Issue #24.40 :: 10/05/2011 - 10/11/2011
Biennial Showcases Contemporary S.C. Art
701 CCA Aims to Fill Void Left By Demise of Triennial
BY JEFFREY DAY
When the Triennial was done away with
several years ago, an outcry arose in the arts community. No one was
louder about the demise of the every-three-year South Carolina
contemporary art show than Wim Roefs, a Columbia gallery owner. When the
701 Center for Contemporary Art opened in 2008 and Roefs became its
board president (and de facto director), he stated the center’s
commitment to creating a show to replace the Triennial.
The first one of those — a biennial rather than a triennial — opens this week. The exhibition by 24 artists will be broken into two parts, the first opening Friday, Oct. 7, from 7 to 9 p.m. and the second starting Nov. 17.
“It was really a great loss,” says Roefs of the Triennial’s demise. “They were great shows and a place to discuss what was going on in the arts.”
Biennial 2011 includes artists from Hilton Head to Spartanburg, painters and potters and sculptors, the latter working with everything from found objects to cut-up blue jeans to books. Each artist will show two to five pieces. Participants range from such well-established and familiar artists as Mary Edna Fraser and Jim Connell to others who are young and mostly unknown. They range in age from 23 to 76.
The first one of those — a biennial rather than a triennial — opens this week. The exhibition by 24 artists will be broken into two parts, the first opening Friday, Oct. 7, from 7 to 9 p.m. and the second starting Nov. 17.
“It was really a great loss,” says Roefs of the Triennial’s demise. “They were great shows and a place to discuss what was going on in the arts.”
Biennial 2011 includes artists from Hilton Head to Spartanburg, painters and potters and sculptors, the latter working with everything from found objects to cut-up blue jeans to books. Each artist will show two to five pieces. Participants range from such well-established and familiar artists as Mary Edna Fraser and Jim Connell to others who are young and mostly unknown. They range in age from 23 to 76.
“This is better than a solid list,”
Roefs says. “There are established artists, but the younger ones are
nothing to sneeze at — these are artists with great potential.”
He’s not tooting his own horn, because
he didn’t select the artists. The contemporary art center asked a dozen
curators, educators and artists from throughout the state to nominate
two artists for the Biennial. Among the nominators were Brian Lang,
decorative arts curator at the Columbia Museum of Art; Leo Twiggs, an
artist and retired professor and museum director at S.C. State
University; Tom Stanley, artist and chairman of the Winthrop University
Art Department; and Tyrone Geter, artist and director of the Benedict
College art gallery. Midlands artists in the show are James Busby, Peter
Lenzo, JRenee, Lucy Bailey and Jim Arendt (who recently moved to
Conway.) Three artists are from the Upstate, two from Orangeburg, five
from Charleston, six from Rock Hill and three from other places in the
state
Several of the artists were in one or
more of the five Triennial exhibitions held from 1992 to 2004, including
mixed media artist Aldwyth from Hilton Head; ceramic artists Jim
Connell of Rock Hill, Alice Ballard of Greenville and Peter Lenzo of
Columbia; and Charleston resident Colin Quashie, who explores political
and social issues with bite and humor and a wide range of mediums.
Others who have long been working in the state, such as Shaun Cassidy of
Rock Hill and Winston Wingo of Spartanburg, will be in the Biennial.
Among the lesser known artists are several who have solid careers,
including James Busby of Irmo, who has had several exhibitions at the
Stux Gallery in New York, and Stacey Davidson, who just began teaching
at Winthrop University and who shows at the Marlborough Gallery in New
York and London.
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