So fortunate to visit Savannah this past week for the opening of several major shows at the SCAD Museum of Art. And because my hosts are major supporters of the arts – and SCAD in particular – we got a pre-opening tour with the new curator, Humberto Moro. This was an absolute highlight of the trip for me – along with the fact that many of the artists were on site during our walk-thru including Carlos Cruz-Diez, Jose Parla, Hernan Bas, Hank Willis Thomas, Glen Fogel and perhaps (?) Chiharu Shiota (video above – her installation is MAJOR!).

I was under the impression that this was one large group show but apparently not – so while all opened on February 21, each artist’s show has a different closing date –  with most up thru August.

Read on below for more on Nick Cave’s show at the Jepson Center – as well as more photos and video from the SCAD shows at the end of the post.

This Nick Cave exhibition is the largest presentation of Cave’s work ever displayed in Georgia. It includes a large collection of his soundsuits from the past decade. These sculptural forms are based on the scale of his body, which he states are “full body suits constructed of materials that rattle with movement…like a coat of armor, they embellish the body while protecting the wearer from outside culture.”

The exhibition also includes two tondos—large circular works evoking the night sky and the cosmos—and two recent videos documenting the soundsuits and their use in performance. The show runs thru April 27.

The Jepson Center (named for my hosts, Alice and Bob Jepson) is devoted to contemporary art and was designed by Moshe Safdie. It is home to the Kirk Varnedoe Collection (an esteemed Savannahian and Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at MoMA from 1988 to 2001). The collection features works on paper by some of the most pivotal artists of the past fifty years, including Jasper Johns, Chuck Close, Roy Lichtenstein, Jeff Koons, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella. The Jepson is also home to the original iconic Bird Girl statue, made famous in the Jack Leigh photograph on the cover of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

 

MORE PHOTOS FROM THE SCAD SHOW