The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston’s School of the Arts presents: Call and Response: Africa to America / The Art of Nick Cave and Phyllis Galembo. The exhibit opens Thursday, May 27 and an opening reception will be held from 5 – 7 p.m. The exhibit will be open through Saturday, June 26. On Saturday, May 29th, curator Mark Sloan will lead artist talks with Phyllis Galembo and Nick Cave (2:00 p.m.- Galembo. 3:00 p.m.- Cave). All events are free and open to the public and will take place in the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art galleries, located in The Marion and Wayland H. Cato Jr. Center for the Arts at 161 Calhoun Street.

View online exhibition.

Nick Cave, a current Chair of the Fashion Design Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, is a renowned sculptor and fashion designer who has been creating Soundsuits since 2002.  All of Cave’s Soundsuits in Call and Response were created especially for this exhibition at the Halsey Institute. He creates costumes and sculptures that he calls Soundsuits consisting of brightly colored fabrics, embroidery, beadwork, and natural materials.

Phyllis Galembo, Professor of Photography at the University of Albany, State University of New York has been traveling the world for 28 years in search of the roots of masquerade. The elaborate costumes created for weddings and burials, initiations, chiefs’ coronations, and holidays often made of materials such as raffia, wood, yarns, flowers, grasses and sticks.

Call and Response: Africa to America / The Art of Nick Cave and Phyllis Galembo pairs the work of these two uniquely American artists, each of whom explores the contours of West African masquerade through their art.  This exhibition highlights the role of ritual traditions within the formation of cultural identity.The combination of these two artist’s work offers a powerful celebration of creativity, imagination, and cross-cultural communication. Call and Response:  Africa to America seeks to draw both the obvious and subtle parallels between the works of Galembo and Cave.

For more information, contact Mark Sloan or Rebecca Silberman at 843.953.5680.