South Carolina's Own Sergio Hudson at Columbia Museum of Art!!! Get excited!

From our Friends at Columbia Museum of Art:

The Columbia Museum of Art is pleased to announce Sergio Hudson: Focused on the Fit, an exhibition showcasing the work of iconic fashion designer and Midlands native Sergio Hudson, on view Saturday, November 18, 2023, through Sunday, June 30, 2024. Organized by the CMA in partnership with Sergio Hudson Collections, LLC and community curator Megan Pinckney Rutherford, this exhibition showcases the remarkable moments of a designer who fell in love with fashion at 5 years old while living in Ridgeway, South Carolina, and has become one of the biggest names in the industry today.
 
“Many things are happening in my life that I could only dream of — this exhibition at the CMA is one of them,” says Hudson. “I feel very lucky, and I hope my story can inspire other young men in South Carolina to believe in themselves and follow their passion.”
 
Hudson will be at the CMA on November 18 for a special opening day program — tickets go on sale to museum members on Monday, October 16.
 
“As a lifelong lover of fashion, I am thrilled to be the community curator behind this exhibition showcasing the incredible work of my dear friend, Sergio Hudson, a successful Black fashion designer that was born and bred right here in the Midlands and is well on his way to becoming the next iconic American designer,” says Rutherford. “I am honored to get to share his story with a community that inspired and supported him, and also with the next generation that I’m sure will be inspired by his familiar beginnings.” 
 
Born and raised in Ridgeway, Hudson has always taken inspiration from the strong women in his life, particularly his mother, Sheldon Hudson, who introduced him to sewing. Since launching his first eponymous label in 2014, his fresh perspective on luxury American sportswear has taken the fashion world by storm. Hudson’s high-profile clients include Beyoncé, Michelle Obama, Serena Williams, Rihanna, Kamala Harris, Kendall Jenner, Issa Rae, Rachel Brosnahan, and Keke Palmer, a close friend whom he has called a muse.
 
Hudson’s philosophy is that fashion should be for everyone and include everyone. He designs to empower the wearer and often includes a nod to the ’90s of his youth. Focused on the Fit features eight signature garments from key moments in his revolutionary career alongside more than 20 sketches and drawings exploring his career from the early days winning Bravo’s Styled to Rock in 2013 up through the present day.
 
“Sergio is an example of what it means to ignite a passion and never let go of the dream. Focused on the Fit is not only a show about fashion, but also a story of how one makes their mark in the world,” says CMA Director of Art and Learning Jackie Adams. “We are so proud to present Sergio’s work right here in his home state, and we hope this show will inspire and educate visitors about a creative visionary driven to make a difference in how we choose to show up in the world through fashion.”
 
This exhibition is organized by the Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina, in partnership with Sergio Hudson Collections, LLC and Community Curator Megan Pinckney Rutherford.

About Megan Pinckney Rutherford
A Charleston native, Megan Pinckney left the Lowcountry to attend the University of South Carolina where she earned a degree in fashion merchandising. She began developing her social media skills during her reign as Miss South Carolina USA when she was tasked with managing the title’s account across several platforms. Since then, she’s developed Shades of Pinck, a lifestyle brand + online moniker that serves as a lady’s guide for styling yourself, your home + your travels. She believes in champagne for breakfast, that pink is a neutral, and that life is only what you make it! When Megan isn’t creating digital content for local + national brands, she’s supporting the arts community of South Carolina, encouraging her generation to become more involved in local politics, cheering on her beloved Gamecocks at Williams-Brice Stadium, and spending time with her 2-year-old son, Teagan.

Woman, Life, Freedom event focuses on Iranian women’s rights movement Evening includes pop-up art exhibition and panel discussion

From our friends at Columbia Museum of Art …

The Columbia Museum of Art presents Woman, Life, Freedom: An Evening on the Art of Protest, an evening of art and activism in conjunction with the exhibition Reverent Ornament: Art from the Islamic World, on Thursday, April 27, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Free with membership or admission, the program focuses on Iranian culture and the current women’s rights movement and features diasporic artists and scholars living in Columbia.

