On Monday, Spoleto Festival USA General Director & CEO Mena Mark Hanna unveiled Spoleto’s 2023 season poster, featuring commissioned photography by artist Elizabeth Bick, an artist and professor of photography at the College of Charleston.
“I was drawn to Elizabeth’s work through an exhibit at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art,” says Hanna. “This work represents the vibrancy of Charleston and of the Festival; it captures beauty and art in everyday expression.”
Bick’s work, which often reflects quotidian movement in urban spaces, has been exhibited internationally. “I love capturing people’s unthinking gestures and positioning them into a type of modern dance through a series of repetitive frames,” she says. “For this work in particular, I thought about the Festival itself and a season that represents joy—a joy of being, of moving, and living. I wanted the work to echo that energy.”
The poster image featured on the poster includes nine frames of 10 students from the College of Charleston’s School of the Arts and its Department of Dance positioned on a street on the Charleston peninsula. “One of the most wonderful things about Spoleto, of course, is the performances—but a festival is also about experiencing the backdrop of the location, the in-between moments walking to various events. I wanted to celebrate that movement and highlight all the spaces that people will experience.”
Spoleto Festival USA’s season posters have featured works by such artists as David Hockney, Charles Gaines, Jonathan Green, Maya Lin, Chuck Close, Elizabeth Murray, Sol Le Witt, Jasper Johns, JoAnn Verburg, and Christian Thee, among others. A gallery of past posters for sale can be found at spoletousa.org. Spoleto Festival USA posters are limited editions and not reprinted. The limited-edition 2023 poster was printed by Professional Printers in Columbia, South Carolina.