The Tamesis
The Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, South Carolina, is unveiling newly reconfigured collections galleries to celebrate its 75th anniversary and culminate a year-long renovation. While the institution is currently hosting “Keith Haring: Radiant Vision,” a traveling exhibition that has previously visited the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, the Long Beach Museum of Art in California, and venues in Italy, Israel, and elsewhere, the museum will reopen its collection galleries after a gala event on January 16 to present the newly conceived exhibition in 20 galleries.
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“Over the past 75 years, the CMA collection has grown in exciting and dynamic ways,” senior curator Michael Neumeister said in a press release. “We are excited to reconnect with our community by freshly presenting art with new perspectives and experiences in our world-class galleries.”
The reinstalled galleries draw from the museum’s American, Asian, European, and modern and contemporary collections. Highlights include Italian Renaissance works from the CMA Kress Collection and the Asia Gallery, which features Tang Dynasty Chinese art donated by the late Dr. Robert Y. Turner. Other galleries are organized around themes such as landscape, still life, and the relationship between art and architecture, or focus on artists with ties to South Carolina, including Jasper Jones, Afrofuturist sculptor Winston Wingo, and photographer Richard Samuel Roberts.
One of the galleries features a recently exhibited collection of Georgian porcelain, displayed alongside wallpapers and ornaments true to the period, dating from the late 18th and early 19th centuries in England. Elsewhere, the museum displays recently acquired works by Audrey Flack, Roberto Lugo and Marguerite Zorach, as well as works from the National Academy of Design in New York on long-term loan through the ArtBridge Partner Loan Network.
Renovations will begin in January 2025 and include the installation of new lighting and ceilings, strengthening of walls, and conservation work on works by Sam Gilliam, Teiji Takai and Benjamin Wilson.
“As the cultural heart of South Carolina, the Columbia Museum of Art continues to inspire creativity and connection in our community and across the state,” said Executive Director Della Watkins. “Now, with the debut of its redesigned collection galleries, the CMA begins an exciting new chapter – a can’t-miss experience that offers audiences bold new ways to see, feel and engage with the power of art.”