“This museum has been given the opportunity to present art from the Islamic world, in an exhibition that showcases more work from Iran than anywhere else, so I thought it was important to provide space for local Iranian Americans to give voice to what is currently happening there,” says CMA Manager of Engagement Wilson Bame. “I'm extremely excited to be working with these artists, who are very distinct yet very in sync with each other, to highlight their fine work while also giving our visitors a chance to learn more about and maybe participate in the Woman. Life. Freedom. movement.”

The geographical representation in Reverent Ornament: Art from the Islamic World is broad, with art included from regions as far west as Egypt, and as far east as India. The country with the greatest number of items in the exhibition is Iran, a place with thousands of years of cultural history. Presently, Iran is on the minds of many as protests continue in cities throughout the country and across the world following the death of Iranian citizen Mahsa Amini, who died last September while in custody after being arrested by the government’s guidance patrol or “morality police” for “improperly” wearing a hijab. Chanting “Woman. Life. Freedom.,” many people of Iran and their international allies protest the ill treatment of its citizens, especially women, under the rule of the present regime and fight to bring equality to their home nation.

Attendees are encouraged to visit Reverent Ornament to view the art that inspired the program before gathering in the CMA Theater for a short historical recalling of Iran’s most recent histories and a panel discussion led by USC language professor Farzad Salamifar. A pop-up exhibition in the Reception Gallery features the work of three Iranian American women artists, all affiliated with the USC School of Visual Art and Design: designer and associate professor Meena Khalili, visual artist, and adjunct professor Nakisa Beigi, and multimedia artist and MFA student Nina Rastgar. These artists will be present throughout the program and available for questions and discussion. The evening ends on Boyd Plaza with the chalk-stenciling of protest phrases in Farsi, Kurdish, and English.

Thursday, April 27 | 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. | Galleries and bar open at 6:00 p.m. | Panel discussion 6:30 – 7:00 p.m. | Pop-up exhibition at 7:00 p.m. | Free with membership or admission | Cash bar

REVIEW: CMA's Baker and Baker present Zion. A Composition by Saul Seibert

Zion. A Composition

Live at Columbia Museum of Art

Thursday, Nov 17th, 2022

Baker & Baker Series

by Kevin Oliver

An ambitious instrumental and visual art piece conceptualized by Saul Seibert with help from artist Virginia Russo, multimedia from Ash Lennox, and a cast of fellow musicians, Zion. A Composition came alive in multiple dimensions on Thursday evening at the Columbia Museum of Art, as part of their ongoing Baker & Baker concert series. 

Seibert opened the evening with a short explanation of the story behind the composition, and as he told the family background in front of multiple members of his own family in the audience, the anticipation in the audience built. The delineation of the three acts: The Diaspora, The Sojourn, and The Ascent, was a useful glossary of sorts for the crowd to reference, but as the piece unfolded, there was no visual division on screen or stage to indicate when one movement ended and a new one began. As such, at several lulls in the program audience members interjected applause and exclamations, seemingly unsure if something was ending or maybe just overwhelmed with appreciation of what had just transpired in a concluded segment.  

With two of the three movements already released for a while prior to this live performance, and the third just completed, it was still a much different experience watching the musicians perform the entire piece live. Left to right, they filled the CMA stage: Seibert’s older brother Zach Seibert (E.Z. Shakes) sat quietly cooking up some sinister electric guitar tones, Marshall Brown contributed keyboard swirls of varying tone and intensity, Kevin Brewer held down the beats even as they came and went throughout, Darren Woodlief, also seated, provided a solid bass presence that asserted itself fully in the final movement. Sean Thomson was the musical wizard of the night, starting on spooky, sensual sitar and moving to steel guitar and some wicked electrified mandolin. Seibert himself stood center stage, hollow body guitar in hand throughout, the ringleader of this spiritual, musical circus troupe.  

