Final

The Rymer

The Rymer Gallery is located on 5^th Avenue in the Arts District of Nashville. The fundamental purpose is to showcase the best of contemporary art. However, the Nashville gallery is an extension of the Betty Rymer Gallery at the Art Institute of Chicago. The artists range from well-known professionals to unknown, mysterious artists. The first thing to be noticed about the gallery besides the fact that everything is white is that there is decently loud music being played throughout the gallery. I assume the ambiance adds to the contemporary idea. Secondly, The Rymer Gallery is gigantic. Look around, look up and down; it has to be one of the largest galleries in Nashville. Every first Saturday of the month there is a special exhibit shown for a Nashville ‘Art Crawl.’ The Rymer Gallery showcases it’s best works it has for that event.  My favorite artist that has an exhibit in The Rymer Gallery is Charles Clarey. He cuts amoeba like features out of paper and layers them many times. It makes the picture pop out, literally. It is also very contemporary, which follows the goals and traditions of the gallery. Other works vary in significance in my mind. I could tell that the sculptures made of crayons were some of the younger children’s favorite pieces, however, this is not a gallery for children. The contemporary nature of the gallery makes it hard to understand what the artists are aiming for with their works, but their works are pretty magnificent. Overall this is a premier gallery for the Nashville area.

Carl Van Vechten Gallery

This gallery is not a traditional gallery in my eyes. It is a gallery located on Fisk University in Nashville.  The gallery is named after Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) who was a famous American writer and photographer. As well Van Vechten played an influential role in the Harlem Renaissance. The gallery was founded in 1949 after Georgia O’Keefe donated a number of works to the University. The first thing to notice about this gallery is that it is a home. It is a very nice home for that matter, and therefore should be filled with beautiful, well-thought art pieces. This gallery seems monumental in my mind due to the nature of how it was founded and the University that founded it. Fisk University is a primarily black school. Georgia O’Keefe is one of the most renowned black painters in history. Therefore the two being tied together makes the whole concept that much more grandiose.

The Frist Visual Arts Center

The great thing about The Frist is that it is very accessible. The Frist partners with other corporations to offer free access on certain weekends and there is a student discount. Also if a visitor has children there is a wonderful room for kids to create their own art. The museum is aimed towards the education of art as well as displaying well-known artists work. Right now there is an exhibit of Andy Warhol. This exhibit is perfect for Nashville.  Andy Warhol (1928-1987) used music to help create his work. He created album covers and then became a record producer.  ‘Warhol Live’ in The Frist is a look at Warhol’s art that was focused around music and dance.  The gallery shows well-known Warhol works such as the pictures of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Campbell Soup as well as lesser-known works dealing with record covers. Inside of the exhibition there is music playing all around so that the whole ambiance is ‘live.’ Warhol expanded what an artist meant to the world by breaking the normal boundaries and showing that the subculture of America could be popular culture. From rock and roll to R&B, music has always been known as a negative influence on society and yet some of the most revered individuals in history helped shape the music industry. There are more exhibits being shown in the Frist, another being ‘Gather Up The Fragments’ The Andrew Shaker Collection. This is a collection of items that belonged to men who helped shape Shaker Studies. Overall the Frist is a monumental museum for the city of Nashville because it identifies with the city’s inhabitants.

Public Art Pieces

In Nashville we as residents have the privilege to not only enjoy the good weather, but to look at works of art around our city. I went on a stroll downtown the other day and found more pieces of art then I thought I would see. I was unsure exactly where to head because the map online did not have street names, but I knew that there were a handful of pieces all congregated together. I walked by a statue of Chet Atkins made of bronze sitting under an office building. This was my favorite piece I saw during the day. Bank of America gave the statue. The piece was not paid for by the city, but it is a very clear representation of the city. I have not lived in Nashville for more than a year, but everywhere I go I see guitars being played and melodies being sung. I enjoy how it feels like he is playing guitar in a local bar. The positioning of the statue makes it look like a stage because the statue is raised on top of a marble base that allows for locals to take a sit.  So when a pedestrian strolls by the Bank of America building in the middle of the day they feel like they are at a local bar listening to music. I walked around the statue for a while looking to see if there were any speakers around to add to the effect of the statue, because I have heard music playing from random light poles in Nashville before. I sadly, did not find any speakers. If I were to be in charge of this product I would have made sure that music was being played a few hours of the day around the statue.