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Rose Mary Gorman: (615) 744-3332, ”
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FRIST CENTER FOR THE VISUAL ARTS
ANNOUNCES 2008 EXHIBITION SCHEDULE
Aaron Douglas Retrospective; American Abstract Art; Monet to Dalí and Modern Masters; Tiffany Lamps; Rodin Sculptures; Contemporary Artists Angelo Filomeno and Lalla Essaydi; and George Eastman House Photography
NASHVILLE, TENN.—(Aug. 20, 2007)—The Frist Center for the Visual Arts’ 2008 exhibition schedule will feature a robust selection of painting, sculpture, photography and decorative arts. Highlights include Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist, Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Color as Field: American Painting, 1950–1975, featuring artwork by Mark Rothko, Frank Stella and other major artists of the postwar period. For the first time at the Frist Center, an exhibition featuring art by Tennessee adult artists with disabilities will be on view in the Conte Community Arts Gallery.
The year’s schedule will continue with exhibitions of Auguste Rodin’s sculptures and Tiffany lamps from The Neustadt Collection. Additionally, solo exhibitions of contemporary art will feature work by Angelo Filomeno (currently included in the 2007 Venice Biennale), and photographer Lalla Essaydi.
“The magnificent variety offered in our 2008 exhibitions contributes to our goal to bring the art of the world to Nashville,” says Frist Center Executive Director Dr. Susan H. Edwards. “We are particularly pleased to start the year with Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist, an exhibition that speaks eloquently to the direct connection between one of America’s most important artists and Nashville, a city that was so important to him as a teacher and an artist.
“We very much consider ourselves a cultural citizen of this community; not only do we want to engage and inspire our fellow Middle Tennesseans to look at their world differently, we want to present art that will also attract visitors from around the region to Nashville to experience all our city has to offer. Next year’s exhibitions do both,” Edwards concluded.
The 2008 Frist Center exhibition schedule:
Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist
Jan. 18–April 13, 2008
Upper-Level Galleries
Aaron Douglas was a leading artist of the Harlem Renaissance whose signature style includes silhouetted figures, flat forms and radiating bands of light. Born in Kansas and a resident of Harlem for many years, Douglas spent much of his life in Nashville, Tenn., as head of the art department at Fisk University. This is the first touring retrospective of his work and includes approximately 100 paintings, works on paper and book illustrations.
Organized by the Spencer Museum of Art, the University of Kansas, Lawrence, with support from the Henry Luce Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art
Feb. 15–June 1, 2008
Ingram Gallery
This exhibition brings together 84 acclaimed European paintings and sculptures from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including works by Paul Cézanne, Salvador Dalí, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Georges Seurat and Vincent Van Gogh. Together, these works illuminate the spirit of innovation and creativity that marks one of the most extraordinary epochs in the history of art.
This exhibition has been organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Angelo Filomeno
Feb. 15–June 1, 2008
Gordon Contemporary Artists Project Gallery
New York artist Angelo Filomeno employs embroidery and appliqué on shantung silk in the creation of shimmering images, in which sharp-fanged skulls and prancing skeletons interact with such beautiful elements as peacocks, feathers and butterflies in modern versions of the danse macabre. Filomeno’s work is on view in the 2007 Venice Biennale, the theme of which, “Think With the Senses, Feel With the Mind: Art in the Present
Tense,” perfectly encapsulates the sensuality and intellectual depth of the artist’s embroidered images.
Organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.
Tiffany by Design: The Neustadt Collection
May 9–Aug. 24, 2008
Upper-Level Galleries
Arguably America’s greatest art nouveau designer, Louis Comfort Tiffany created his most extraordinary works in the medium of glass. This exhibition of 40 lamps conveys the beauty of his designs and complexity of the fabrication processes employed by Tiffany Studios between 1900 and 1925.
Organized by The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass, Long Island City, New York.
Tennessee Adult Artists with Disabilities
May 16–Sept. 14, 2008
Conte Community Arts Gallery
This exhibition provides an opportunity for emerging and professional adult artists with disabilities to showcase their artwork, promote disability awareness and help eliminate barriers for people with disabilities through the arts. The exhibition will feature up to 40 artworks, selected from artists’ submissions from across Tennessee.
Organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.
