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Emily Harper Beard: 615.744.3331, ”
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FRIST CENTER CELEBRATES TENTH ANNIVERSARY
WITH FREE DAYS, RECOGNITION, CELEBRATION
NASHVILLE, TENN. – (March 14, 2011) – April 8–10, 2011, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts celebrates 10 years of stellar art exhibitions, education and enrichment programs, outreach and service to the community with a weekend of celebration, including two free days of admission, a day of art-making activities, a salute to the Frist Center’s volunteers and a reception for donors and those involved in the founding of the institution.
“Ten years of operation marks an exciting milestone for us,” said Frist Center Executive Director Susan H. Edwards, Ph.D. “We are humbled by the incredible community support that has brought us this far, and we are grateful. This is also a benchmark for Nashville and Middle Tennessee, which today are considered to be among the most creative and desirable places to live in the country. The Frist Center has come to national and international prominence over the past decade and we hope to be an integral part of the dynamic future of our city and state.
“The Frist Center for the Visual Arts exists because our founders believed in the power of art to change people’s lives. Now, after 10 years, we live the wisdom of that commitment every day as we welcome children, families, students, seniors and people from every part of the community and from every walk of life into our beautiful historic building. This weekend is an opportunity to celebrate that vision and thank the people of Nashville and Middle Tennessee for supporting us,” she concluded
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Friday, April 8 (the actual 10th anniversary), and Saturday, April 9, will be free admission days at the Frist. The Frist Center will remain open until 9:00 p.m. Friday night with the Belmont Bluegrass Ensemble offering entertainment in the Grand Lobby from 6:00–8:00 p.m.
Several hundred guests are expected to attend a private reception Friday evening celebrating the institution’s founding team, the Circle Members— the more than 800 Frist Center members who have consistently supported the Frist Center at the Friend Level or higher for the entire 10 years—and others whose generosity has helped serve and sustain the Frist Center mission throughout the last decade.
Saturday, April 9, will be filled with art making, as visitors are invited to recreate the community art project, Carving the Carousel, a Family Day activity that took place in 2004 during the Red Grooms exhibition. Artist and former board member James Threalkill and Michael McBride, artist and current board member, will guide visitors in a collaborative effort to replicate a work first made on April 8, 2001, to celebrate the Frist Center’s opening day. Visitors will also be able to craft a souvenir reminder of a favorite artist or art exhibition seen at the Frist Center during the last decade.
Frist Center volunteers will be celebrated at a reception Sunday, April 10, from 2:00–4:00 p.m. in the Frist Center Auditorium. Since its founding, thousands of volunteers have devoted their time and energies to the Frist Center, serving as docents, working in the Martin ArtQuest Gallery, visitor services, community outreach, education, the gift shop, administrative offices, speaking engagements and at special events. This volunteer effort translates to the more than 150,000 hours of time, time that is valued at more than 2.5 million dollars contributed by the Frist Center volunteers.
Schedule of Events:
Friday, April 8 FREE DAY
10:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m.
Celebrate the Frist Center’s 10th birthday with FREE admission to the Frist Center all day.
Friday, April 8 Private Founders Reception
6:00–8:00 p.m.
Invitation-only reception for those responsible for the founding of the institution and Frist Center donors and members who have contributed at the Friend Level or higher for 10 years.
Remarks will take place in the Frist Center Auditorium at 6:30 p.m.
Friday, April 8 Music in the Grand Lobby
6:00– 8:00 p.m. Belmont Bluegrass Ensemble
FREE
Saturday, April 9 FREE DAY
10:00 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
Celebrate the Frist Center’s 10th anniversary with a full day of art-making activities:
Great Art Makes Great Memories
Studio A (Upper Level)
Be inspired by the world class art and artists brought to you by the Frist Center. Collage, cut, color and paste to create memory markers inspired by your favorite masterpiece!
Create, Collaborate, and Recreate: Carving the Carousel
Studio C (Upper Level)
Channel your inner sculptor: use modeling dough and sculptor’s tools to help remake the community art project Carving the Carousel, which was originally made to celebrate the 2004 Red Grooms Family Day at the Frist Center.
Happy Birthday, Frist Center for the Visual Arts!
Turner Courtyard (weather permitting)
Work with longtime Frist Center collaborators and Nashville artists James Threalkill and Michael McBride to recreate the 2001 opening-day activity that invited visitors to create an artistic “tile” to be placed in a mural depicting the Frist Center.
