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October Issue 2004
Sumter, SC's Annual Accessibility Exhibition to Feature the Artwork of College of Charleston Students and Faculty
This relatively small community of forty thousand inhabitants has supported and sustained the southeast's longest running exhibition of site-specific installation art. This contemporary exhibition series, titled Accessibility, started in 1999 and has grown both in size and scope over the past six years and often includes well known regional, national and international artists. The annual exhibition features contemporary site-specific artwork that responds to Sumter's unique history, culture and environment.
Running concurrently with the month-long Accessibility exhibition is Sumter's NextWave Festival. The NextWave Festival features new and avant-garde work created by artists representing various art-forms including: visual arts, poetry, music, media-arts, theatre and dance. A highlight of the festival is the Storefront Gallery Project. The Storefront Gallery Project involves the use of display windows of both vacant and functioning downtown businesses as temporary "galleries" for art displays. Artwork is frequently displayed alongside the merchandise of operating stores while other vacant display areas are filled with sculpture, ceramics and paintings. Sumter merchants and store owners are eager to partner with the project directors and the artists in this project that provides the casual Main Street shoppers with an unexpected "art" experience as they stroll along the downtown sidewalks. Placing art in non-traditional venues has been a trademark of the Accessibility and NextWave events.
The 2004 Storefront Gallery Project will feature the artwork of four College of Charleston artists. The artists were selected by College of Charleston art professor Loren Schwerd, a two-time Accessibility artist herself, and include both students and faculty. "There are many talented students and faculty at the College of Charleston and it was difficult to choose just four to participate in the Accessibility project," states Schwerd. "I know that they will take full advantage of this extraordinary opportunity. Accessibility has offered them the freedom and support that artists, especially young ones, rarely receive. I hope that their enthusiasm and professionalism will pave the way for more College of Charleston students and faculty in future Accessibility exhibitions."
College of Charleston artists and their projects include: Eric Johnson - adjunct instructor of sculpture and studio manager at the College of Charleston since 2002. Prior to that he taught sulpture at several universities in the southeast and managed the Metal Arts Program at the Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham, Al. Johnson's store window display will include a wide selection of cast iron footwear. The castings are made from found and collected shoes. Translated into iron, the broken in shoes become monuments to our transience.
Adrienne Antonson is scheduled to graduate from the College of Charleston in Dec., 2004. She has studied fiber art techniques at the Penland School of Crafts. Antonson's Storefront exhibit will display delicate and evocative garments made from human hair - much of it harvested from her friends and classmates.
Seth Gadsden is a recent graduate of the College of Charleston and a founding member of Redux Studios. His storefront will display images of hands engaged in shadow puppet play and are printed on fabric.
Tony Prete will graduate from the College of Charleston in Dec., 2004. He is planning an installation of soft sculpture made from his own clothing and that of his friends and family. The shirts and pants are wrapped and bound with yarn to make hundreds of feet of colorful Kudzu vines that invade the space and overwhelm everything in it.
For further information contact Booth Chilcutt,
Cultural Director-City of Sumter by calling 803/436-2616 and e-mail
at (bchilcutt@sumter-sc.com) or Loren Schwerd, Professor of Art-College
of Charleston, e-mail at (lschwerd@mindspring.com).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2004 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2004 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.