May Issue 2000
Visual Art Offerings on Tap During the Spoleto
Festival USA
by Tom Starland
In presenting a preview of the visual art offerings which will be offered during this year's Spoleto & Piccolo Spoleto Festivals, taking place in Charleston, SC, from May 26 through June 11, I first want to review what's different from last year. Let's take a look at what's new, what's changed, and what you haven't heard about yet.
The biggest change in Charleston's visual art community is the loss of the Art Thomas Gallery, which was located at 2 Queen Street. I'm sure many of our loyal readers have heard some or all of the numerous rumors and stories that have been circulating over this last year about the demise of this popular gallery. Some of the rumors were even reported in local and state newspapers. What really happened? Why did the gallery close? The answer is a combination of things - part tragic, part inevitable, and part, a sign of change and a reflection of Charleston's shortcomings over dealing with contemporary art. Having to close two galleries myself in Charleston, I know how hard it is to close those doors and reflect on all the things you should have done or not have done. But I'm not here to bury Art Thomas. I'll just praise his past contributions to the Charleston visual art community.
A short list of items Thomas is partly responsible for, if not in whole would be: introducing monotypes into Charleston's commercial art community; the forming of the French Quarter Gallery Association and its ART WALKS; using color postcard reproductions of artwork for exhibit invitations; getting William Halsey's work back in a Charleston commercial gallery; proving that a commercial gallery in Charleston could not only exhibit, but sell contemporary art by local artists and those from elsewhere; and advertising exhibits and your gallery on a regular basis (one change I have come to appreciate).
Thomas accomplished many of these things by example rather than by committee or suggestion. He also organized educational workshops and fundraisers to benefit nonprofit visual art organizations. Leadership of this type will be sorely missed and no matter what your lasting impression is - it's hard to overlook these accomplishments and contributions. Hopefully Art Thomas the artist - yes, he was also an accomplished artist, will once again be able to just create art. Enough said!
So, while some galleries close, others open. One of the new additions to Charleston's visual art community is the E.S. Lawrence Gallery, located at 229 Meeting Street. This gallery came to us by way of Aspen, CO. The great thing about this gallery is that they brought with them an established stable of artists - not from Charleston, expanding the growing diversity offered in Charleston's gallery scene. This fact may present a considerable challenge to them - like a salmon swimming up a waterfall, but I hope that people will find their presence refreshing as I do.
Another new addition, a half a block away from E.S. Lawrence Gallery is ClayWorks Studio and Gallery, located at 40 Pinckney Street at the end of Church Street, just north of the Market area. This new working studio and gallery is brought to us by Susan Filley and Carol Updyke. ClayWorks also features works by several other gallery artists. So, if you're standing in front of the famous St. Phillip's Church on Church Street and you're squinting your eyes to see what lies down that street - walk a little further down that street past the Market. If you can't see the blue door of the gallery - you need to go see your optometrist - there's a gallery down there!
A last minute surprise was news of the opening of the Mickey Williams Studio/Gallery, located at 54 Broad Street, above the John Carroll Doyle Art Gallery. Williams has maintained a studio on Sullivan's Island and has had a reputation of being a nightowl, preferring to work at night. Now that his studio is located in the French Quarter Gallery district, I expect some changes in work habits will be in order. As of this writing - the studio/gallery hours will be by chance or appointment.
Many galleries went through a number of changes - mostly moving to new locations. Marty Whaley Adams moved into (or should we say moved "back" into) the space where the Art Thomas Gallery was at 2 Queen Street. She has joined up with the fiber artist, Paige Hathaway Thorn, to open Gallery Two Queen. Adams started out in this very space many years ago before moving to Meeting Street. She should feel right at home.
The Bernie Horton Gallery moved from just South of Broad, on Church Street, to just North of Broad, on Church Street, at 111 Church Street. That's in reverse of the hopes and dreams of many social climbers in Charleston, but the demand for Horton's work - demanded a larger space. And, it's a wonderful gallery space. That now makes five galleries on just one block of Church Street and as many more just around the corners. That's the beauty of Charleston - you are never more than a block away from the next art gallery.
The Audubon Wildlife Gallery is also on the move as we write this article from 233 King Street to 177 King Street. Again that's up the social scale in Charleston. The closer you can get to South of Broad the better, but in this case it could be the farther you get from Charleston Place, the "more" reasonable your rent will be. That is if the use of "reasonable" in this case isn't an oxymoron.
Other notable changes involved name changes.
The Jade Easel Art Gallery & Framing, located at 68 Spring
Street, under the Karpeles Manuscript Museum, changed its name
to Hamlet Studio and Art Gallery.
