SC.Fellows exhibition celebrates exceptional artists
SC.Fellows Part I, a retrospective exhibition of the South Carolina Arts Commission’s visual arts and craft fellows, is on view in two Columbia locations through Sept. 17. 701 Center for Contemporary Art and the McMaster Gallery at the University of South Carolina School of Visual Art and Design have partnered with the Arts Commission to present this exhibition as part of the S.C. Arts Commission’s 50th Anniversary celebration. Several solo and group exhibitions of current and past fellows are being developed around the state.
SC.Fellows is drawn from work of the 89 artists who have received fellowships since the program launched in 1976. Fellowships recognize and reward the artistic achievements of South Carolina’s exceptional individual artists. Fellowship awards are made through a highly competitive, anonymous process and are based on artistic excellence only.
“The 50th anniversary of the South Carolina Arts Commission provides an ideal opportunity to survey the breadth and depth of art made in South Carolina,” says New York art critic and author Eleanor Heartney, who curated SC.Fellows Part I & II. “The recipients of the award were selected solely on the basis of artistic merit, and as the works reveal, they work in media ranging from ceramic, papermaking and textiles to painting, sculpture, photography, installation and assemblage. The work is equally diverse in content. The fellowship winners present private worlds, wrestle with social and political issues, explore the expressive potential of abstraction, and celebrate the complexities and beauties of the natural world.”
Heartney is a contributing editor for Art in America magazine and the author of several books, including Art & Today (2008). In 2004 she curated Thresholds, the traveling exhibition of art from five Southern states organized by the S.C. Arts Commission. In 2009, she curated The State Art Collection: Contemporary Conversations, a two-part traveling exhibition organized by the commission and 701 CCA.
SC.Fellows Part II takes place in spring 2018 at 701 CCA and Benedict College Henry Ponder Gallery. The exhibition is supported in part by First Citizens.
701 CCA is located at 701 Whaley Street (2nd floor). During exhibitions, hours are Wed–Sat, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.; Sun, 1 – 5 p.m. The McMaster Gallery is located at 1615 Senate St. During exhibitions, hours are Mon–Fri, 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Find out about other 50th Anniversary Fellowship exhibitions.