SOTA Highlights

| Art History & HPCP | Arts Management | Music | Studio Art | Theatre | Halsey Gallery | General |

Art History Department and Historic Preservation & Community Planning Program Highlights

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Arts Management Program Highlights

SCOTT SHANKLIN-PETERSON RECEIVES THE MEDAL OF HONOR IN THE ARTS

Congratulations Scott Shanklin-Peterson for receiving the Medal of Honor in the Arts by Winthrop University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. The Winthrop University Medal of Honor in the Arts recognizes those who have made significant contributions to the arts, as well as those who have positively affected the quality of cultural life in South Carolina communities. Established in 2001, this award honors those who have encouraged the arts and inspired others through their distinguished achievements, artistic excellence, patronage, or support.

Scott Shanklin-Peterson is the former Senior Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, former Executive Director of the South Carolina Arts Commission, and current College of Charleston Arts Management Program Director.

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Music Department Highlights

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COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON PIANIST WINS INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

Sean Kennard, an Artist Certificate student of Enrique Graf at the College of Charleston’s School of the Arts, won First Prize in the XXXIV “Dr. Luis Sigall” International Piano Competition. The event took place in Viña del Mar, Chile, November 3-10, 2007. The competition is the only one in Latin America that is a member of the World Federation of International Music Competitions. Kennard received $10,000, a medal and 2008 engagements with the National Symphony of Chile in Santiago and at the Frutillar Summer Festival, plus recitals in several cities throughout Chile. He was also awarded the prize for “Best Interpretation of the Required Piece” written by Chilean composer Jorge Pepi.

Nineteen pianists from fourteen countries had been pre-selected to participate in the three-round competition, which culminated on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2007 at the Municipal Theatre of Viña del Mar. On that occasion three finalists performed one of two concertos for piano and orchestra selected by the contestants and the jury two days prior.

Studio Art Department Highlights

COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON STUDIO ART PROFESSOR CLIFFTON PEACOCK RECEIVES $25,000 GOTTLIEB GRANT

Cliffton Peacock, studio art professor at the College of Charleston’s School of the Arts, was awarded a $25,000 Individual Support Grant from the prestigious Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, Inc. Of 462 grant applications, Peacock was one of twelve recipients selected, based on the quality of work and dedication to painting, sculpting and/or printmaking.

Artist Adolph Gottlieb began his artistic career in New York City in the 1920s and became known as a prosperous Abstract Expressionist. Upon his death in 1974, he left instructions in his will that a foundation be created to benefit “mature, creative painters and sculptors.” His widow Esther, having helped to conceive the idea, saw to the fruition of the endeavor and bequeathed the major part of her estate to the Foundation when she died in 1988. Each year the Foundation selects a group of five artists and other art professionals, who are not affiliated with the Foundation, to serve as advisers to the Foundation and also select the grant recipients.

Cliffton Peacock received his M.F.A. degree from Boston University in 1977. His teachers there included James Weeks, John Wilson and Philip Guston. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including three National Endowment for the Arts grants, three Massachusetts Artist Fellowship awards, an Englehard Foundation grant, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Fellowship, and Awards in the Visual Arts grants, sponsored by the Equitable Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, the Prix de Rome from the American Academy in Rome, a South Carolina Individual Artist Fellowship, and most recently, a 2001 fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation.

Peacock has exhibited his paintings nationally many times since 1980 and has had one-person exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, the Greenville Museum of Art, Greenville, SC, and the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC.
His work is in the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Hood Museum of Art, among others. He has been an Associate Professor of Fine Arts at the College of Charleston since 1996.

SOUTH CAROLINA ARTS COMMISSION AWARDS $5,000 VISUAL ARTS FELLOWSHIP TO COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON PROFESSOR HERB PARKER

The South Carolina Arts Commission has announced its 2008 Individual Artist Fellowship awards. College of Charleston studio art professor Herb Parker will receive one of two fellowships in the Visual Arts category. Each Fellow will be given $5,000 in recognition of his or her superior artistic merit. Fellows and alternates are selected through a competitive, anonymous application process based solely on a review of work samples.

Currently teaching sculpture at the College of Charleston’s School of the Arts, Parker was born in Elizabeth City, N.C. He received a Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from East Carolina University in 1983. Parker served a tour in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam conflict and two years as a Peace Corps volunteer. He also served as a visiting artist and/or instructor at universities in both the U.S. and abroad.

