Saturday and Sunday, November 4–5, 2023

Celebrating a full house of stunning art, the Frist Art Museum will hold a weekend-long Frist Arts Fest on November 4–5 spotlighting the exhibitions Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage, Raqib Shaw: Ballads of East and West, Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800: Highlights from LACMA’s Collection, and The Power of Resilience.

On Saturday, Multiplicity artist Tschabalala Self will discuss her work with Frist Art Museum senior curator Katie Delmez in the auditorium, followed by two special performances of to the parts that make us whole, a dance piecechoreographed by Eboné Amos. In the café and courtyard, Soul’d Creative Collective will pay tribute to the 50th Anniversary of Hip-Hop with music by Chuck Indigo, interactive breakdancing, live art demonstration, and more.

On Sunday in the auditorium, there will be a traditional folkloric dance performance by the Ballet Folklorico Sol de Mexico; a classical South Asian kathak dance by the Upasana Performing Arts Center; and a step performance by The Marching Eta Psi Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., from Fisk University. In the Upper-Level Galleries, there will be two performances in partnership with Nashville Opera featuring Rubén Dario Gómez, Marcela Pinella, and Isaac Eicher.

All weekend, artists and organizations featured in The Power of Resilience will host an artists’ market and speak about their works in the exhibition. There will also be a traditional Mexican Ofrenda on view presented by Casa de la Cultura; guided exhibition tours; art-making activities in the Martin ArtQuest Gallery and in the studios with the Nashville Collage Collective, Casa de la Cultura, and Turnip Green Creative Reuse; food trucks; games; a photobooth; and more.

Admission to Frist Arts Fest is free for Frist members and guests ages 18 and younger. For all other guests, the regular $15 Adult Admission will apply both days. All normal discounts are suspended during the weekend.

See the full weekend schedule.

Additional program information

Performance: to the parts that make us whole

to the parts that make us whole is a dance piece that celebrates Black visual artists and their depictions of the Black community through collage work. This vibrant and reflective performance acts as a love letter to Black expression, combining the physicality of dance with the aesthetic diversity of collage work in a joyous fusion of movement and visual artistry.

The performance unfolds in a series of lively vignettes as the dancers embody the essence of the artists’ works, translating their artistic visions into choreographed sequences. Utilizing text, sound objects, and jazz and funk music from the 1960s and ’70s, this dance collage is an invitation to witness the abundance of Black creativity and how it transforms our community one piece at a time.

Choreographer: Eboné Amos
Sound, Visuals and Costumes: Eboné Amos
Cast: Mikhaila Ferguson, Taya Gilbert, Zaria Skinner, Justin Tinker and Maya Williams
Music: “I’m the Black Gold of the Sun” by Rotary Connection, “A Chant for Bu” by The Jazz Messengers, “African Blues” by Amina Claudine Myers, “Black Narcissus” by Joe Henderson, “See-Line Woman” by Nina Simone, “Black Love” by Carlos Garnett
Featuring the voices of: Deborah Roberts, Lanecia A. Rouse, Howardena Pindell, Rod McGaha, and Brittany Boyd Bullock

Dear Hip-Hop: Celebrating 50 Years of Culture

Presented by Soul’d Creative Collective, this project is a vibrant and immersive celebration of the rich and influential culture of hip-hop. Join us for an afternoon filled with music, dance, live art, and more. This event is a tribute to the enduring legacy of hip-hop, marking fifty years of cultural impact. Whether you’re a dedicated hip-hop enthusiast or simply curious about the culture, this event promises an engaging and memorable experience.

1:00­–1:30 p.m.—Performance: Chuck Indigo
1:45–2:30 p.m.—Rap Cyphers
3:00–5:00 p.m.—Interactive Breakdancing Group
Throughout—Graffiti Display by Taylor Walton

Canción: Flowers of Spanish Song

This performance is presented in conjunction with the Nashville Opera’s production of Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas.

Exhibitions On View

Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage
September 15–December 31, 2023
Ingram Gallery

The first major museum exhibition devoted to the subject, Multiplicity presents over 80 major collage and collage-informed works that reflect the breadth and complexity of Black identity. Featuring an intergenerational group of 52 living artists, Multiplicity explores the varying ways collage is employed and how the technique suggests diverse conceptual concerns such as cultural hybridity, notions of beauty, gender fluidity, and historical memory. By assembling pieces of paper, photographs, fabric, and salvaged or repurposed materials, these artists create unified compositions that express the endless possibilities of Black-constructed narratives despite our fragmented society. Artists range from established luminaries to emerging and mid-career figures, including Mark Bradford, Lauren Halsey, Rashid Johnson, Kerry James Marshall, Wangechi Mutu, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Deborah Roberts, Tschabalala Self, Lorna Simpson, Devan Shimoyama, and Mickalene Thomas. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue with scholarly essays and will travel to two yet-to-be announced venues.

Organized by the Frist Art Museum

Raqib Shaw: Ballads of East and West
September 15–December 31, 2023
Gordon Contemporary Artists Project Gallery

Raqib Shaw grew up in Kashmir, India, immersed in his family’s business of selling jewelry, textiles, and carpets. On a trip to London, he became entranced by old masters’ paintings at the National Gallery. He eventually moved to the city in 1998 to study art and has lived there ever since. Throughout his career, Shaw has created images of magic and mystery, in which references to Western art history are seamlessly combined with ornamental elements derived from the Japanese prints and kimonos, Persian miniatures, and Indian textiles that he vividly remembers from his youth. This exhibition tells stories that take place within hybridized geographies—some evoke childhood memories of a Kashmiri paradise, while others show glistening cities and Boschian landscapes in flames that unnervingly project the crises and disasters facing the world today. In his works, Shaw uses a variety of paints applied with a porcupine quill to depict the precise details of objects from flowers to distant mountains, which are also outlined in embossed gold. Glitter and semiprecious stones further enhance the sublime opulence of the scenes. Shaw’s alluring visual ballads are tinged with the multiple accents of the world, envisioning a place where dichotomies of East and West are subsumed into a realm of imagination and dreams. Raqib Shaw has exhibited at Manchester Art Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Tate Britain, and The Whitworth. This exhibition is curated by Zehra Jumabhoy, PhD, an art historian who specializes in the art of South Asia.

Organized by the Frist Art Museum and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800: Highlights from LACMA’s Collection 
October 20, 2023–January 28, 2024
Upper-Level Galleries

This is the first exhibition from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s notable holdings of Spanish American art. Featuring more than 90 works—paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, and more—from Mexico and Central and South America, this exhibition emphasizes the creative power of Spanish America. Following the arrival of the Spaniards in the Americas in the late 15th century, the region developed complex artistic traditions that drew on Indigenous, European, Asian, and African art. This exhibition seeks to highlight the interconnectedness of these cultures and ideas in the early modern world. The Spanish conquest of the Philippines in 1565 inaugurated a commercial route that connected Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Private homes and civic and ecclesiastic institutions in Spanish America were filled with imported and locally made objects. Many local objects also traveled across the globe, attesting to their wide appeal. This confluence of riches signaled the status of the Americas as a major emporium—what one author described as “the archive of the world.”

Organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

The Frist Art Museum is supported in part by The Frist Foundation, Metro Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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