Beginning in October, the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art will feature Indonesian artist, Jumaadi, and his exhibition Forgive Me Not To Miss You Not.  Jumaadi has exhibited globally in Australia, Europe, Asia, the Netherlands, and he was recently selected for the Moscow Biennale.  This is a hallmark exhibition—his first in the United States.  As the Halsey’s International Artist in Residence for Fall 2014, for the past two months, Jumaadi has had the opportunity to foster a meaningful relationship with the Charleston community while developing his exhibit.

In 1981, John Baldessari said, “Probably one of the worst things to happen to photography is that cameras have viewfinders…” but artist Yaakov Israel would certainly disagree.[1] Israel’s photographs in The Quest for the Man on the White Donkey at the Halsey Institute for Contemporary Art in Charleston, South Carolina, are carefully constructed. Israeli-born and -based, Israel relishes the serendipitous encounters he’s had while exploring the geography and people of his native land, and this show is a case in point: As he was packing up his equipment after a long day in the desert looking for subjects for his photographs, Israel was approached by an elderly man riding a white donkey. He convinced the man to sit for a portrait, quickly assembled his equipment, and captured the image The Man on the White Donkey, HaBiqah (2006). Intrigued by this chance occurrence—it uncannily invokes the Orthodox Jewish tradition of the messiah arriving at the end of days on a white donkey—Israel then used it as the titular inspiration for this series, a body of work rife with chance findings and encounters in the Israeli landscape.

There’s something overwhelmingly remarkable about the anatomy of a city street. Like concrete veins sprawling from a massive urban body, the streets carry with them the most vital component to the city: its lifeblood, its people.

This idea is at the center of filmmaker and photographer Cheryl Dunn’s film documentary Everybody Street, which chronicles the art and passion of several of New York City’s most prominent street photographers, or those who wish to capture the human condition within public space, mirroring society and presenting an unaltered look at the culture they live in. Combining grooving music, powerful photography and the anecdotal history of each photographer’s work, Dunn’s film provides a beautiful and important look into the human condition through the eyes and lenses of these iconic street photographers.

Charleston Friends of the Library is taking the lead in organizing a free public reading meant to commemorate the freedom to read and condemn censorship.

At 6 p.m. Sept. 22, during Banned Books Week, some of the area’s leading writers and artists will read from books that have been subject to censorship attempts. Readers include Marcus Amaker, Herb Frazier, Sharon Graci, Bret Lott, Theodore Rosengarten, Joy Vandervort-Cobb, Marjory Wentworth and Katherine Williams.

The event will take place at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, 161 Calhoun St., on the College of Charleston campus. Rosengarten will read from Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.” Lott, who’s own writing has been subject to challenge from censors, will read from “Catcher in the Rye.”

Yaakov Israel is among his country’s new generation of artists shaped inevitably by current events and history. Yet he is determined to reach beyond the headlines to create work that explores profound ideas and themes.

Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art director Mark Sloan, invited to Israel two years ago to get to know visual artists at work there, met the photographer and immediately began conceiving an exhibit, now on the walls of one of the two galleries. (The other has photographs by Kathleen Robbins.) Israel will be in town to give a free gallery talk at 7 p.m. Tuesday. The event is co-sponsored by the Halsey and the Yaschik/Arnold Jewish Studies Program.

Echoing her grandmother’s words, Kathleen Robbins said, “I felt possessed by the place just as much as I possessed it.”  This place is the Mississippi family farm Robbins grew up on, and the centerpiece of her photo collection Into the Flatlands, on display now in the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art.

The history, gardens, and sea of South Carolina have long inspired a tradition of art both in Charleston and the surrounding Lowlands. In town, the annual Spoleto performing arts festival doesn’t focus on the visual arts, but still influences the city’s culture scene with shows featuring renowned dancers, singers, and actors. Year-round, painters set up plein-air easels on downtown streets to work on their harbor and marsh views. And gallery and pop-up events can be found on any block in 19^th-century storefronts or diverse settings from Marion Square Park to the Old City Jail. Like a glass of wine with your art? On Friday nights, there’s likely an opening reception or two, or even a neighborhood art walk. These crawls are an easy, no-pressure way to check out what’s new on the art scene and meet some locals in a wandering crowd of Charleston’s culture-seekers. Here are a few of the best art galleries in Charleston.

Delta native Kate Robbins returned to live on her ancestral farm for two years after completing her education, and has returned with her family regularly ever since. Into the Flatland is Robbins’ collection of images that evocatively capture the region’s many dichotomies – rich and poor, lush and barren, sodden and arid, beautiful and menacing, and explore familial obligation and the tensions caused by “coming home”. The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Charleston is exhibiting the series from 23 August to 4 October.