South Arts Southern Prize & State Fellows 2021
January 19, 2022
An exhibition series that in 2019 originated at 701 Center for Contemporary Art in Columbia, S.C., and is rapidly becoming the most important annual show of contemporary art made in the U.S. South is coming to 701 CCA for the second time. South Arts Southern Prize & State Fellows 2021 will open at the center on January 20 and run through March 6, 2022. Due to an increase in COVID-19 cases in South Carolina, there will be no opening reception, but 701 CCA hopes to present several events to accompany the exhibition. The show will include Charleston, S.C., artist Fletcher Williams III, who was the 2021 Southern Prize Finalist, or runner-up, and Florida’s Marielle Plaisir, the 2021 Southern Prize Winner. After 701 CCA, the 2021 exhibition’s second stop, the show will travel to North Carolina and Florida.
Joyce Garner, Pears, 2021, oil on canvas, 86” x 192”
701 CCA initiated the first Southern Prize exhibition in 2019 in partnership with South Arts, the umbrella organization for state arts agencies in nine Southern states. South Arts launched the Southern Prize & State Fellows awards project in 2017, the first two years without an exhibition component. The inaugural 2019 exhibition traveled from 701 CCA to the Bo Bartlett Center in Columbus, Ga., which since also has hosted the 2020 and 2021 exhibitions.
