Artville kicks off with Derrick Adams keynote
Black joy and expression in contemporary art and collage
On Friday, September 29th, Artville kicks off with a conversation with Derrick Adams at Nashville Warehouse Co. Adams is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work is centered around themes of Black culture in America. The weekend-long visual arts festival will feature public art installations, art collection, and immersive experiences highlighting the creative culture in Nashville.
This free event is moderated by Frist Art Museum senior curator Katie Delmez in connection with the upcoming exhibition Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage, which features Adams' work and will be on view at the Frist from September 15th through December 31st 2023.
Adams has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions such as The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland (2022); The Momentary, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville (2021); Hudson River Museum, Yonkers (2020); and the Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2018); with work on display in some of the most prestigious institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
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Multiplicity is structured broadly around seven themes that foreground personal and collective history, regional or national heritage, and gender and sexual orientation, in addition to racial constructs.
"Although it is a nearly ubiquitous art form used by elementary school students to the biggest names in modern art history, twenty-first-century collage is an arguably understudied and undervalued medium, especially in museum exhibitions," notes Delmez in her exhibition catalogue introduction. "Multiplicity is an opportunity to spotlight the formal complexity and vibrancy of the technique and to assert its contributions to the field through the lens of some of today's leading artists."
Learn more about Derrick Adams and Artville.