Free summer at the Columbia Museum of Art is back
PRESS RELEASE
May 13, 2025
Two must-see exhibitions open May 24
Columbia, S.C. – The Columbia Museum of Art announces the return of Free Summer at the CMA, the reopening of first-floor galleries, and the opening of two dynamic exhibitions — Sam Gilliam: Printmaker and Let’s Have a Talk: Black Artists from the CMA Collection — all kicking off on Saturday, May 24, with a daytime celebration including tours, art activities, and more.
Launched in 2024, Free Summer at the CMA offers all residents of South Carolina free general admission to the museum from Memorial Day to Labor Day. This is funded through the generous support of Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program, a transformative funding initiative aimed at increasing access to museums across America and fostering engagement with local audiences.
The reopening of first-floor galleries also marks significant progress in the CMA’s ongoing gallery lighting renovation, a major legacy project undertaken in the museum’s 75th anniversary year that provides comprehensive upgrades to the lighting system and walls of the galleries.
On view May 24 through August 31, the CMA’s two featured summer exhibitions both explore abstract work by Black artists. Sam Gilliam: Printmaker showcases the printmaking practice of Sam Gilliam (1933 – 2022), one of the great innovators in postwar American painting. Early in his career, he made clean-edged abstractions in line with the Washington Color School painters. He gradually loosened up his style, soaking or pouring colors directly onto his canvases and folding them before they dried — a technique that creates accordion lines and a deep sense of texture. Around 1965, Gilliam made his greatest stylistic innovation: He got rid of the stretcher bars that traditionally underpin a painting and draped his canvases from the wall like sheets from a clothesline.
Gilliam began his printmaking in the 1970s. He would occasionally use traditional techniques such as screen printing but would also take his prints back to the studio to cut them apart and stitch them back together with a heavy nylon filament, resulting in a series of highly innovative and unique works.
In 1972 he became the first Black artist to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale and his work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; the Kunstmuseum, Basel; and many others — including the CMA.
This exhibition features some three dozen of Gilliam’s finest prints created between 1972 and 2009, from the Michael K. and Marian E. Butler Collection of Miami, Florida. It is organized by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA, in association with the Griots Gallery, Miami, FL.
Organized by the CMA, Let’s Have a Talk: Black Artists from the CMA Collection brings together a multigenerational group of more than a dozen Black artists working in and around abstraction. It pushes against longstanding expectations that work by Black artists must present a clear message about their racial identity and experience and celebrates their crucial, yet often dismissed, role in abstract art.
Featuring sculpture, prints, paintings, and photography from the CMA Collection, this exhibition presents a range of abstract styles including Oliver Lee Jackson’s expressive, gestural mark making, Lorna Simpson’s ambiguous forms, and McArthur Binion’s minimalist designs.
Titled after conceptual artist Adrian Piper’s socially provocative print included in the show, Let’s Have a Talk is an open-ended invitation to start a conversation about Black artists' contributions to modern and contemporary art history and the many facets of abstraction. Within these discussions other dialogues may emerge — between artists, between unique objects, between viewer and image, and within ourselves.
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Sam Gilliam: Printmaker is presented by Bank of America Private Bank. Gold Sponsors: Maynard Nexsen PC; Dr. Suzanne R. Thorpe and Dr. John W. Baynes; BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina; Dominion Energy. Bronze Sponsors: Barbara B. Boyd; Allen and Gladys Coles; Dr. and Mrs. Benjamin M. Gimarc; Metro Wines Asheville. Benefactors: Mr. and Mrs. John R. Kessler, Jr.; Cathy and Mike Love; Beth and Matthew Richardson; Robinson Gray. Grantors: City of Columbia; Experience Columbia; Richland County; South Carolina Arts Commission; Discover South Carolina.
Image above: Visitors pose in front of Sam Gilliam’s Cape III, a beloved work in the CMA Collection. Photo credit: Victor Johnson / The Columbia Museum of Art.