Frist Presents Immersive Installations by Internationally Acclaimed Multimedia Artist Jitish Kallat

“Jitish Kallat: Return to Sender” March 13–June 28, 2020

The Frist Art Museum presents Return to Sender, an exhibition of immersive installations created by the celebrated Indian artist Jitish Kallat. The dramatic works, which engage both mind and body, are inspired by historic messages that reveal the best and worst of humanity. The exhibition will be on view in the Frist’s Upper-Level Galleries from March 13 through June 28, 2020.

Frist Art Museum (PRNewsfoto/Frist Center for the Visual Arts)

Jitish Kallat is a Mumbai native who produces installations, paintings, photographs, and sculptures that often recall historic acts of speech. Return to Sender brings together two works based on missives: Kallat’s widely exhibited work titled Covering Letter (2012), which was selected for India’s pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), and a new project called Covering Letter (terranum nuncius) (2019). “Kallat’s explorations of the epistolary mode are well suited to our museum as our building is the former main post office of Nashville,” says Frist Art Museum Curator Trinita Kennedy. “From here countless letters have been sent and received.”

Covering Letter is a haunting interactive digital projection of a 1939 typewritten letter from Mahatma Gandhi to Adolf Hitler, sent just a few weeks before the outbreak of World War II. The letter is seen on a curtain of traversable dry-fog in the dark. “Gandhi makes a radical appeal for peace, anticipating the brutal bloodshed that the impending war would unleash,” says Kennedy. In the spirit of his doctrine of universal friendship, Gandhi uses the salutation “Dear Friend…” and urges Hitler to resist “reducing humanity to a savage state.” Visitors walk through the screen of descending mist, simultaneously inhabiting and dissipating the moving text. Kallat describes the letter as “a space for self-reflection; a petition from one of the greatest proponents of peace to one of the most violent individuals who ever lived. It can also be read as an open letter from the past destined to carry its message into our turbulent present, well beyond its delivery date and intended recipient.” Kennedy hopes the work will have special resonance in Nashville. “This exhibition marks the first time that Covering Letter has been exhibited in the American South, a place where Gandhi’s ideas about of nonviolent resistance were a vital part of the Civil Rights Movement.”

Covering Letter (terranum nuncius) commemorates and reinvokes the Golden Record, sent as time capsules aboard the Voyager 1 and 2 space probes launched by NASA in 1977. For those expeditions, select sounds, music, and images were placed on two gold-plated phonographic records with the intent to represent life on Earth to any extraterrestrial discoverer. Currently located over 13 billion miles away from planet Earth, they are expected to continue their cosmic journey well beyond the probable extinction of our species and our planet.

Upon entering this installation, visitors will hear a chorus of humanity greeting the universe in 55 languages. There is a projection of a map indicating Earth’s position in our solar system and a large round table with over a hundred images printed on parallax lenses, which are illuminated by lights that pulsate at the rate of human breath. The images, drawn from the Golden Record, include scientific and cosmological diagrams, representations of our genetic makeup and anatomy, as well as other life forms, and architecture, often annotated with measurements. “This is an epic presentation of Earth to an unknown other,” says Kennedy. At a time when we find ourselves in a deeply divided world, Kallat foregrounds these sounds and images for a collective meditation on ourselves as united residents of a single planet.

In Covering Letter (terranum nuncius) there is also a bench shaped like the hands of the Doomsday Clock. This symbolic clock, updated annually by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, represents a hypothetical human-made global catastrophe as midnight, and the proximity of the world to apocalypse as a number of minutes or seconds to twelve. “The Golden Record’s presentation of unity and harmony among earthlings is belied by the actual state of the world,” says Kennedy. “The reality is that our planet hangs in the balance through circumstances of our own making, and the clock bench is an ominous metaphor that differs from the euphoria and optimism associated with the midnight on occasions such as New Year’s Eve.” Woven into the hour are humankind’s worst fears and greatest hopes.

This exhibition marks the first time that Kallat’s two Covering Letter installations will be shown together. Exhibited in darkened galleries and open ended in meaning, they are intended to provoke contemplations of our world and the universe.