 Parker has created more than 40 site-related installations in the environment since the early 1980s, and his work has been commissioned throughout the United States and in Canada, Italy, Japan and Sweden. He has received several honors, including being a recipient of the “Awards in the Visual Arts XI,” which was hosted by the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art. He was also named a South Carolina Arts Commission Artist Fellow in 1993.

The South Carolina Arts Commission is the state agency charged with creating a thriving arts environment that benefits all South Carolinians, regardless of their location or circumstances. Created by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1967, the Arts Commission focuses on increasing public participation in the arts by providing services, grants and leadership initiatives in three areas: arts education, community arts development and artist development. Headquartered in Columbia, S.C., the Arts Commission is funded by the state of South Carolina and by the federal government through the National Endowment for the Arts.
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Theatre Department Highlights

COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON THEATRE STUDENTS ADVANCE IN PRESTIGIOUS NATIONAL FESTIVAL

The Department of Theatre at the College of Charleston’s School of the Arts distinguished itself with two regional awards at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF) Region IV, Feb. 6-10 held in Americus, Georgia. Michael Smallwood won first prize for his short play “Talk” and Linda McClenaghan won first prize for The Critics Institute. Smallwood will also have a reading of his play at the Kennedy Center, and McClenaghan will be given an intensive experience in play criticism at the same venue. “Talk” was written in Dr. Franklin Ashley's Playwriting II class and will be performed at the College next January and will then open next year's KCACTF festival to be held at Clemson in 2008.
 
The KCACTF is a national theatre program involving 18,000 students from colleges and universities nationwide. The Kennedy Center’s founding chairman Roger L. Stevens started it in 1969 in order to encourage, to recognize and to celebrate college theater. The program takes place year-round in eight geographical regions throughout the United States. Several productions are chosen from each region to compete at their regional festivals for the opportunity of a final showcase at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Works by student designers, student critics and student playwrights are also selected for presentation at the regional and national festivals. There is no other national forum that highlights student theatre works.
 
The KC/ACTF honors excellence of overall production and offers student artists individual recognition through awards and scholarships in playwriting, acting, criticism, directing and design. The College of Charleston’s School of the Arts extends its congratulations to the honored faculty and students of the Department of Theatre.

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Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art Highlights

RICHARD MCMAHAN’S MINIMUSEUM - A PICCOLO SPOLETO INVITATIONAL EXHIBITION

Piccolo Spoleto and the College of Charleston's Halsey Institute exhibition, “Richard McMahan’s Minimuseum” will be on display in the Marlene and Nathan Addlestone Library at the College of Charleston from May 16 through June 30, 2008. An opening reception will be held on Friday, May 16, from 5 to 7 p.m., and an artist’s lecture will be held on Saturday, May 17, at 2 p.m. Both events are free and will take place in the Addlestone Library.

For the past eighteen years, Richard McMahan has been creating his own personal museum collection featuring miniature replicas of the world’s greatest works of art. This Florida savant has an exceptional talent for producing tiny images representing famous and not so famous art in museum collections such as the Hermitage, the Prado, the Louvre, the Metropolitan, and the Museum of Modern Art. McMahan began his collection by working from photographs he found in over one hundred years of National Geographic Magazines. Included in this worldwide tour are cave paintings, a rendition of an Egyptian tomb (complete in all of its parts), art nouveau furniture, sculpture, graphic arts, drawings, paintings, and a wry selection of contemporary art. The display is a design/build project by the Clemson Architecture Center in Charleston (CAC.C), which was asked to develop a methodology for presenting this diverse body of over eleven hundred works.

The opening reception is sponsored by the Friends of the Marlene and Nathan Addlestone Library, with music provided by the V-Tones. “Richard McMahan’s Minimuseum” is co-sponsored by Clemson Architecture Center in Charleston, the Friends of the Addlestone Library, City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs, and the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in the School of the Arts with special assistance from Halsey Patrons Susan Pearlstine, Leilani De Muth, Brian Rutenberg, Ray and Leah Greenberg, LeGrand and Allison Elebash, Robben Richards, Alis Whit and Diane Straney.

The library, located at the corner of Calhoun and Coming Streets, is open from 7:30 a.m. -9 p.m. Monday – Thursday, 7:30 a.m. – 6 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.- 6 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. – 9 p.m. on Sundays. For more information, please call 843-953-5530 or visit the website at http://library.cofc.edu/frequent/events/events_may08.html.

The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art is located in the Simons Center for the Arts, 54 St. Philip St., between Calhoun and George Streets. Parking is available in the St. Philip Street Garage, north of Calhoun Street. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Saturday. For more information, please contact the Halsey Institute at (843) 953-5680 or visit the website at www.halsey.cofc.edu.

