One of the first things I learned about my girlfriend is that she owns a mermaid skeleton.

It used to sit on her shelf on a vintage scale, far too small to be what one would expect a mermaid to look like, in all its feigned wonder and crypto-zoological glory. This small curio would not be found in just any home, but somehow it has now landed in the house we share together….sitting…waiting…

The Halsey Institute is running out of space in their storage room and has decided to sell some of the items they have accumulated over the course of 31 years at their first annual BIZARRE Bazaar. With almost 100 works of art for sale, this event is an ideal opportunity for art collector to come check out paintings, sculptures, a dried grass suit, a piece made of bottle caps, and more.

The College of Charleston’s Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art has consistently presented some of the finest contemporary art and artists in Charleston.

The institute is the type of artistic space that garners national attention while also reinforcing Charleston’s “local” aesthetic. After all, the “Buy Local” mantra doesn’t just apply to food and local business endeavors, it applies to art galleries, as well, a vital part of Charleston’s thriving personality.

The desire to create forms via chance and natural phenomena is reflected in the works in Alyson Shotz: Force of Nature at Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston, South Carolina. Despite a disparate range of formats, including porcelain sculpture, complex wire installations, and color aquatints, this exhibition brings together a wide array of works that originate from a process-based practice and share connections to indeterminacy.

Bloomberg Philanthropies has named the city of Spartanburg as one of four recipients of a public art grant worth up to $1 million. The collaborative, neighborhood-based art project, called “Seeing Spartanburg in a New Light,” will feature the work of light and digital media artist Erwin Redl. It is curated by Mark Sloan of the Halsey Institute for Contemporary Art.

F. Scott Hess is one of Los Angeles’s — and indeed America’s — most unique and prolific figurative painters working today. Deeply influential, frequently controversial and yet profoundly under-recognized, Hess’s emotionally fraught, allegorical narratives have captured the attention of audiences and collectors for decades with their stylized archetypes of modern human experience that combine private iconography with the stylistic aesthetic stance and elevated craftsmanship of classical art history.

The Spoleto season in Charleston is a magical time. For three weeks the city is flooded with performers of all stripes and tourists looking to ride the wave of Spoleto Festival USA. School is out for the summer, Memorial Day opens the beach season, and it’s not even beastly hot yet.

With the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in the rearview and the summer solstice just a few days behind us, no one could blame the crowds for lying low and seeking respite in air-conditioned living rooms. But sitting in the air conditioning for too long can create an unintended brain freeze of catastrophic proportions.

Brooklyn-based sculptor Alyson Shotz has shown her artwork in more than 100 exhibitions over three decades. Her pieces have been displayed in The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and The Whitney Museum, among other prestigious institutions.

When patrons walk into the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art’s exhibition space during Piccolo Spoleto this year, they’ll be greeted by more than 50 of sculptor Alyson Shotz’ ethereal, category-defying works. According to Halsey director Mark Sloan, this exhibition, Alyson Shotz: Force of Nature — which is jointly presented by the Halsey and Hamilton College in New York — will be Shotz’ biggest, most ambitious show to date. Among the pieces it includes are large-scale sculptures, a wall drawing, and animation.