Every musical composition has an arc, that up-down movement that gives it an interesting story to tell. Zion’s first movement, Diaspora, came through as a slow-building bundle of potentialities, with the audience a bit on edge, unsure of where it might be headed, perhaps. The preshow preface alluded to one beginning to rid themselves of preconceived ideologies, attitudes, and casting those things out, and the music reflected such a sweeping task. Thomson’s sitar was prominent through the early passages, giving this portion a raga-like intonation that allowed listeners to settle into the aural universe of Zion.  

As the middle section opened up, the music soared, searching for those times of sojourn, as the movement’s title suggests–those places of rest, as one searches for home. At times the band resembled arena rockers on an extended jam, bluesy and blustery and supremely confident. In these sections, the drumming and the guitars evoked the percussive jazz plains of Steve Tibbetts’ 1980s work, or a more democratic take on the guitar orchestras of Rhys Chatham. In between those searing, searching sections the dynamic shifted to hushed tones, leaving sometimes a single instrument moaning, or clicking along softly as the band reloaded for the next swell like a surfer coiling his muscles for the next wave. 

It is in its final movement, however, that Zion finds, well, Zion. The Ascent is a lumbering leviathan of a groove, somewhere between Soundgarden-level grunge and the groaning Krautrock grooves of Can or Neu!, just a beast of a display anchored by Woodlief’s mammoth bass riffing. Again, however, there are interludes, lulls in the action. Life isn’t all one trajectory, after all, and neither is the ascent to Zion, musically speaking. The mountain does eventually get conquered, and in conclusion the music doesn’t so much fade away as plant itself on the peak and say “done.”  

Visually, artist Virginia Russo’s live painting/art added a facet to the proceedings that didn’t have to be there, but the performance was richer and fuller for it. As the band’s musical arc proceeded to rise and fall, so did Russo at the front of the stage, clad in black with a rolled out white canvas in front of her. She proceeded to paint over the entire canvas with her hands, no brushes, and then pick up the fully paint-saturated canvas and cut it into long, increasingly narrow strips. Those, she then rolled up before pulling them back apart, one ripped square at a time. The squares were then arranged on a new, clean white canvas to make a totally different piece of art. It was a perfect visual analogy for the thematic elements of the musical composition and served to reinforce those themes as the audience both listened and watched the proceedings.  

Other parts of her artwork for Zion were projected throughout as sometimes moving images on two large screens behind the musicians, lending a psychedelia gauziness to the already evocative visuals. 

Overall, I’d call this a nearly unqualified success, to write and perform such a challenging piece of multimedia art here in Columbia. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything quite like it locally, and Seibert’s prior resume as a garage rock raconteur certainly wouldn’t have hinted at the possibility of something like this coming forth. Going in, Seibert told me himself that there would be very, very limited live performances of this project, and I understand why–the preparation and commitment of all the participants was fully on display for this one.

Jasper is Thankful for YOU - a message from Cindi

From the bottom of our hearts, we are …

At this time of year those of us at the Jasper Project like to say thank you to the universe for the treasures that have come our way, just like everyone else.

In addition to all of you who support our mission by donating, volunteering, spreading the word, participating in our projects, and reading what we write, I am also thankful for our hardworking board of directors. The Jasper Project board of directors give of their time, energy, and their own wealth and blessings to keep Jasper afloat and actively serving the needs of our arts community at the grass roots level that we believe is so important.

Here are some of the things this board has done for Jasper this year: They have sold tickets, hung posters, hauled and delivered magazines, put up stages and run sound and light for performances. They have baked and prepared food, picked and arranged flowers, balanced our books, filed our taxes, managed projects, written articles, consulted with artists and donors. They have donated their own funds, and so much more.

