Van Gogh and more coming to the Columbia Museum of Art this year
March 8, 2019
2019 exhibition schedule announced
Vincent Van Gogh, Self-Portrait, c. 1887. Oil on canvas. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, Gift of Philip L. Goodwin in memory of his mother, Josephine S. Goodwin, 1954.189.
The Columbia Museum of Art announces its full schedule of featured exhibitions through the remainder of the year, a broad assortment of largely exclusive, house-organized shows including Van Gogh and His Inspirations.
“From bold inflatables to delicate linocuts, from familiar Van Goghs to modern Latin American works of art, the roster of exhibitions the CMA is offering over the next year embraces a wide variety of materials and techniques, concepts and cultures, and times and places,” says Della Watkins, CMA executive director. “All will allow us to celebrate ideas different from our own and marvel at visual accomplishments — and have fun doing it.”
Currently open exhibitions include Jackson Pollock: Mural, on view through May 19, 2019;Our Voice: Celebrating the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Awards, on view through April 21, 2019, in conjunction with Richland Library; and the freshly opened A Life with Art: Gifts from Dwight and Sue Emanuelson.
A Life with Art: Gifts from Dwight and Sue Emanuelson
March 8 – May 19, 2019
Dwight and Sue Emanuelson have generously given artworks to the CMA for 35 years, and this sweeping four-gallery exhibition celebrates the couple’s ardent engagement with art and artists. Highlights include Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and midcentury design, with work by Pierre Cardin and Charles and Ray Eames. This is a unique collection of modern and contemporary art assembled through the lens of one couple’s life with art and each other.
Shades of Greene: The Art of Sanford Greene
April 4 – June 23, 2019
Sanford Greene has worked professionally in comic illustration and related industries for over 15 years, including work for mainline publishers Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and Image Comics. Greene’s most recent work with Marvel series Power Man and Iron Fist as well as covers for Black Panther and Luke Cage have made him well known in the comic-book scene, but his work is multidimensional. Taking a broad look at his artistic evolution, this exhibition explores Greene’s versatility as an artist and illustrator from an early age into his professional career.
Latinidad: Latin American Art from the Collection
April 26 – September 1, 2019
Latinidad: Latin American Art from the Collection features 20 rarely seen gems from the collection made between the 1950s and early 1990s by artists born in Chile, Cuba, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, including Roberto Matta, René Portocarrero, Ruffino Tamayo, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. With styles and influences on view including Mexican folk art and Surrealism, the installation also showcases a complete 1953 portfolio by important print collective Centro de Arte Puertorriqueño (Center for Puerto Rican Art) and contemporary photography by Jorge Otero.
Wow Pop Bliss: Jimmy Kuehnle’s Inflatable Art
June 14 – September 8, 2019
Jimmy Kuehnle is a performance and sculpture-based artist who creates large-scale, high-tech inflatables that expand our notions of abstract art. For this exhibition, Kuehnle is filling four galleries with touchable, interactive environments using inflatables that combine sound, light, space, and texture to create unexpected experiences for visitors as they move under, through, and around these works. Kuehnle is also creating a bright pink inflatable sculpture that will project dramatically out of the CMA façade’s architectural grid overlooking Boyd Plaza, literally spilling out into the city as a calling card to the wonder inside. Supported by The Contemporaries of the Columbia Museum of Art.
Mimi Kato: Ordinary Sagas
June 14 – September 8, 2019
Mimi Kato draws on the rich history and visual traditions of Japanese culture as well as the absurd everyday elements of contemporary life and merges them in imaginary landscapes. In her lengthy artistic process, Kato photographs herself as a range of costumed characters — from everyday Japanese citizens to fantastical creatures in the forest — and embeds these images into large photomontages. Her work is narratively complex and darkly humorous. Supported by Susan Thorpe and John Baynes.
Maryanna Williams: New Work
September 6 – December 29, 2019
Maryanna Williams’ imagery creates a dialogue between simple forms and intricate patterns. In her prints she has explored moths, jellyfish, and even Italian Renaissance portraits, each subject chosen for its inherent beauty, delicate patterning, and vibrant hues. Close up and filling the picture plane, her subjects shift between realism and abstraction, at times dissolving into facets of color and marks vibrating across surfaces. Williams’ work is not about scientific illustration or realism, but about transforming subjects from nature and art into images that express her deep passion for the intense beauty that she sees in the world.
Van Gogh and His Inspirations
October 4, 2019 – January 12, 2020
Van Gogh and His Inspirations, presented by The Blanchard Family, is an original exhibition organized by the CMA that brings the work of one of the most beloved artists in the world to Columbia, South Carolina, alongside a variety of handpicked paintings and drawings that shaped his vision. From 2001 to 2010, as Steven Naifeh and Greg Smith researched their New York Times bestseller Van Gogh: The Life, they built a collection of over 30 works by artists who influenced Van Gogh’s aesthetic thinking. These works join loans from 10 museums across the U.S. to explore the artistic evolution of Van Gogh through the lens of the artists who inspired him.
This exhibition also brings 12 paintings and drawings by Van Gogh, including an outstanding painting of poppy fields from the National Gallery of Art, a sensitive painting of a peasant woman weaving from The Boston Museum of Fine Art, and the world-famous self-portrait from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Side-by-side with their inspirations, these works offer visitors a window into the mind of Van Gogh.
For more information, visit columbiamuseum.org.
