Wednesday, April 30, 2008

New top director at the Gibbes Museum

Posted by John Stoehr on Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 9:14 PM

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Angela Mack is the new executive director of the Gibbes Museum of Art, according to Tuesday's Post and Courier. She has been with the Gibbes for two decades. For the past five years, she has served as the museums deputy director and chief curator.

The announcement comes more than a month after Todd Smith resigned suddenly as executive director. Despite suspicions that he'd been pushed out, inquiries to board members, museum staffers, and former employees suggest the museum was satisfied with Smith's work. He was leaving (his last day is June 30) for personal reasons.

Mack's appointment is also a surprise. Tom White, chair of the Gibbes' board of directors, said publicly that there would be a nationwide search for a new director that would commence some time during the summer.

Now that Mack has been installed, it's not clear why she would be the right choice. Indeed, she has been at the museum for a long time. And indeed she shepherded the upcoming exhibition, one that's getting national attention, on slavery through the lens of landscape painting. But curating is different from leading an institution.

While being a curator requires management and operational acumen, being a director requires a vision — a dream — and the social and political skills to inspire others, especially Charleston's patron class, to rally together to achieve that dream. I'd like to know more about Mack's accomplishments in that regard.

By the looks of it, this might be a short-term solution. According to the P&C report, the museum is in some trouble financially. It reported a deficit of more than $618,000 in three of the past five years. If that's truly a problem for the Gibbes (I'm unconvinced; there were up years in that five-year span; check out for yourself the Gibbes' IRS tax forms for 2004, 2005, and 2006), then Mack may be

just the kind of "crisis-manager" the museum needs, someone who's not going to ask for much from her board while providing solid leadership.

More KK2 video

Posted by John Stoehr on Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 7:08 PM

A clothing retailer called Karmaloop was at Kulture Klash and took this video. They asked me to post this video. It's OK.

Topics: Visual Arts

Evl Sht!

Posted by John Stoehr on Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 10:36 AM

Since I moved to Charleston, I've come to be a fan. I think their art deserves a more serious kind of attention than it currently gets. This guerilla art mafia, so to speak, has cultivated a style, attitude, and sensibility that warrants fevered discussion and celebration. These guys might disagree. I don't know. Enjoy.

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Saturday, April 26, 2008

More on Kulture Klash 2, plus video

Posted by John Stoehr on Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 5:26 PM

Organizers of Kulture Klash 2 say that about 1,300 people attended the April 19 art party. But last night, I learned that organizers were worried about violating fire codes and were restricting the number of people who were in 10 Storehouse Row at any one time. So that means, maybe, that far more than 1,300 people were on the premises that night (the line as I was leaving was long). So what might that mean? That lots and lots and lots of people were hungry for art, dance, music, and other forms of creativity. That creativity is chic. And so on.

Click here

Topics: Performance Venues

Friday, April 25, 2008

Carolina Chocolate Drops change venues to add more seats

Posted by John Stoehr on Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 10:03 AM

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The 9 p.m. performance by the Carolina Chocolate Drops on June 4-5 will be relocated to the Cistern at the College of Charleston in order to accommodate increased demand to see the popular trio specializing in traditional African-American string music from the Piedmont.

The 6 p.m. performances will still be at the Recital Hall at the Simons Center for the Arts.

The trio was recently featured in Denzel Washington's movie, The Great Debaters.

Tickets are $20.

For tickets, call (843) 579-3100 or go to www.spoletousa.org.

Topics: Concert Music
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