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HALSEY INSTITUTE TO HOST EMOTIONAL ARCHITECTURE: AZIMUTH OF FISSURE

The College of Charleston’s Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art will exhibit “Emotional Architecture: Azimuth of Fizzure” from May 16 – June 20, 2008. This exhibition, curated by Dr. Marian Mazzone, will feature some of the finest examples to date from video artist Calin Dan’s on-going “Emotional Architecture” project, as well as work Dan created in response to his visit to Charleston earlier this spring. Charleston’s history, as it is traced in the city’s urban fabric and remnant images, has been incorporated into Dan’s long-term interest in architecture and memory. The exhibition’s opening reception will be held Friday, May 16, from 5-7 p.m. A gallery talk by Calin Dan will take place on Saturday, May 17 at 1 p.m.

The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art is located in the Simons Center for the Arts, 54 St. Philip St., between Calhoun and George Streets. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Saturday. For more information, please contact the Halsey Institute at (843) 953-5680 or visit www.halsey.cofc.edu.

Calin Dan’s work consists of interwoven video, photography, and performance. Included in this exhibition are works from the “Emotional Architecture” series: sony/wmf/pp (1994-2003), Sample City (2005), Trip (2006), and the new work inspired by Charleston. This material is a haunting juxtaposition of our current environment with documentary images from the 1886 earthquake, drawn from the holdings of the South Carolinian Library at the University of South Carolina.

“Emotional Architecture” is a concept engineered to facilitate a new perspective on converging phenomena such as habitat, religion, and crowd management under the dominance of media. The “Emotional” perspective on “Architecture” was facilitated by the acceleration occurring lately in domains such as scale economies, balances of political power, construction technologies and their respective visual reflection. “Emotional Architecture” is also the result of complementary processes manifest in the societal body: assimilation of chaos theories and information technologies; suppression of spiritual practices and enhancement of collective narcissism.

“The operational value of ‘Emotional Architecture’ is checked through a medium term research involving different media formats (video, photography, and internet platforms, workshops, analogue and digital publications), and bringing in dialogue different competencies, both individual and institutional.” Calin Dan, 2007

Calin Dan was born in Arad, Romania and is now based in Amsterdam. He received an MA in Art History & Theory at the University of Fine Arts, Bucharest, and was the editor of Romania’s art magazine Arta. In 1990, Dan began working with a partner Jozif Király in the art group SubReal. Since 1999, he has also been exhibiting solo work, primarily as part of his “Emotional Architecture” project. Most recently, he has exhibited at the Sydney Biennale, ZKM Karlsruhe, Stroom, the Hague, and the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest.

Generous support of Calin Dan’s visits to Charleston and this exhibition is provided by the Mondrian Foundation, the Netherlands, and the College of Charleston (including the Provost’s Discretionary Fund, the Dean of the School of the Arts, and the Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences).

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HALSEY INSTITUTE WELCOMES ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, BRIAN KANE

The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston is pleased to introduce its new Assistant Director/Curator, Brian Kane. Kane received his Bachelors of Fine Art in Spatial Arts from Youngstown State University and his Masters of Fine Art in Sculpture from the University of South Carolina. He has worked with a number of institutions over the past ten years. Kane was a gallery assistant at the McDonough Museum of Art and participated in the Butler Institute of American Art’s museum studies internship in Youngstown, OH. He served with the South Carolina Arts Commission as the Visual Arts Assistant, where he worked on the major exhibitions "Thresholds: Expressions of Spirituality" and "2004 Triennial," in addition to providing services for artists and institutions around the state. His most recent position was at the Gibbes Museum of Art as the Preparator and Exhibit Designer. He has helped produce major exhibitions including "Southern Masterpieces, Rodin: In His Own Words," and "Lorna Simpson."

“I am excited about the opportunity to work with contemporary artists at the Halsey Institute,” says Kane, who is also a practicing artist teaching a sculpture course in the Department of Studio Art at the College of Charleston. “My dedication to art has been a lifelong commitment and I’m looking forward to working with the art community.”

The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art is Charleston’s premier venue for the presentation of adventurous contemporary art from around the world. Upcoming exhibitions include Romanian-born video installation artist Calin Dan in the show “Emotional Architecture: Azimuth of Fissure,” and “Richard McMahan’s Minimuseum,” a collection of 1100 miniature replicas of the world’s greatest works of art.

The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art is located in the Simons Center for the Arts, 54 St. Philip St., between Calhoun and George Streets. Parking is available in the St. Philip Street Garage, north of Calhoun Street. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Saturday. For more information, please contact the Halsey Institute at (843) 953-5680 or visit the website at www.halsey.cofc.edu.

