Past Exhibitions

Kara Walker: Cut to the Quick
From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation

Jul 23–Oct 10, 2021
A leading artist of her generation, Kara Walker (b. 1969) works in a range of mediums, including prints, drawings, paintings, sculpture, film, and the large-scale silhouette cutouts for which she is perhaps most recognized. Her powerful and provocative images employ contradictions to critique the painful legacies of slavery, sexism, violence, imperialism, and other power structures, including those in the history and hierarchies of art and contemporary culture. Read More

Designing the New: Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow Style

Jun 11–Sep 12, 2021
At the end of the nineteenth century, the Glasgow Style emerged as the major manifestation of Art Nouveau in Britain. This exhibition showcases Charles Rennie Mackintosh—the greatest exponent of the Glasgow Style—as an architect, designer, and artist, and contextualizes his production within a larger circle of designers and craftspeople in… Read More

Bethany Collins: Evensong

Jun 11–Sep 12, 2021
Chicago-based artist Bethany Collins (b. 1984) explores the intersection of language and race in her conceptually driven practice. She alters existing documents—such as the daily Birmingham News from 1963 or the U.S. Department of Justice’s report on the Ferguson, Missouri, police department—to critique the truthfulness and completeness of the official record. Since 2016, Collins… Read More

Teens Take the Frist!

Jun 18–Sep 5, 2021
Prompted by our vision of inspiring people through art to look at their world in new ways, the Frist Art Museum invited teens to submit their artwork for this third edition of Teens Take the Frist! The resulting selection features more than 180 artworks in a variety of mediums—including over… Read More

N2020: Community Reflections
Online exhibition, with free on-site screenings during museum hours

Mar 3–Aug 1, 2021
Organized by the Frist Art Museum, with guest curator Woke3 One early January 2020 morning, artist Woke3 stepped out of his home in North Nashville to find the remains of a car engulfed in a raging fire. He interpreted the blaze as a premonition of the year to come. No… Read More

Creating the American West in Art

Mar 5–Jun 27, 2021
The American West is an idea and a process as much as it is a location. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, depictions of the people, landscapes, and wildlife of the West fostered a sense of American identity that was rooted in a pioneering spirit of adventure and opportunity. Through… Read More

Liliana Porter:
Man with Axe and Other Stories

Feb 5–May 9, 2021
Argentina-born artist Liliana Porter’s provocative arrangements of objects and toys tell stories that are at once psychologically charged and slyly humorous. The centerpiece of the exhibition, Man with Axe, features a tiny plastic figure of an axe-wielding man who appears to have demolished an array of items, from dollhouse furniture to… Read More

Picasso. Figures

Feb 5–May 9, 2021
This exhibition offers an in-depth look at Pablo Picasso’s career-long fascination with the human figure as a means of expressing a range of subjects and emotions. Featuring approximately 75 paintings, works on paper, and sculptures, Picasso. Figures will make its sole U.S. appearance at the Frist. Read More

Albrecht Dürer: The Age of Reformation and Renaissance

Nov 6, 2020–Feb 7, 2021
The brilliant and versatile German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) lived in the prosperous city of Nuremberg and is renowned as one of the finest printmakers of all time. This exhibition of more than one hundred engravings, etchings, and woodcuts spanned almost the entirety of Dürer’s prolific career, beginning with… Read More

2020 Young Tennessee Artists: Selections from Advanced Studio Art Programs (online exhibition)

Oct 9, 2020–Feb 7, 2021
The Frist Art Museum’s eighth biennial Young Tennessee Artists exhibition showcased some of the finest artwork by high school students across the state. Students in Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) studio art programs during the 2019–20 academic year were invited to submit their work to this exhibition. After reviewing more… Read More