They also shared with us the people, places, and things in the greater Columbia arts community that they are thankful for themselves.

Read on to see what they had to say..

—Cb

Jasper Project board vice president & director of Harbison Theatre, Kristin Cobb says, “I am thankful for Larry Hembree because he is always willing to lend a hand to all of us in the arts world.”

L-R Joe Hudson, William Cobb, Kristin

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According to USC professor Drue Barker, “I am thankful to live in a city with a thriving contemporary dance community with leaders like Erin Bailey, Martha Brim, Bonnie Boiter-Jolley, Stephanie Wilkins, and Wideman-Davis!” 

Christina Xan, who writes articles and manages the Tiny Gallery project, in addition to always being at the ready to help out wherever she can, agrees, saying, “I’m thankful for Stephanie Wilkins because she has used her compassion and skill to carve new, unique spaces for dancers and dance in Columbia.” 

Stephanie Wilkins and Bonnie Boiter-Jolley, co-founders of the Columbia Summer Rep Dance Co.

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Our intern Stephanie Allen, who is also an excellent writer and devoted to the cause, says, “I’m thankful for the CMA because they continually make themselves accessible to students like me and create open, welcome spaces for the community.”

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Web Maven and graphics guru Bekah Rice, says, “I'm thankful for the MANY outdoor markets in Columbia because they make buying local goods, especially art, more accessible and provide artists and artisans in our community more opportunities to make a living.”

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Jasper Project board president Wade Sellers says, “I’m thankful for an independent film community that continues to create and grow while supporting their fellow creators. The past ten years have seen imaginative new voices emerge in our city. More importantly we have seen those filmmakers get to know each other, share ideas, and share their skills. Our city and the surrounding areas are the rare place where roadblocks that usually hinder access for independent filmmakers don’t exist. I look forward to the new stories these filmmakers will tell in the coming years.”

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Bert Easter, who manages the Jasper Gallery in the Meridian Building in downtown Columbia, says, “I am thankful for ceramics artist Virginia Scotchie of USC who has partnered with me to show student work alongside her art at the Jasper Gallery at the Meridian on Main and the display windows along Washington and Sumter Street.

I am also thankful for the neighborhoods who have had art-in-the-yard events. These meet-the-artist events have been fun,” Easter continues. “I am thankful for the city’s poet laureate, Ed Madden. He’s so cute... oh and he does poetry and art stuff too.”

Columbia City Poet Laureate (and Cutie) ED Madden

artist - Virginia Scotchie

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Paul Leo says, “I am thankful that we have a lively Opera scene here in Colombia, between the productions of The Palmetto Opera Company and The Southeast Division Metropolitan Opera Competition which is starting back up in January 2022 at Columbia College. Columbia's art scene is rich in the preservation of the classical art forms as well as encouraging new and innovative art forms. That is what makes it a truly great city!”

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Board member and manager of the Lizelia project Len Lawson says, “I'm thankful for Columbia Museum of Art, Writer-in-Residence Ray McManus, and Drew Barron for the excellent work on the Hindsight 20/20 Series and Binder Podcast of which I'm grateful to have been a part.”

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Thanks to all of our diligent board members including Grayson Goodman, Al Black, Barry Wheeler, Diane Hare, Christopher Cockrell, Laura Garner Hine, and Preach Jacobs.

If YOU feel like you might have a gift to offer the Jasper Project by way of contributing to our publications, helping out at events, or even applying to be a member of the board of directors, please let us know! We’re always looking for sisters and brothers in the arts who want to join us in our labor of love.

In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at the Jasper Project!

REVIEW: Kirk Hammett's It's Alive! at Columbia Museum of Art - by Christofer Cook

Hammett’s Panoply of Genre Treasures a Delightful Submersion into the Dark Fantastic

Merchant of menace, Vincent Price, once opined; “I trust people who are violent about art as long as they aren’t closed-minded. But, unfortunately, most art blowhards are also art bigots”. Price’s position on such observers suggests that the art world is forever infested with subjective perspectives on its ever-changing product. These so-called critics do nothing but praise that which they like and denigrate that which they find distasteful, gauche, sophomoric. But the real challenge is to seek the beauty, skillful craftsmanship, and precision within a work whose subject matter may very well be anathema to the beholding eye.