Martin ArtQuest Gallery
Visit the Martin ArtQuest Gallery, located on the upper level, to experiment with a variety of exciting hands-on art activities ranging from draped figure drawing to printmaking. Enjoy additional activities inspired by Vishnu: Hinduism’s Blue-Skinned Savior.
Sunday, April 10 Volunteer Appreciation Celebration
2:00– 4:00 p.m.
Frist Center auditorium
(Invited guests)
More than 200 active Frist Center volunteers are expected to attend this annual volunteer appreciation celebration during which levels of service are recognized and honored. Providing assistance throughout the Frist Center, including visitor services, the Martin ArtQuest Gallery, community outreach, education, membership, the gift shop and special events, Frist Center volunteers have contributed more than 150,000 hours of time to the Frist Center in the years since opening.
Current Exhibitions
Vishnu: Hinduism’s Blue-Skinned Savior
Ingram Gallery
February 20–May 29, 2011
Vishnu: Hinduism’s Blue-Skinned Savior is the first major museum exhibition to focus solely on Vishnu—one of Hinduism’s three major deities. Composed of more than 170 paintings, sculptures and ritual objects made in India between the fourth and twentieth centuries, this exhibition serves as a brief survey of Hindu art styles as well as an examination of the Vaishnava (Vishnu-worshipping) tradition.
Vishnu: Hinduism’s Blue-Skinned Savior is organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts with guest curator Joan Cummins, Ph.D.
Platinum Sponsor: The HCA Foundation on behalf of HCA and the TriStar Family of Hospitals
This exhibition is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Frist Center for the Visual Arts thanks the Vishnu Advisory Committee and Friends of Asian Art for their support of this exhibition.
Design Sponsor: highbrowfurniture.com
Hindu Home Shrines: Creating Space for Personal Contemplation
Ingram Gallery
Feb. 20–May 29, 2011
What is the center of your home? The kitchen, the living room, or the den? The most important space in a Hindu home is the shrine room. It is a place reserved for reverence and meditation, a sacred space for honoring and worshipping the gods. Hinduism gives its 950 million followers the freedom to worship in many ways and forms. Daily devotional practices offer meaning and provide balance to daily life. In this exhibition, visitors can discover a recreated home shrine with objects donated by members of the local Hindu community. Also on display are votive objects and photographs of local home shrines.
Hindu Home Shrines: Creating Space for Personal Contemplation is organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.
This exhibition is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Frist Center for the Visual Arts thanks the Vishnu Advisory Committee and Friends of Asian Art for their support of this exhibition.
William Eggleston: Anointing the Overlooked
Upper-Level Galleries
January 21–May 1, 2011
William Eggleston: Anointing the Overlooked brings together more than 70 photographs made by the Memphis, Tenn., resident who is one of the most influential artists of his generation. The exhibition includes iconic images from the early 1970s, important series and portfolios held in the Memphis Brooks collection as well as the rarely seen 21st Century Photographs.
William Eggleston: Anointing the Overlooked is organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts and is made possible by the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Cheim and Read Gallery, New York, the Eggleston Artistic Trust, and the David Lusk Gallery, Memphis.
Simen Johan: Until the Kingdom Comes
Gordon Contemporary Artists Project Gallery
Feb. 20–May 29, 2011
Simen Johan’s works reflect uneasy connections between humans and other animal species. His digital photographs, which show live or taxidermied animals Photoshopped onto various natural and human-made landscape environments, blur boundaries between the real and unreal, animal and human and beauty and brutality. His sculptures of taxidermied birds are interwoven with insects and foliage, serving in his words as “miniature parasitical ecosystems.”
Simen Johan: Until the Kingdom Comes is organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.
Gordon Contemporary Artists Exhibition Sponsor: Welling LaGrone and Morgan Keegan
The Frist Center for the Visual Arts is supported in part by the Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission and the Tennessee Arts Commission.
About the Frist Center
Accredited by the American Association of Museums, 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, U.S. and international sources in a program of changing exhibitions. The Frist Center’s Martin ArtQuest Gallery (open until 5:30 p.m. each day) features interactive stations relating to Frist Center exhibitions. Gallery admission to the Frist Center is free for visitors 18 and younger and to Frist Center members. Frist Center admission is $10.00 for adults and $7.00 for seniors, military and college students with ID. College students are admitted free Thursday and Friday evenings (with the exception of Frist Fridays), 5–9 p.m. Discounts are offered for groups of 10 or more with advance reservation by calling (615) 744-3247.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 Frist Center 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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