COLUMBIA, SC.- The Columbia Museum of Art presents (Un)Settled: The Landscape in American Art, a collaborative exhibition that explores the rich, complicated, and evolving topic of the American landscape, from its origins in 19th-century painting to the present. The CMA is one of four participating museums in the Art Bridges Cohort Program’s American South Consortium, the institutional partnership responsible for this exhibition. (Un)Settled opened at the CMA on Saturday, June 15, and runs through Sunday, September 8.

“In collaboration with three nationally acclaimed museum partners through the Art Bridges Cohort Program, this show brings together selections of American art and material culture that beautifully reflect upon and respond to both natural and manmade moments, providing visitors with a rich experience,” says CMA Executive Director Della Watkins. “I highly recommend visiting to enjoy the views!”

This multidisciplinary show features over 60 works of art in conversation across time and space, foregrounding multiple historic and cultural perspectives on landscape as a hallmark of national identity.

(Un)Settled is presented in thematic sections, each presenting historic artworks in conversation with modern and contemporary examples. The variety of media and makers throughout the exhibition contribute to a more inclusive conversation about the American landscape and its evolving relationship to a concept of national identity. To tell a more comprehensive history, the curatorial selection recognizes the voices of Indigenous artists, women, and artists of color.

Why (Un)Settled?

By bringing together objects made over the course of 200 years, (Un)Settled highlights shifting attitudes toward landscape’s relevance and resonance in American art. The unsettling concept is multifaceted and recognizes the ongoing conversations centered on the landscape as an enduring cultural and historic touchpoint. A throughline of environmental awareness, for example, emerges between Thomas Cole’s View of the White Mountains (1827) and Jacqueline Bishop’s electrifying painting After the Rain (Methane) (2014–15). Similarly, contemporary artist Tom McGrath cites Albert Bierstadt’s romanticized topographical views of the American West as inspiration for his panoramic representation of the gridded traffic patterns in downtown Los Angeles.

The juxtaposition of a traditional 19th-century Coast Salish basket with a contemporary response by glass artist Dan Friday (Lummi Nation, Coast Salish) brings to light the strength of tradition and memory sustained over generations.

William Christenberry’s photographs record specific places, primarily in the western part of his home state of Alabama, and reflect upon memory, transformation, and physical change wrought by time on landscape and built environment. Similarly, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe’s portraits of the Gullah Geechee on Daufuskie Island address cultural heritage and, in the artists’ words, “keep for the eyes of history the way Daufuskie was.”

“From the local scenery to national parks, the individual to the communal, our cultural values and beliefs can be shaped by our surroundings,” says Erin Monroe, Krieble Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. “(Un)Settled strives to explore ideas that are topical and relevant to today’s audiences such as: land use and preservation, environmental impact, politicization of borders, and the rise and decline of structures.”

For the CMA’s presentation of this unique traveling exhibition, the museum will include a selection of recently conserved prints, drawings, and watercolors by the Charleston Renaissance artist Anna Heyward Taylor, whose work engages the topic of landscape in South Carolina and abroad.