The Gibbes Museum of Art has several happenings and programming coming up in July.
See below for events and exhibitions rolling out next month.
Programming:
Nexus: Music at the Crossroads of East and West, July 10 – 11, 2021
This stunning chamber music performance in collaboration with New Muse Concerts is inspired by the current special exhibition at the Gibbes, Lasting Impressions: Japanese Prints from the Read-Simms Collection. In a nexus of music, art and poetry, these four composers exchange ideas and influences across cultures, mediums and eras. To allow for a safe experience, the Gibbes is offering two performances, both with limited seating.
Price: $30 Members | $40 Non-Members
An Afternoon with a Charleston Printmaker, July 17, 2021
Inspired by the exhibition, Lasting Impressions: Japanese Prints from the Read-Simms Collection, the Gibbes and Society 1858 invites visitors to explore the artistic process behind traditional woodblock printing with a Charleston twist! This exclusive educational experience is led by Charleston artist Lese Corrigan. During the session, attendees will observe traditional tools, materials and processes in action while sipping on chilled saki. After, guests are invited to join a private docent-led tour of Lasting Impressions to learn more about the history of Japanese woodblock printing and revel in their newfound appreciation of the materials and care that go into creating the works.
Price: $35
Japonisme in Charleston with Curator Sara Arnold, July 22, 2021
Guests are invited to explore Japonisme in Charleston: Alice Smith and Her Circle with Gibbes Museum curator Sara Arnold. This tour will be streamed through Facebook Live @theGibbesMuseum and is free and open to the public.
Price: Free
Relief Block Printmaking Workshop with Susan Vitali, July 31 – Aug. 1, 2021
Redux Contemporary Art Center is collaborating with The Gibbes and printmaker Susan Vitali for this specially tailored two-day workshop. Participants will have the full experience of relief block printmaking, a guided tour of the Gibbes' exhibition Lasting Impressions: Japanese Prints from the Read-Simms Collection and a hands-on workshop creating relief prints of their own designs.
Price: $240 members | $300 non-members *member pricing applies to Gibbes and Redux members
Special Exhibitions:
Lasting Impressions: Japanese Prints from the Read-Simms Collection, Now – Oct. 3, 2021
For images, visit https://bit.ly/3b9b6Ps.
Lasting Impressions: Japanese Prints from the Read-Simms Collection will showcase 60 exceptional and rare prints amassed by Charleston collector, Motte Alston Read, and his sister, Mary Read Hume Simms of New Orleans, during the first decades of the 20th century, a period often referred to as the “Golden Age” of print collecting. The Read-Simms Collection was donated to the Gibbes in 1947 and reflects the full range of popular print subjects by master Ukiyo-e artists of the Edo period, from dramatic Kabuki theater actors, portrayed by Suzuki Harunobu and Tōshūsai Sharaku in the 18th century, to vibrant landscapes by Utagawa Hiroshige and Katsushika Hokusai in the 19th century.
The exhibition is accompanied by a beautiful, fully illustrated catalog featuring entries by Japanese fine art specialist, Sebastian Izzard Ph.D., and an in-depth essay on the collectors by Sara C. Arnold and Stephen G. Hoffius.
Japonisme in Charleston: Alice Smith and Her Circle, Now – Oct. 3, 2021
For images, visit https://bit.ly/2Ll7b7r.
Japonisme is a French term coined to describe the craze for Japanese art and design that first gripped the West in the late nineteenth century. In a companion exhibition to Lasting Impressions, the wave of enthusiasm for the Japanese aesthetic in Charleston will be explored through the works of native artist Alice Ravenel Huger Smith who was one of many American artists to react to the western dissemination of Japanese prints. A close friend and neighbor of collector Motte Alston Read, Smith had unfettered access to Read's growing library of Japanese prints and she studied them intently. A watercolor specialist and one of Charleston's most prolific artists, Smith discovered a shared reverence for nature in the work of Japanese artists, which greatly impacted her artistic trajectory. Japonisme in Charleston: Alice Smith and her Circle will feature works by Smith and other Charleston artists who embraced the tenets and techniques of Japanese art.
Charleston Collects: Devotion and Fantasy, Witchcraft and the World’s End, Now – Aug. 15, 2021
For images, visit https://bit.ly/3oeHGmM.
This exhibition is a selection of art curated by Lawrence Goedde, Ph.D., professor of art history at the University of Virginia. The collection, which is comprised of objects created in the Low Countries and Germany between 1440 and 1590, showcases a world of contradictions and unease—whether the subject is a troubled Virgin Mary contemplating her young son, or a menacing group of malevolent figures inspired by Hieronymus Bosch, or Albrecht Dürer's famous scenes from Revelations.