The Elizabeth O'Neill Verner Gallery, "the oldest contemporary
fine arts gallery in the City of Charleston," located at
38 Tradd Street, has changed its name to The Verner Gallery. Some
older visitors and residents also know this location as the home
of Tradd Street Press. The name change reflects the gallery's
move to represent contemporary works of art by local and regional
artists as well as the traditional works of Elizabeth O'Neill
Verner.
What hasn't changed? Well, in a city that is well over 300 years old, some things never seem to change. Like the fact that there are some people out there who are planning on presenting exhibits during Spoleto, but they didn't plan on too much publicity - if any. Every year, shows pop out of the woodwork that we were never told of - so we can't tell you.
Washington Park Outdoor Show
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Another thing that never seems to change is the City
of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs' disrespect for the visual
arts. They've kicked the Indoor Craft Show, that used to take
place at the Gaillard Auditorium, outside again in the traditional
95 degree plus heat. They've moved the Piccolo Spoleto Outdoor
Art Exhibition from Marion Square to Washington Square - where
the whole thing started. This is due to all that work the City
is doing on remodeling Marion Square. Seen any work being done?
I wonder what the excuse will be next year? The City has also
arranged a number of other wonderful exhibition spaces for the
other shows it will present, such as the US Custom House, the
Charleston City Hall, the Drawing Room at the Dock Street Theatre,
and the ever popular City Gallery.
The visual art scene over at the Spoleto Festival USA hasn't changed
much either. This year's attempt at offering visual arts at the
"World's Most Comprehensive Arts Festival" is a "major"
exhibition of works by sculptor Joel Shapiro, at Middleton Place
plantation and gardens. A token work will hang from the face of
the Dock Street Theatre. I'm continuously amazed at how the Festival
can squander the great publicity they received from their two
site-specific exhibitions. Now those were "major" exhibitions.
And, finally, this year the LOCUS Center for Contemporary Art changed their name to the Charleston Center for Contemporary Art, but apparently not much has changed with the organization. I've recently learned that their once a year exhibit they had planned for the Spoleto season has been cancelled, along with a number of other exhibits listed in the Piccolo Spoleto Festival brochure. It seems organizational problems continue at the Center for Contemporary Art. With good partners like the City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs, it's a wonder they have so many problems - especially after they changed their name to get more City of Charleston funding. You know "Charleston" has to be in your name to get good funding from the City. And, don't go looking for that "Center" for contemporary art - it's just their name - there is no center.
Enough preview á la my own form of commentary.
I just can't resist. Now, let's talk about the exhibits.
Leon
Golub
Dealing first with Charleston's institutions,
we'll start at the College of Charleston where the Halsey Gallery
will be closed or "darkened" due to the withdrawal of
the planned exhibition, While the Crime is Blazing: Paintings
and Drawings, 1994-1999, featuring works by Leon Golub. The
artist has joined the NAACP's protest over the display of the
Confederate Battle Flag atop the SC State House.
I've seen the exhibition catalog and we are really missing out
on what would have been a very interesting exhibition. Of course
if the flag comes down before May 1, the show still could go on,
but I'm not holding my breath. During the times that the exhibit
would have been up, the letter the artist wrote the College will
be posted on the doors of the Halsey Gallery.
Enough already about what's not going to be
here. The Gibbes Museum of Art will be offering a number of Charleston
related exhibitions. The cornerstone exhibit is the, John James
Audubon in Charleston: The Watercolors for The Birds of America,
featuring 45 "original" watercolors, many created in
Charleston and the surrounding area. This isn't an exhibition
of the "prints" - these are the original watercolors.
You don't get that opportunity very often.
Since last year, the Gibbes has refurbished its main exhibition
hall and has installed a new exhibition entitled, Treasures
from the Collection: Three Centuries of Art in the American South.
There are also exhibits featuring works from the "Charleston
Renaissance" showcasing works by Alice Ravenel Huger Smith
and Elizabeth O'Neill Verner. It's a great opportunity for visitors
to get a look at what Charleston once looked like.
Joel Shapiro
Turning back to the Spoleto Festival, as we mentioned before, they are offering a major exhibition entitled, Joel Shapiro: Sculpture, which will be presented at Middleton Place plantation and gardens. The exhibit will feature 17 sculptures from Shapiro's three major themes, including the human figure, twisting tree, and his "stick" constructions. Another sculpture by Shapiro will be installed on the façade of the Dock Street Theatre in downtown Charleston.