Born in India in 1974, Kallat has exhibited his work widely across the world in contexts such as galleries, museums, and biennials. In 2017, the National Gallery of Modern Art (New Delhi) presented a mid-career retrospective of his work titled Here After Here, 1992–2017, curated by Catherine David. Kallat has had solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney), the Art Institute of Chicago, the Bhau Daji Lad Museum (Mumbai), the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and other museums.

He has exhibited widely, at Martin-Gropius-Bau (Berlin), the Mori Art Museum (Tokyo), Serpentine Galleries (London), Tate Modern (London), the Valencia Institute of Modern Art (Spain), and other institutions. His work has been part of the Asian Art Biennial, the Asia Pacific Triennial, the Curitiba Biennial, the Gwangju Biennale, the Havana Biennial, the Kyiv Biennial, and the Venice Biennale, among others. Kallat also served as the curator and artistic director of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale’s second edition, in 2014.

Public Programs

Thursday, March 12

Artist’s Perspective: Jitish Kallat

6:30 p.m., Frist Art Museum Auditorium

Free; first come, first seated

Mumbai-based artist Jitish Kallat will share a cross section of his work, exploring the many processes, themes, and ideas that recur throughout his wide-ranging artistic practice. Kallat’s works often engage with the ideas of time, transience, sustenance, the ecological, and the cosmological. These explorations take the form of investigative animation videos, photo-works, paintings, sculptures, and elemental drawings that participate in atmospheric phenomena such as wind and rain. In works such as Covering Letter (2012), which will be on view at the Frist, a historic moment is invoked, prompting a contemplation on our present by mediating it through the past. This artist-talk may unfold into a dialogue, as a Q&A session will follow Kallat’s lecture.

Frist Presents “Flag Exchange” by Renowned Social and Community Engagement Artist Mel Ziegler

The Frist Art Museum presents Mel Ziegler: Flag Exchange, an installation of fifty American flags—one from each state—suspended row after row from the ceiling. The exhibition invites consideration of the American flag as a symbol of national identity and ideals, and it will be on view in the Frist’s Upper-Level Galleries from March 13 through June 28, 2020. 

Exhibition view of A Living Thing: Flag Exchange, curated by Hesse McGraw, at Federal Hall, New York, 2017. Photo: Guillaume Ziccarelli

Mel Ziegler (b. 1956), the Paul E. Shwab Chair of Fine Arts Professor at Vanderbilt University, is renowned as a social and community engagement artist whose work seeks to foster discourse and the sharing of ideas relating to history, politics, and society. He divides his time between Nashville and rural Nebraska, where he is the founder and executive director of the Sandhills Institute, a grassroots organization dedicated to civically engaged art, in part by connecting local ranchers and farmers with artists around the world.

During his travels across the United States, Ziegler frequently saw the American flag on display in front of schools, homes, small businesses, construction sites, or simply alongside the road. Many were in poor condition—often ragged, faded, or torn. “Mel was intrigued that these expressions of national pride were kept on view by people who either couldn’t afford to replace them or in many cases hadn’t noticed or cared whether theirs had gotten shabby,” says Frist Art Museum Chief Curator Mark Scala. “And he wondered if their owners might be willing to trade theirs for a fresh new flag.”

So, from 2011 to 2016, in what Ziegler calls “inquisitive travels,” he visited all fifty states, with a supply of American flags, and offered to replace old flags with new ones, renewing people’s outdoor displays while acquiring the materials for the exhibition.

Frist Art Museum (PRNewsfoto/Frist Center for the Visual Arts)

“Flag Exchange is simultaneously a physical installation, an expression of an idea, and a site for performance,” says Scala. “The flags themselves symbolize a nation that has survived tumult and stress.” Displayed in the gallery, the rows of flags create a dense spatial layering. “The effect is optically powerful, as the inherent beauty of the flags’ patterns is intensified through repetition and the irregularity of the damaged cloth,” says Scala.

