Ever Evolving: Curators Discuss the CMA Collection

Name: Ever Evolving: Curators Discuss the CMA Collection
Start: 2026-02-12T18:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-02-12T20:00:00-05:00
Location: Columbia Museum of Art

Schedule

Thu Feb 12 2026 at 06:00 pm to 08:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Columbia Museum of Art | Columbia, SC

Drinks and refreshments at 6:00 p.m. | Discussion at 6:30 p.m.
The CMA Collection galleries have been transformed on three separate occasions in the last 28 years — when the museum moved from its original location at the Taylor House to Main Street in 1998, again after the 2016–2018 building renovations, and now after completion of the capital lighting project. Each iteration provides its own reimagining of ways to experience the museum's prized collection.
To celebrate this legacy of reinvention, Deputy Director and Director of External Affairs Joelle Ryan-Cook hosts an onstage discussion with two curatorial teams. Two former CMA staffers who designed the collection galleries for the very first time here on Main Street during the 1998 move — Bill Bodine, then chief curator, and Kevin Tucker, then associate curator of decorative arts — are joined by two present-day staffers, Senior Curator Michael Neumeister and Curator Sadé Ayorinde, who worked tirelessly alongside the rest of the curatorial team to conceive the CMA Collection’s newest iteration. Learn about the approaches and ideas behind these reinstalls, hear anecdotes about the challenges presented by such a large undertaking, and discover some of the joys that come along with the challenges. The talk features an introduction from Collections Specialist Noelle Nelson, who, along with Ryan-Cook, worked at the CMA for the last two reinstallations.
Free with membership or admission. Cash bar.
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Sadé Ayorinde is the curator at the Columbia Museum of Art. Before moving to South Carolina, she worked at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City, where she contributed to projects that broadened the museum’s interpretive approach to American folk and self-taught art. She has also curated exhibitions for the International Quilt Museum and the Sheldon Museum of Art in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Bill Bodine was director of the Frick Art & Historical Center in Pittsburgh, PA, for 12 years before retiring in July 2014. Before directing the Frick he held positions at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Columbia Museum of Art, where he was chief curator from 1994 to 2002. Bodine pursued his undergraduate and graduate studies in art history at the University of Virginia.
Michael Neumeister is senior curator at the Columbia Museum of Art. Since joining the CMA in 2022, he has organized several exhibitions of modern and contemporary art and accessioned more than 300 works into the museum's collection. Previously, he served as assistant curator at the American Federation of Arts, New York, where he developed numerous traveling exhibitions. Neumeister earned his M.A. from the City College of New York, where he also taught art history.

A scholar of late 19th- and early 20th-century design, Kevin W. Tucker is the High Museum of Art’s chief curator. Prior to joining the High, Tucker served as the founding director of the Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement in St. Petersburg, Florida. From 2003 to 2015 Tucker served as the Margot B. Perot Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA). Prior to joining the DMA, Tucker served as chief curator and deputy director of the Columbia Museum of Art, where he had previously been the curator of decorative arts. Tucker earned a Master of Arts and Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of South Carolina and was the recipient of a 2007 Winterthur Research Fellowship. He has served on committees for various regional and national professional organizations, including the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) and the American Alliance of Museums (AAM).