Thankfully, horror aficionados remain undaunted by their naysayers. These bastions of blood become impervious to criticism and continue to amass works of art that represent the absolute best of the macabre and the fantastique. Perhaps no one exemplifies these purveyors of genre art more so than Kirk Hammett, lead guitarist of those meisters of metal, Metallica. Hammett’s collection of horror and sci-fi movie props, costumes, and memorabilia has gradually and insidiously taken over his San Francisco home like the creeping crud in George Romero’s The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verill, based on Stephen King’s Weeds. In Hammett’s case, though, his growing horde is not an organic pestilence, rather it is a miscellany of fine objects d’arte.

An exhibit of Hammett’s select acquisitions can be viewed through May 17th at the Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, South Carolina. It is an adventure through a portal of spellbinding wonder the moment one steps inside. We are first impacted by an immediate blast of visual splendor. Just beyond the gallery’s glass doors, welcoming us to the experience, is a mammoth title card in rich, vivid colors. It is the identical illustration that graces the cover of Hammett’s latest book by the same name; IT’S ALIVE! Classic Horror and Sci-Fi Posters from the Kirk Hammett collection.

The image is a nostalgic throwback to the pre-code era of the comic book covers of yesteryear. These dog-eared horrors in four colors were often secreted between the mattress covers of millions of American acne-ridden kids we now affectionately refer to as “monster kids”. The gargantuan signage prepares us for the terrors adorning the gallery walls beyond—an antediluvian cemetery features from end to end. In the foreground, an undead arm bathed in crimson light breaks through its terrestrial bonds. Worms crawl, wriggling about the extremity. In a show of rebellion that only a zombie could display, the hand brandishes the ubiquitous devil-horned symbol denoting rock-n-roll, metal mayhem, and all things dark and dangerous.

The sideshow-like mural is an effective precursor to the devilishly delightful designs to come. As one rounds the right corner into the gallery, stunning vintage posters hang in reverence to the by-gone age of German expressionism; Wiene’s 1920 The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Gade and Schall’s 1921 Hamlet,  Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu, and Lang’s 1927 Metropolis. The process most commonly used to create these works of visual wonderment was stone lithography. Color was limited, the form was time-consuming and expensive. Few have survived. Hammett’s relics, however, those extant to us today, remain unphased by time or the elements.

The exhibit continues in a celebration of the advent of atomic energy, film noir, and drive-in picture shows. Our eyes are immediately drawn to the center of one salon wherein what appears to be an industrial-sized, copper-rust electric powered insulator from the set of James Whale’s 1931 fright feature, Frankenstein. It is breathtaking to behold and fits in perfectly with the surrounding lithoes.

Nearby is a glass case featuring a small selection of lobby cards. These were smaller photos on thicker stock that were used to dress the lobbies of cinemas. These lobby cards are mana to collectors and while there are still plenty out there in abundance, they are increasing in value as supply in the market begins a slow descent. They have been beautifully preserved and many of the images shown are actual screenshots from the films they promote.

The philosophy being, that if audiences were unsure of what creature feature to take in next, they would be inspired by the colorful action shots they were guaranteed to see on the big screen. No pretentious posing in the photos, what you saw was what you’d get. The lobby cards were also less expensive for Hollywood promotion houses to print and duplicate. Hammett’s are a joy to take in and are in the finest of condition.