Flag Exchange has been installed in large spaces, often surrounding or hanging behind a stage or podium. At the Frist, a stage will be part of the installation and may be used for speeches, readings, musical performances, and discussions about the relationship between people and their ideas of democracy. The overall experience is one in which the civic realm is re-imagined in an atmosphere committed to the respectful exchange of viewpoints.

The symbolism of frayed and worn flags in Flag Exchange raises questions about the capacity of the American experiment to be sustained through national triumphs and shortcomings, including our own time of extreme political divisiveness. Ziegler writes that when he started acquiring the flags, “I could have never known what the political climate in the United States might be like today. It seems rather significant and pertinent that this project should help develop open, unpartisan dialogue at a moment when it seems to be needed most.”

Throughout the process of gathering and showing the flags, Ziegler was careful to follow the dictates of the U.S. Flag Code regarding their proper handling and display. In thus demonstrating that respect for the flag should rise above partisanship, he hopes to inspire viewers to find common ground in the vision of indivisibility for which the flag stands.

“In the end, it is the act of collecting the flags—the openness and vulnerability of an artist who is keenly interested in interacting with people in all corners of the country—that will inspire the trust and enthusiasm of all participants as they work to find common ground in the meaning of the flag and the promise of the nation,” says Scala.

Frist Art Museum Introduces 2020 Program and Event Enhancements New Offerings for Art After Dark and ARTLab Series

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This year the Frist Art Museum is expanding two of its public program series to enhance the visitor experience and increase learning opportunities for guests of all ages and backgrounds. The changes to Art After Dark and ARTlab are effective immediately and will continue to evolve over the course of the year.

Frist Art Museum (PRNewsfoto/Frist Center for the Visual Arts)

Art After Dark is a grouping of fun and educational offerings that takes place on the third Thursday of every month* from 5 to 9 p.m. Guests are invited to combine their viewing of current exhibitions with participation in gallery programs and activities such as Drop-In Drawing, as well as access to live music, food trucks, and cash bars. The evenings are free to members; regular admission is required for not-yet-members.

“Art After Dark evenings provide a chance to enrich your visit and meet fellow art lovers,” says Frist Art Museum educator for interpretation Meagan Rust. “Every month, the programs will change and offer something new for everyone to enjoy. We look forward to exploring creative connections in the Middle Tennessee community and helping visitors engage with the exhibitions in new ways.”

Gallery talks will now be regular components of Art After Dark. Discussions will be led by Frist educators and special guests who will offer different interpretations of and perspectives on works on view and foster dialogues with visitors.

In Drop-In Drawing sessions, visitors are encouraged to study the works in the galleries or the architecture of the building as they practice with materials provided by the Frist. All skill levels are welcome, and Frist educators and volunteers are available to supply hands-on technical guidance.

On most Art After Dark Thursdays, there will be food trucks in the Turner Courtyard, and cash bars in the café and the lobby. Guests can enjoy a meal while listening to some of Nashville’s best and brightest performers from the worlds of jazz, soul, blues, Latin, country, folk, bluegrass, and classical music.

*With occasional exceptions. See dates and lineups at FristArtMuseum.org/ArtAfterDark

ARTlabs are hands-on studio sessions designed to offer a creative outlet for teens, adults, and participants of all ages. Visitors are encouraged to drop in to explore themes of current exhibitions and experiment with techniques in the company of professional artists. ARTlabs will be offered on various days throughout the year at the Frist, on select Art After Dark evenings, and at community events.

Upcoming Art After Dark and ARTLab Dates

Thursday, February 20

Teen ARTlab: Illustration and tattoo art with Elisheba Israel Mrozik

• 4:00–6:00 p.m.
• (for ages 13–19).
• Free; registration not required; materials provided

Frist Art Museum and Fisk University Galleries Present “Terry Adkins: Our Sons and Daughters Ever on the Altar”

The Frist Art Museum and Fisk University Galleries present Terry Adkins: Our Sons and Daughters Ever on the Altar, concurrent presentations of sculptures, prints, installations, and video by the multidisciplinary and multimedia artist and musician, on view in the Frist’s Gordon Contemporary Artists Project Gallery from February 20 through May 31, 2020, and the Carl Van Vechten Gallery at Fisk University from February 20 through September 12, 2020. Presented forty-five years after Adkins’s graduation from Fisk, the exhibition pays special attention to the influence that his time in Nashville had on the late internationally acclaimed artist.

