year in the new expansion of the art department facilities at the College of Charleston.
While there at the Simons Center I always check out their men’s restroom, which always brings me to the section where student exhibits are always posted. I have never received notice of these exhibitions – you have to accept that they are offered by chance, but it would be nice if they had regular beginning and ending dates and we were notified so we could tell our readers about them. Someone – probably students, go to a lot of time and trouble mounting these exhibits, it would be great if they were treated like real exhibitions. There is always something interesting offered in these exhibit.
I’ll give a shout-out to a few of the students whose works captured my interest. Excuse me if I get any of the names wrong – sometimes I can’t read my own notes.
Jesse Wallace had an interesting work called, Wet Beast, made of various fabric materials and I suspect wire. Wingsin Yuki Tong had a photographic sculpture entitled, Memory. This was a series of photos (memories) attached to strings receding away from the viewer up to the ceiling. It was rather clever. The guys at Kodak would have been proud. This work reminded me how memories can fade away, but with photos you can keep them alive.
There were two etchings I liked. One was by Samantha Theall, which was “untitled” and the other was by Jessica Vande Werken entitled, Man on Wire. Both were nicely done and made me want to see more.
Oh, by the way – the men’s restroom at the Simons Center was as usual, in tip top condition. Which brings up the point that in all my travels throughout all these years I have never seen a messy restroom at a college or university in the Carolinas which makes me think students don’t use them. That’s OK with me.
Go see this exhibit and the student work.