Coming May 20 – June 12, 2027, Degenerate Art Project III is the third chapter in Jasper's ongoing response to our country's socio-political moment, and the conversation isn't over.
Call for Literary Art: Open Now
In conjunction with the exhibition, Jasper is issuing a call for literary art, poetry, critical essays, and creative non-fiction, for an anthology of work by South Carolina writers responding to our current socio-political environment. The anthology, tentatively titled Degenerate Art: The Conversation Continues, will be published and filed with the Library of Congress.
Open to SC-based writers, no fee to submit. Deadline is December 15, 2026.
Coming Soon: Call for Art
A call for visual art submissions will follow. Stay tuned for details on how to participate in the exhibition.
About the Project
DAP I (2025) and DAP II (2026) brought together visual art exhibitions, a protest poetry reading, an activism resource fair, and the Zeitgeist and Artists' Choice Awards, and demand from artists and patrons alike has only grown. DAP III builds on that foundation with an expanded, multidisciplinary footprint across visual art, literature, performance, and community engagement.
Full programming, including performances, lectures, and community events to come!
The purpose of the Jasper Degenerate Art Project remains threefold:
To provide a platform for expression and protest, through art, for Midlands-area artists
To bring our local arts community together, physically and in spirit, for support and encouragement during a challenging time in our country's history
To preserve, for posterity, Columbia SC's artistic response to our current socio-political situation
Where the Name Comes From
The title Degenerate Art Project is a contemporary, South Carolina-localized reflection of the Nazi Party's 1937 Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition in Munich, at which more than 650 pieces of Modernist art were haphazardly displayed alongside graffiti and mocking text labels, with the goal of denigrating and ridiculing the art and the artists who made it. That exhibition included work by 112 artists, among them Picasso, Mondrian, Chagall, Kandinsky, Klee, and Dix. (The US Holocaust Memorial Museum offers an excellent overview of this period of world history.)