Frist Art Museum (PRNewsfoto/Frist Center for the Visual Arts)

“This is the first exhibition of Terry Adkins’s work in Middle Tennessee, and we are excited to partner with the Frist Art Museum to co-present it,” says Director and Curator of Fisk University Galleries Jamaal Sheats. “A Fisk University alum, Adkins was a member of the jazz orchestra and a disc jockey for WFSK Jazzy 88 radio station. However, the Fisk Art Department was his home. He studied under the then chairman of the art department and director of galleries, historian, and artist David Driskell. Adkins has credited Aaron Douglas, who founded the art department 75 years ago, as igniting his interest in art. Today, I see Adkins’s work and career as a beacon for the arts tradition at Fisk.”

Fisk and the Frist will collaborate with the soon-to-open National Museum of African American Music to produce a multidisciplinary performance, featuring local talent inspired by Terry Adkins and his performance collective, the Lone Wolf Recital Corps.

Terry Adkins (American, 1953–2014). Buffet Flat, from Belted Bronze, 2007–8. Silver bowls and utensils (some modified), glass marbles, leather case, honey, nylon single-sided flags, taxidermied birds, sewing machine, instrument stand, and inkjet print; approximately 240 x 216 x 144 in. Artwork © 2019 The Estate of Terry Adkins / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Image © The Estate of Terry Adkins / Lévy Gorvy

Terry Adkins (1953–2014) was principally interested in the intersection of visual art, music, and African American history. First trained as a musician on guitar, saxophone, and other woodwinds, he approached his visual art practice from the perspective of a composer, often arranging series of works to create what he called “recitals,” many of which feature modified musical instruments or other salvaged materials. “One of his primary aims was to forge a link between music and art, reversing each discipline in order to make sculpture more ethereal and music more concrete,” says Frist Art Museum Curator Katie Delmez.

Throughout his career, Adkins also questioned the processes by which historical figures’ pasts become or do not become a part of the historical canon. “He mined African and African American histories for marginalized narratives and organized series of works devoted to either underrecognized figures or highlighted underrepresented aspects of well-known figures’ lives,” says Delmez. The works in Our Sons and Daughters Ever on the Altar pay tribute to the legacies of several influential and enigmatic figures, such as Jimi Hendrix, Bessie Smith, Dr. George Washington Carver, and Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois.

On View At The Frist Art Museum
The “recital” Principalities is dedicated to Jimi Hendrix and his service as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army at nearby Fort Campbell, Kentucky. A centerpiece of the series, Cloud, is a work comprising a white parachute hung above a rack of kimonos. Referencing the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, it underscores the tragic history of war. Flumen Orationus, a video pairing Hendrix’s 1970 anti-war protest song “Machine Gun” with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1967 speech “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam,” will also be featured.

“J.M.W. Turner: Quest for the Sublime” Makes Sole U.S. Appearance at Nashville’s Frist Art Museum

The Frist Art Museum presents J.M.W. Turner: Quest for the Sublime, an exhibition of extraordinary oil paintings, luminous watercolors, and evocative sketches by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), a central figure in the Romantic movement widely recognized as Britain’s greatest painter and among the most highly regarded landscape painters in Western art. Selected from Tate‘s Turner Bequest and organized in cooperation with Tate, the exhibition will make its sole U.S. appearance in the Frist’s Ingram Gallery from February 20 through May 31, 2020.

Long admired for his ingenuity, originality, and passion, Turner strove to convey human moods and the feeling of awe aroused by nature’s immensity and power—its palpable atmospheres, pulsating energy, the drama of storms and disasters, and the transcendent effect of pure light. With approximately 75 works, the exhibition conveys highlights in the British painter’s career from the 1790s to the late 1840s, from dizzying mountain scenes and stormy seascapes to epic history paintings and mysterious views of Venice.

