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Published: January 20th 2012
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Columbia Art Museum fountain
Sculpture fountain in front of the Columbia Museum of Art Today I am in
Columbia, South Carolina.
South Carolina’s capitol gets as much publicity as a tourist destination as Albany (see March 1
st), for pretty much the same reason.
It’s a place where people visit to do business, not see sights.
The city is probably most (in)famous for the
Confederate battle flag that proudly flew over the state house until a decade ago (it now flies over the Confederate monument in front).
I was there on a Saturday, which meant the place was basically dead.
Still, I had a few hours to kill, and needed somewhere to do it.
Thankfully, the local paper, which wants to breathe life into the town, publishes a guide of things to do around here.
I ultimately chose the
Columbia Museum of Art.
The Columbia Museum of Art promotes itself as the largest art museum in the Deep South.
This may in fact be the case, as the building was larger than the museums in Savannah, Charleston, or Florida.
It can’t compare to the Gibbes in Charleston (see March 30
th) for visit quality, however.
Columbia is a very conservative city, and the art museum
reflects this.
The museum is a comprehensive
South Carolina State House
The South Carolina state house, with the monument to confederate veterans directly in front of it. The infamous battle flag is barely visible to the left of the monument. regional museum that puts most of its emphasis on Old Masters and early American work.
The section on Impressionism, which in St. Petersburg takes up an entire room, here gets exactly one wall.
The room of work by South Carolina artists had exactly one painting made after 1930.
Most notable was the contemporary work; there wasn’t any!
This work was put in storage to make space for a temporary show.
The temporary show was on
rock and roll photography.
In the Northeast, such a show would be considered pandering to popular tastes, but here it was groundbreaking.
Even more telling was the other temporary show on
skateboard designs.
This show was actually political.
In Columbia, skateboarders are mostly viewed as juvenile delinquents.
The purpose of the show was to show another side of the culture and build support for local skate parks.
The work was mostly the hallucinogenic pop art familiar to anyone who knows underground youth culture (but not residents of Columbia, apparently).
After the art museum, I had another long drive into southern Virginia.
The route passed though the section of central North Carolina known
Trees and vines
Vine covered trees on the roadside, outside Columbia South Carolina as the piedmont.
It consisted of rolling hills and farmland.
Thanks to a cold snap, the trees were just beginning to grow leaves.
One section of roadside had been taken over by
kudzu, and it was everywhere.
This vine, which was imported from Japan, grows very quickly in hot humid climates, and covers large swaths of the rural South.
I’m surprised it took this long to see some.
There were also wildflowers along most of the road.
Since the trees had little leaves, the flowers stuck out like a welcome sore thumb.
I had dinner this night at an Italian restaurant called
Carini’s .
It’s one of those places where everyone seems to know everyone else.
This being the rural South, everyone was exceedingly polite, to the point it almost became grating.
The food was pretty good, and came with so much garlic bread that I skipped desert.
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