Under the banner of Piccolo Spoleto shows,
there are the outdoor exhibits. The Piccolo Spoleto Outdoor Art
Exhibition will take place this year in Washington Square, next
to City Hall at Broad and Meeting Streets. George Washington returned
to the park named in his honor this year in the form of a statue,
so I guess someone figured that the Outdoor Art Exhibition should
return there too. It all started there over 20 years ago. Can
you imagine there was a time when this show was the only venue
for many of the artists who now own the art galleries in Charleston.
So this year, you may be looking at work by some of the new gallery
owners of the future.
This show features some of the best artists from Charleston and
South Carolina, and most of them do own galleries. But, because
they love dealing with the Spoleto audience in the fresh air of
a Lowcountry Summer day - "Alfresco" - they have decided
to spend 17 days in the park - just for you.
The Piccolo Spoleto Outdoor Craft Shows take place in Wragg Square Park, located at Meeting and Charlotte Streets in downtown Charleston, on the weekends of May 26-28 and June 2-4. These shows feature over 70 crafts artists from throughout the US working in a variety of craft media. If you're a lover of fine art crafts or traditional crafts, these are two shows you don't want to miss.
Since we didn't receive any press releases, again this year, from the City on their other offerings we don't have much more to say than what you'll find in our SC Institutional Gallery listings. We got some info off the brochure we picked up at the Visitor Center, but it's a good thing I called them to check up on some exhibits listed in the brochure - that's when I found out a lot of them had been cancelled.
Well, we're finally to the special exhibitions
being offered by the commercial galleries and I think this year
is one of the strongest lineups offered to date. These, we got
press releases on and we'll use some the info found there within.
That means it's not going to be delivered in my words.
The Jerald Melberg Gallery will offer three solo exhibitions,
two by artists from Argentina, Ernesto Berra and Raul Diaz, and
the third featuring glass sculptures by Jon Kuhn. A painter of
collages that often resemble abstract landscapes, Berra's images
have a clearly constructivist background. There is a gestural
quality in the color strokes, but the insinuated horizontal and
vertical lines support a vigorous structure.
Self-taught as an artist, Diaz's technique reflects considerable
sophistication in the heavily worked surfaces of his paintings
on wood. These surfaces have been layered, scraped, overpainted,
scuffed, collaged and incised with subtle markings. Kuhn's sculptures
vary in size, shape, construction and function, yet each sculpture
is centered around the use of the cube. The internal cubes are
formed with hundreds of tiny pieces of glass (sometimes coated
with gold and silver leaf), which, when finally assembled, create
a gem-like form, perfectly cubic in dimensions, that reflects
and bends light.
The Nina Liu and Friends Gallery will offer
an exhibition of recent oil paintings by Cynthia Tollefsrud of
Knoxville, TN. I first saw this artists' work last year at Nina
Liu's and have never been able to stop thinking about the work.
The exhibit sold out last year and will sell out this year - It's
only a matter of time, so I would get there very soon if you are
interested in owning something different and unique. Otherwise
you'll just be looking. Carolina Arts Online, our companion
website, will be offering a special electronic exhibit of Tollefsrud's
works, found on the web at (http://www.CarolinaArts.com).
Jan Pawlowski
Coleman Fine Art will present an exhibition of recent paintings by the plein-air impressionist Jan Pawlowski. The artists spent five weeks in Charleston and the surrounding area painting for this exhibition. His distinctive style of impressionistic painting reflects the natural beauty of the Carolina Lowcountry and the charming lines of Historic Charleston's architecture. In both his landscapes and cityscapes, Pawlowski concentrates on the effects of sunlight and shadow in each location. I had the opportunity to see the artist at work on the corner of Broad and Church Streets and it is truly an amazing sight - there is no time for deliberation, yet the results are wonderful.
The Verner Gallery will offer an exhibit entitled, Fresh Paint, which consists of paintings by contemporary American artists who are either local or with ties to the Lowcountry area, including works by Daphne vom Baur, Mary Walker, Lonnie Stewart, Lese Corrigan, Manning Williams, and Robert Stark. You can also get a historical view of Charleston at the gallery viewing the works of Elizabeth O'Neill Verner.
Eva Carter
The Eva Carter Gallery is offering the exhibit, Nature's Gestures, introducing new work by Eva Carter that focuses on light, movement, and seasonal changes. These oil on canvases depict Carter's revived interest in the textural quality of paint. Her work has entered a new dimension exploring the surface of each painting and the illusion of depth. Paint is at times applied heavily and at other times in subtle layers. Carter also continues to be influenced by the Lowcountry's own intoxicating response to nature's gestures. The gallery also features the work of abstract expressionist, William Halsey, the vanguard of modernism in the Southeast and lyrical stainless steel sculptures by Gretchen Lothrop.