Frist Art Museum (PRNewsfoto/Frist Center for the Visual Arts)

The Romantic movement of the late 18th- through mid-19th centuries arose in response to the Enlightenment emphasis on reason over emotion. “For Turner, psychological expression and the liberation of the imagination were of paramount importance,” says David Blayney Brown, senior curator, 19th-century British art, Tate Britain. “He achieved these goals in images of the landscape that evoked human moods by portraying extreme contrasts of intense light and gloomy clouds, dramatic topographies, and energetic brushstrokes.”

J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851). Venice, the Bridge of Sighs, exhibited 1840. Oil on canvas, 27 x 36 in. Tate: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856. Photo © Tate, 2019

Turner portrays climatic events not only as compelling forces by themselves, but also as settings and metaphor for historical and modern dramas. “Mountains and sea show the world in motion: the glacial creep of geological change in the Alps, the sudden fall of a rock propelled by an avalanche, the changing appearance of Mont Rigi according to time and weather, the swell and heave of the sea,” says Brown. Societal and technological changes are captured as well, with images of steamships and other suggestions of industry signaling the forthcoming machine age. The exhibition also includes elemental images of sea and sky, painted late in Turner’s life, which appear nearly abstract.

Frist Art Museum Presents “Life, Love & Marriage Chests in Renaissance Italy”

Exhibition of Marriage Ritual Objects from the Italian Renaissance Opens November 16, 2018

The Frist Art Museum presents Life, Love & Marriage Chests in Renaissance Italy, an exhibition (organized by Contemporanea Progetti with the Museo Stibbert, Florence, Italy) that offers an intimate view of life in the Renaissance through art commissioned to celebrate marriage and family. Drawing on a selection of outstanding marriage chests, panels, and a variety of domestic objects belonging to the Museo Stibbert, the exhibition will be on view in the Frist’s Upper-Level Galleries from November 16, 2018, through February 18, 2019.

Apollonio di Giovanni di Tomaso (b. 1415/17, Florence; d. 1465, Florence) and Workshop. Panel from a Marriage Chest (cassone) with Story of an Assault on a Maritime City, ca. 1460. Tempera and gold on panel, 17 3/4 x 20 1/2 in. Collection of Museo Stibbert, Florence, Italy

This exhibition is supported in part by the Metro Nashville Arts Commission, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Beginning in the late 1300s, cassoni—elaborately painted and gilded marriage chests—were an important part of marriage rituals and among the most prestigious furnishings in the house or palace of the newlyweds. Usually commissioned in pairs and shaped like ancient sarcophagi, the chests were an expression of the family’s wealth and position in society. They were conspicuously paraded through the streets from the bride’s family home to her husband’s home—a clear statement of a new economic and political alliance between elite families—and then later used in the home for seating and storage. Cassoni is considered antecedents to the hope chests popular in America until the middle of the last century.

Artist unknown (Urbino). Fruit Bowl, 16th century. Tin-glazed earthenware (maiolica), 2 3/4 in. height, 4 3/8 in. diameter. Collection of Museo Stibbert, Florence, Italy

“The chests’ function, craftsmanship, and decorative techniques, and the significance and sources of the imagery are at the heart of the exhibition,” says Frist Art Museum curator Trinita Kennedy. “We are excited to present several rare complete cassoni, as well as fragments, which include lavish wood panels that usually depict themes of fidelity and love as well as narrative scenes drawn from history and mythology.”

Displayed alongside the chests is an array of other art objects also made for the home, including devotional paintings, pottery, and textiles.

Bernardo di Stefano Roselli (?) (b. 1450, Florence; d. 1526, Florence). Panel from a Marriage Chest (cassone) with Trojan Horse Scene, ca. 1470. Tempera and gold on panel, 19 1/4 x 50 3/8 in. Collection of Museo Stibbert, Florence, Italy

Public Programs

Friday, November 16, 6:30 p.m., Frist Art Museum Auditorium, Free

Opening Night Lecture for Life, Love & Marriage Chests in Renaissance Italy: Art, Marriage, and Family in the Florentine Renaissance Palace, presented by Jacqueline Marie Musacchio.

