The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art is a non-profit, non-collecting contemporary art institute within the School of the Arts at the College of Charleston. The HICA presents contemporary art exhibitions by emerging or mid-career artists. The Halsey is housed in the Marion and Wayland H. Cato Jr. Center for the Arts at 161 Calhoun Street, in the heart of downtown Charleston. The Halsey features two gallery spaces, the Deborah A. Chalsty Gallery and the South Gallery, which include a total 3,000 sq. feet of exhibition space. The vision of the HICA is to provide a comprehensive contemporary-art program that is committed to providing a direct experience with artworks in various media, in an environment that fosters creativity, innovation, and learning. Check the gallery's website for current exhibitions.
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Gallery Hours (During Exhibitions)
Mon. - Sat. 11 am - 4 pm
Open until 7 pm on Thursday
Admission:
Free
Halsey Institute of
Contemporary Art
161 Calhoun St
Charleston SC 29424
(843) 953-4422
Halsey Inst. of Cont. Art Website
Upcoming Exhibition: Kukuli Velarde Corpus
When: May 13, 2022 - July 16, 2022
Where: Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art
The Halsey Institute will debut Peruvian American artist Kukuli Velarde’s CORPUS project in its entirety for the first time. CORPUS is comprised of ceramic and fabric works that encourage reflection on the meaning of survival in the face of colonialism. Fifteen ceramic sculptures, each with matching tapestries, will be presented in a symbolic representation of the annual Corpus Christi festival in Cusco, Perú. The sculptures reference indigenous pre-Columbian forms and iconographies in a visual representation of syncretic aesthetic, cultural, and religious traditions. CORPUS engages with and confronts Perú’s Spanish colonial past, asserting that pre-Columbian sacred entities and the worldview they inhabit were not vanquished by Spanish conquerors, but instead cleverly blended with their Catholic counterparts, ensuring their survival. So too, have the diverse peoples of Perú and greater Latin America formed and reformed political, religious, and cultural identity in the shadow of centuries-long oppression. Velarde’s CORPUS asks viewers to consider this resilience via her stunningly detailed and humorously thought-provoking work.
Upcoming Exhibition: Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez - PINTURAS DE CASTA AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF AMERICAN IDENTITY
When: May 13, 2022 - July 16, 2022
Where: Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art
The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art will present works from Colombian American artist Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez’s Casta Paintings series. Friedemann-Sánchez’s paintings reference casta painting, a genre popularized in eighteenth-century Spanish Colonial Central and South America, which purported to depict a racial and social taxonomy of children born of racially mixed couplings. Friedemann-Sánchez’s contemporary casta paintings take inspiration from this problematic genre to reflect on the legacy of colonialism that lingers in the racial and social discrimination and marginalization present in her home country of Colombia and here in the United States. The paintings feature life-size tracings of female bodies adorned with floral imagery lifted from both the indigenous resin technique of mopa mopa and Spanish colonial iconography. Masks from across Latin America and the Caribbean are included to represent stereotypes born of colonial-era mixed-race classifications that continue to perpetuate today.
Upcoming Exhibition: Kirsten Stolle: Only You Can Prevent A Forest
When: Aug. 26, 2022 - Dec. 10, 2022
Where: Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art
Using appropriation, wordplay, and humor, Kirsten Stolle co-opts advertising strategies used by agrichemical corporations to resurface and critique company history. For her exhibition, Stolle will create photo-based collages, visual poetry interventions, text-based sound animation, neon wall piece, interactive Mad Libs game, and her first site-responsive sculptural installation. Building upon her decade-long research into companies like Bayer/Monsanto and Dow Chemical, the work will forefront historical ties to chemical warfare and revel persistent greenwashing. Stolle’s work interrogates the effects of chemical companies on our food supply and their consistent efforts to minimize effects of their toxic products on our health and environment.
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