Pernille Dake
Blink!, Charleston's smallest gallery space proves the old adage that good things can come in small sizes. The gallery will present a show entitled, Momentums in Space, featuring small paintings and small sculptures by Pernille Dake. Dake was last year's Piccolo Spoleto Poster artist. The core feature of the exhibit is the NUMBer series (oil on canvas) wherein Dake seems to be on a ravenous search for the ultimate tension. The pure form of abstract expressionism free up confined consciousness, but color contrasts designate definite borders and concentration. The sculptures, a series of body figures in glazed clay on granite are recollections of the human form fulfilling conscious, as well as unconscious, observations. Although Blink! is small in size, the gallery has a large presence on the world wide web. Check our gallery listings for their web address, as well as others listed there.
The Charleston Renaissance Gallery will present
an exhibition entitled, West Fraser Paints Charleston,
featuring 20 recent plein air paintings by West Fraser. The exhibit
serves as a precursor to the lavishly illustrated, large-format
book now in production at the University of South Carolina Press.
"Charleston In My Time: The Paintings of West Fraser"
is scheduled for release in the autumn of 2001.
Fraser paints Charleston as it is, with all the reality left in,
whether it be construction cranes on Broad Street or trash cans
left out for the morning pickup. He doesn't offer the viewer the
"Disney" view of Charleston and that makes his work
historically important, if not just wonderful to look at.
Susan
Filley
ClayWorks Studio and Gallery will also be offering a special exhibition entitled, A Touch of Porcelain. The exhibit is a smaller version of an exhibit, of the same name, which Susan Filley and Matt Long curated for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts' annual conference held this year in Denver, CO. The exhibit featured over 100 works by 22 national ceramic artists and most of these people will be represented in the show at ClayWorks. The main exhibit will be showing in Atlanta, GA, at the same time we get to view the works right here in Charleston. With gas prices the way they are who needs to go to Atlanta? Well, even if gas prices weren't that high, why would you need to go to Atlanta when you can be in Charleston?
Although this exhibit no longer seems to have the blessing of the Office of Cultural Affairs, since it wasn't included in the Piccolo brochure, Sculpture in the South, will once again take place in Summerville's beautiful and historic Azalea Park. This two-day event features the works of a dozen or so nationally known sculptors, including Ken Smith, Maria Kirby-Smith, and Chris Gabriel of SC and Tucker Bailey and Dale Weiler of NC. The sculptors will present demonstrations during the weekend, and arts activities will be provided for young children. The Summerville Artist Guild will also present a show that same weekend in Summerville's Town Square.
Miles Batt
Tidwells Art Gallery, back in Charleston, will present its annual Miles Batt Spoleto poster along with an exhibit of other watercolor works by Miles Batt and mixed media works by Irene Charles Batt. The poster offers Spoleto visitors a colorful alternative to the "Official" Spoleto poster which each year seems to defy common sense. Did I mention that this year's Piccolo Spoleto poster artist is Tate Nations? I haven't seen the final poster, but Nations does good work - it should be another preferred alternative to the Spoleto "K2 something" poster.
Finally, but not in any lesser importance,
The Wells Gallery will be presenting an exhibit entitled, Travels
in Tuscany, featuring paintings by Lowcountry artist William
Jameson. This artist has traveled widely, always accompanied by
the tools of his trade. In this exhibition, Jameson's focus plays
on the landscapes on Tuscany, where the light is extraordinary,
whether it be on the hillsides or on the climbing streets that
characterize the towns of the area. Jameson is also a giving instructor
leading painting expeditions to locations both near and far. Many
Charleston artists have benefited from his instruction.
OK, a few one-liners. Jack Alterman will have a show of photographic
portraits at the Footlight Players Theatre. Kevin Taylor has a
show at Print Studio South entitled, Abstract Narrative: A
Print Experiment. Another show entitled, 4 Chicks, 2 Dudes,
will take place above ClayWorks Studio & Gallery. Carolina
Fine Paintings and Prints will be showing some early works by
William Halsey and you can always make an appointment to see the
works of Corrie McCallum at her studio. The Saul Alexandar Gallery
at the Charleston County Library will have an exhibit of works
by artists associated with The Lowcountry Heritage Society.
Artists not involved in any of the shows mentioned, but are always a Charleston must: Mary Whyte, John Carroll Doyle, Betty Anglin Smith, Gaye Sanders Fisher, Margaret Petterson, Anne Worsham Richardson, Virginia Fouché, and Rhett Thurman.
There is just too much talent in Charleston
and I know I've left some people out - so check over our gallery
listings and see it all.
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