No collection would be complete of course without a heaping helping of Karloff, Lugosi, and Chaney. Classic one-sheets from Hollywood’s golden age of horror cinema and into the 1940s are well-represented; Browning’s 1931 Dracula, Freund’s 1932 The Mummy, Waggner’s 1941 The Wolfman, and Arnold’s 1954 The Creature from the Black Lagoon all framed with care, stare back at us in monstrous malevolence. Featured in the show are two beautifully commissioned life-sized figures; Boris Karloff from Ulmer’s 1934 The Black Cat, and Bela Lugosi from Halperin’s 1932 White Zombie.

Hammett’s sheets from the 1950s reflect much of our fears and trepidations of the decade’s technological innovations; Korean War weaponry, hydrogen bombs, nuclear attacks, and the launch of the Soviet “Sputnik,” an innovation that effectively began the space race.

It was also about this time that the process of creating these advertising marvels moved from stone lithography to offset printing. Hammett himself has observed that a comparison of poster designs from the ‘20s and ‘30s and those of the ‘40s and ‘50s are as disparate in design concept as they are in topic. Whereas the earlier one-sheets exhibited a wide array of artisans, techniques, styles, and palettes, the later years conveyed a style more formulaic.

When atomic age epics such as Haskin’s 1953  War of the Worlds filled the silver screen during Saturday afternoon matinees, the cinemas were plastered with depictions of sci-fi scenes to assault the senses; damsels fleeing in fear, Martians invading rural America, interplanetary battles, infernal machines, and giant warships from outer space destroying everything in their path with death rays.

Hammett has these carefully protected artifacts in seeming perpetuity. His assessment is true. If one lines the posters up side by side it is possible to see the beginnings of the ‘floating heads’ phenomenon so rampant in our present-day distilled culture of quick, cheap, and fast photo-shop. The fonts used for titles are similar, almost identical in many cases, and the colors, a revolving palate of red, yellow, green, and black.

A few pieces are suspended in the glow of track lighting giving respect to the later films of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Polanski’s 1968 Rosemary’s Baby, Friedkin’s 1973 The Exorcist, and Scott’s 1979 Alien bring Hammett’s collection to a chronological stopping point at the twentieth century. For metal enthusiasts, a selection of Hammett’s monster-laden guitars are on display as well.

Though overall, the It’s Alive! experience is an excellently curated and crafted showcase of genre treasures, it is not without its challenges. This particular art show is theatrical in nature and would have benefitted from a few effects that would have enhanced the observer experience. Conspicuously glaring was the white-hot track lighting in the galleries. Though it is a common and standard approach to display (after all this is a visual artform), such bright light hitting the sheets, props, and costumes betrayed the genre. A dimmer setting of vintage incandescence might have provided an atmosphere more befitting the gothic milieu.

Absent from the experience was the use of low underscoring throughout the museum. Instrumental soundtracks and/or orchestrated music of the Wagnerian catalog would have set the mood at a higher level of stimulus. As it is, the absolute silence does nothing to benefit the tour. One oversight appeared to be an original standee promoting Cooper and Schoedsack’s 1933 King Kong. The cut-out is placed too close to a wall so as not to give the observing eye the benefit of depth and dimension. To pull it out from the back wall even a couple of feet would have made a marked difference in the illustration of Kong’s glory.

In the end, Hammett’s collected works are a stunning visual representation of a long ago time, in darkened cinemas, where the crunching of popcorn, the sipping of sweet cola and the screaming of teenagers at mutant, malformed Martians up on the big screen was as splendid a Saturday afternoon as one could imagine.

Christofer Cook holds an MFA, an MA, and a BA. He is a member of the Horror Writers Association, The Dracula Society, and the Dramatists Guild of America. His latest plays are Amityville, An Edgar Allan Poe Christmas Carol, and a stage adaptation of House on Haunted Hill. His published script, Dracula of Transylvania (Advised by Dacre Stoker), is the first theatrical treatment of the novel written in collaboration with a member of the Stoker family since the 1920’s when Bela Lugosi played the title role on Broadway. It is currently available at the Columbia Museum of Art’s gift shop.