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General SOTA Highlights

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON ANNOUNCES ITS NEW MASTERS OF ARTS IN TEACHING IN PERFORMING ARTS

The Graduate School of the College of Charleston is pleased to announce its new Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.) in Performing Arts offered jointly by its School of the Arts and the School of Education, Health, and Human Performance. This is a degree designed to meet a critical need in the South Carolina Lowcountry schools which are experiencing significant shortages in teachers qualified to teach choral music, dance and theatre.

The M.A.T. in Performing Arts offers three concentrations: choral music, theatre and dance. Applications for the Choral Music concentration are currently being accepted for degree seekers beginning January 2008. The Theatre concentration is scheduled to begin in Summer 2009, followed by the Dance concentration. Specialty coursework required for degree completion in each concentration relates directly to the requirements of the State Department of Education for teacher certification as well as the respective specialty professional association and the national accrediting body, the National Association for the Accreditation of Teacher Education.

“For many years, we have been asked why we don’t have a program in performing arts education because there is such a critical need for teachers in the arts, and because we have strong programs in arts and education at the College of Charleston,” said Frances Welch, Dean of the School of Education, Health and Human Performance. “I am thrilled that working collaboratively, we have designed an outstanding program.”

Bonnie McCarty, one of two Program Directors for the MAT in Performing Arts explains, “this degree offers the opportunity for accomplished performing artists to become highly qualified teachers. The Schools of the Arts and of Education, Health and Human Performance are excited to provide such a program which will directly enhance the educational opportunities for Pk-12 students in South Carolina.”

Information regarding the Graduate School of College of Charleston can be accessed online at www.cofc.edu/gradschool. Further information on The School of the Arts can be found at http://www.cofc.edu/sota/, and the School of Education, Health and Human Performance can be accessed at http://www.cofc.edu/SchoolofEducation.

College of Charleston has long been dedicated to providing a high quality, rigorous education with strong emphasis on the liberal and fine arts to students enrolled in both its undergraduate and graduate programs. Its School of Education, Health and Human Performance was reaccredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education in 2005. In addition the music programs in the School of the Arts are fully accredited by the National Association for Schools of Music.

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WAYLAND HENRY CATO JR. GIVES $1.5 MILLION GIFT TO THE COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON

The College of Charleston is proud to announce that Wayland Henry Cato, Jr. has given, on behalf of himself and his wife, Marion Rivers Cato, the College’s School of the Arts a $ 1.5 million gift. The amount is the largest single gift ever given to the College of Charleston School of the Arts.

The announcement comes less than a month before the School of the Arts begins construction on a new state-of-the art facility next to the current Simons Center for the Arts building on St. Philip Street. In appreciation of their support of the School of the Arts, the College of Charleston will name the new arts center the “Marion and Wayland H. Cato Jr. Center for the Arts.”

Groundbreaking ceremonies for the new facility are scheduled for June 3 at 9:30 AM.
"For many years, Wayland and Marion have contributed significantly to the education and development of South Carolina’s students. Their efforts on behalf of the College of Charleston alone have impacted our state in ways we could not have anticipated, and many of the recipients of their generosity have become outstanding public servants themselves,” says College of Charleston President Lee Higdon. "In their tireless dedication to the arts, Wayland and Marion have demonstrated their recognition of the link between the development of the individual and the stimulation of creative thought in all disciplines. Above everything else, however, Wayland and Marion have shown what it means to be true public servants."

Wayland Henry Cato, Jr. is a distinguished business leader, family man and philanthropist whose generous support of higher education, here at the College of Charleston and elsewhere in the Carolinas, has enhanced educational opportunities for hundreds of students. He is the Chairman Emeritus of The Cato Corporation, a chain of women’s apparel stores. . Since 1997 he has been a member of the Board of Directors of the College of Charleston Foundation. Both personally and corporately, he has generously endowed scholarship programs at the College of Charleston.

Marion Rivers Cato is a talented author, dedicated community volunteer and devoted citizen of Charleston. In 1991 Marion Rivers Ravenel published Marie Ravenel: From Childhood to China, an account of a medical missionary in revolutionary China in the 1920s. She authored a biography of her father, Rivers Delivers: The Story of L. Mendel Rivers, which was published in 1995. Marion Rivers Cato is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Historic Charleston Foundation and South Carolina Educational Television, and a member of the Board of Visitors of Converse College. She is a former member of the Board of Directors of Charleston Ballet Theatre and Huguenot Society of South Carolina.

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