Color as Field: American Painting, 1950–1975
June 20–Sept. 21, 2008
Ingram Gallery
Exemplified in the work of Joseph Albers, Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Mark Rothko and Frank Stella, the paintings featured in this exhibition constitute one of the crowning achievements of postwar American abstract art. Color as Field will encompass approximately 40 large-scale canvases.
Organized by American Federation of Arts.
The exhibition is made possible, in part, by grants from the Henry Luce Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts as part of American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius.
Shades of Gray: Four Artists of the Southeast
June 20–Sept. 21, 2008
Gordon Contemporary Artists Project Gallery and Education Gallery
This exhibition will present the works of four Southeastern artists: Sue Mulcahy (Nashville, Tenn.); Kell Black (Clarksville, Tenn.); Carol Prusa (Boca Raton, Fla.); and Jane Nodine (Spartanburg, S.C.). Each artist employs a limited palette of black, white and gray in exploring ambiguous relationships between figure and ground, as well as reality and the imagination. Shades of Gray will be presented as a companion to the exhibition Color as Field.
Organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.
Rodin: A Magnificent Obsession, Sculpture from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation
Sept. 12, 2008–Jan. 4, 2009
Upper-Level Galleries
Rodin: A Magnificent Obsession, Sculpture from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation is a retrospective of the artist’s career and includes more than 60 bronzes, from small studies to monumental works, which were for the most part cast posthumously from original wax sculptures created by the artist. The works were chosen to convey major projects and themes from throughout Rodin’s career, from his earliest bust of his father, Jean-Baptiste Rodin, to his later studies of dancing figures. In addition to such highlights as cast versions of The Gates of Hell and The Burghers of Calais, the exhibition includes works on paper, photographs, portraits of the artist and an educational model that demonstrates the complexities of the lost-wax casting process, Rodin’s favored method of sculptural reproduction.
Organized by the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation.
The Best of Photography and Film from George Eastman House Collection
Oct. 10, 2008–Jan. 25, 2009
Ingram Gallery
Featuring masterpieces of photography and film from throughout history, this exhibition includes such iconic works as Mathew Brady’s portrait of Abraham Lincoln, Ansel Adams’s Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico; Edward Weston’s Pepper No. 30; and Alfred Stieglitz’s The Steerage. The exhibition also presents various versions of famous photographs, such as Lewis Hine’s Power House Mechanic, and Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother, which together provide insight into the artists’ creative processes. Films represented in the exhibition include The Phantom of the Opera, Peter Pan and The Lost World.
The Best of Photography and Film from George Eastman House Collection was organized by the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film.
Lalla Essaydi
Oct. 10, 2008–Jan. 25, 2009
Gordon Contemporary Artists Project Gallery
Through her thought-provoking photographs, Moroccan-born artist Lalla Essaydi confronts the issues of confinement and repression experienced by many women in Islamic societies. The women depicted in her images, many of whom are family members dressed in traditional attire, are covered with calligraphic writing. These words break the expected silence, telling stories that speak of Essaydi’s thoughts and experiences, caught between the east and the west, the past and the present.
Organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.
Continuing in 2008
The Société Anonyme: Modernism for America
Continues through Jan. 26, 2008
Rosemary Laing: Flight
Continues through Jan. 26, 2008
About the Frist Center
The Frist Center for the Visual Arts, located at 919 Broadway in downtown Nashville, Tenn., is an art exhibition center dedicated to presenting the finest visual art from local, regional, national and international sources in a program of changing exhibitions. The Frist Center’s Martin ArtQuest Gallery features more than 30 interactive stations relating to Frist Center exhibitions. Gallery admission to the Frist Center is free for visitors 18 and under and to Frist Center members. Frist Center admission is $8.50 for adults, $7.50 for seniors and military, and $6.50 for college students with ID. Thursday evenings, 5-9 p.m., admission is free for college students with a valid college ID. Discounts are offered for groups of 10 or more with advance reservation by calling (615) 744-3246. The Frist Center is open seven days a week: Mondays through Wednesdays, and Saturdays, 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; Thursdays and Fridays, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; and Sundays,
1- 5:30 p.m., with the Café opening at noon. Additional information is available by calling (615) 244-3340 or by visiting our Web site at http://www.fristcenter.org.
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