I absolutely LOVED my visit to the Columbia Museum of Art! It might not be the Louvre or the Met,…read morebut for a city the size of Columbia, I don't know if it's possible to craft and curate a better art museum. They had such a great collection, replete with amazing religious artwork, postmodernist works, artifacts from ancient China, and... a work from Claude Monet! As someone who's a huge fan of Impressionism, the fact that a piece from Claude Monet is sitting in Columbia is simply amazing. Kudos to the CMA for being able to procure this painting, and I hope that it remains at the museum in perpetuity.
In terms of the lesser-known works, they had a really cool exhibit from a local artist (well, from Spartanburg, which I'll consider "local",) which detailed the ever-increasing melding of technology and humanity. The exhibit displayed what was essentially a set of bronze busts that served as a combination of human and robot heads, with which the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI,) is as important and prescient as ever.
Finally, they had a cool section for kids called "The Cross Hatch," where kids could experiment and learn about the different art techniques in a fun and interactive environment. In addition, when I walked into the museum, they were setting up for a corporate event, and I was told by the gentleman working the front desk that the museum also serves as an event venue for all sorts of different occasions.
The only, very very *very* minor complaint that I have is that the downstairs rooms were closed, as they were busy setting up a new exhibit. Of course, I understand that the rooms have to be closed in order to set up a new exhibit, I just wish that they weren't closed when I happened to visit. Lol.
All-in-all, the Columbia Museum of Art is an amazing art museum, I'd recommend that anybody pay it a visit, and I hope that it's around for a long, long time!