Frist Art Museum Presents First Solo Museum Exhibition of Iranian American Artist Afruz Amighi

The Presence of Your Absence Is Everywhere—June 22–September 16, 2018

The Frist Art Museum presents critically acclaimed Iranian American artist Afruz Amighi’s first monographic museum exhibition, The Presence of Your Absence Is Everywhere, on view in the Gordon Contemporary Artists Project Gallery from June 22 through September 16, 2018. Celebrated for her lyrical transformation of inexpensive materials into ethereal installations and sculptures, Amighi uses light and dark to wondrous effect.

“Over the past two years, Amighi has changed the emphasis of her work significantly,” says Frist Art Museum Curator Trinita Kennedy. “She now recognizes an urgent need to address the current political moment in the United States, the place where she lives and her home since she was a small child. To express this desire to be more present in the here and now, she has begun making work that is figural.”

Organized by the Frist Art Museum, the exhibition features Amighi’s work from 2014 to today, a period of intense and prolific output in which the artist has relentlessly pushed herself in new directions. One sculpture and two drawings are being made especially for the exhibition, while two existing installations have never been shown in the United States.

Born in Tehran in 1974, the child of a Jewish American mother and a Zoroastrian Iranian father, Amighi has lived in New York since the age of three. She studied political science at Barnard College before earning a Master of Fine Arts degree at New York University in 2007. In 2009, she received the Jameel Prize, the Victoria and Albert Museum’s prestigious international award for contemporary art and design inspired by the Islamic tradition. Her work is in the permanent collection of major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Morgan Library and Museum, and has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale and in many group shows, such as Rebel, Jester, Mystic, Poet: Contemporary Persians—The Mohammed Afkhami Collection at the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, in 2017.

Now living and working in Brooklyn, Amighi typically uses industrial materials found in her own urban environment. In her architectural sculptures, Amighi dramatically illuminates steel, fiberglass mesh, and chains to create intrigue, explore dualities, and mimic the effect of more decadent luxury objects. By borrowing elegant, radiant forms from sacred architecture, she induces feelings of wonder often missing from our predominantly secular world. The exhibition includes Nameless (2014), an installation inspired by medieval Spanish mosques repurposed as churches during the Christian Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula, and My House, My Tomb (2015), a diptych which explores myths about India’s majestic Taj Mahal.

While growing up in New York, Amighi watched from afar as the Islamic Revolution (1978–79) and the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) transformed her birthplace. For much of her artistic career, she has focused on her absence from Iran at a critical time in its history. Since 2016, however, American historical and contemporary sources have played a far more meaningful role in her thinking.

For her 2017 series No More Disguise, Amighi designed headdresses for a procession of characters, with each one rendered in both a steel sculpture and a graphite drawing plotted on graph paper with precision. Four of the drawings, including Fool’s Headdress, are presented in this exhibition.

The three new works on view include the ambitious sculpture We Wear Chains, which examines the current state of feminism. Four lithe women bear the features of both angels and demons, humans and animals. Bound together with chains—a form of adornment as well as bondage—the women struggle to find a way to advance together.

Inspired by a passage in a letter written by the American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, Amighi selected the exhibition title The Presence of Your Absence Is Everywhere because it eloquently captures the shift in her purview since 2016.

Frist Art Museum Presents International Roster of Contemporary Artists in “Chaos and Awe”

Barnaby Furnas (b. 1973, Philadelphia; based in New York). Untitled (Flood), 2007. Urethane on linen; support: 84 x 140 in. Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Sarah Norton Goodyear Fund, 2010, 2010:12. © Barnaby Furnas. Photo: Tom Loonan

The Frist Art Museum presents Chaos and Awe: Painting for the 21st Century, a sweeping survey of paintings from around the world that invite contemplation of seemingly ungraspable forces shaping contemporary society, from the ideological to the technological. Organized by Frist Art Museum chief curator Mark Scala, the exhibition will be on view in the museum’s Ingram Gallery from June 22 through September 16, 2018. It will be presented at the Chrysler Museum from November 15, 2018, through April 28, 2019.