Tennessee Triennial: RE-PAIR invites us all to participate deeply as artists, organizers and the public in the invigoration at the intersection of art and sociability. The overarching theme of RE-PAIR solicits an empathetic consideration of context and space, history and commons, deeply woven into the fabric of Tennessee’s roots.
The recent changes and movements in the world inform our vision and the galvanizing spirit that centers on the rich history of the arts in Tennessee as a means to engage excellence in contemporary art.
Visual art offers a tool towards a common language, fostering dialogue across communities, around the state, the country and internationally. The Tennessee Triennial serves as an experience to help us process this moment and propel us forward. It is a geographically fluid conversation that engages people of all ages and backgrounds.
The Tennessee Triennial has chosen a statewide model that is set apart and unprecedented. Curators from institutions in Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga have been invited to respond to the theme of RE-PAIR, authored by Consulting Curator, Dr. María Magdalena Campos-Pons. This horizontal approach allows for each curator to be active in selecting participating artists. The Tennessee Triennial is a collective endeavor that emphasizes Tennessee’s contemporary art community while including national and international perspectives.
JAN 27—
MAY 7
2023
2023 Tennessee Triennial for Contemporary Art
Ours is a complex time in history. Both excesses and fundamental limitations define the present moment. The planet is frail, societal contracts instable, biology in a spin of uncertainties. Technologies allure and frighten us all at once.
Presented for the 2023 Inaugural Tennessee Triennial by
Dr. María Magdalena Campos-Pons
Vanderbilt Cornelius Endowed Chair Professor of Fine Arts
Founder of the Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice
2023 Theme: RE-PAIR
RE-PAIR is the concept and core idea to launch the Inaugural statewide Tennessee Triennial, slated for 2023. Exhibition spaces, venues and communities prepare to present the Tennessee Triennial exhibition with the following thematic guidelines.
To heal, suture, and recompose fractured bodies. We propose a new site of encounters, with yet undefined edges, borders, territories. These will be cartographies of the mind as well as geographies of the land.
Ours is a complex time in history. Both excesses and fundamental limitations define the present moment. The planet is frail, societal contracts instable, biology in a spin of uncertainties. Technologies lure and frighten us all at once.
Can we conquer our uneasiness with an attitude that mends the fractures of our time? Can we re-pair, patch and rebuild our fragile spirits, bodies, cities, political institutions and economic relationships?
RE-PAIR asks you to pledge, to reconsider the function of the arts, the meaning of art as a critical force in society and enhancer of human experiences. Can Art galvanize our energies to rebuild our towns with forums, and ideas that bring solutions to isolation, poverty, despair?
RE-PAIR Tennessee Triennial invites us all to participate deeply as artists, organizers and public(s) in the invigoration at the intersection of art and sociability. The overarching theme of Re-pair solicits an empathetic consideration of context and space, history and commons, deeply woven into the fabric of Tennessee’s roots. In order to Re-pair, one must locate what is at fault, in order to heal, one must find the wound. Re-pair is all in love. The Tennessee Triennial is a beautiful opportunity, in this incredible moment, to reciprocate across the state to spotlight our community of artists and public(s) through collaboration and through opening the lines of communication locally and to anyone who has roots across the global south, and across the world. To Re-pair is to straddle Art and Sociability, a feeling, an action, a soft touch.
The statewide Triennial/Biennial model for exhibition is inherently collaborative, horizontally themed and externally communicated. Programs can bridge communities, disciplines, and geographies. The global spotlight should be on the artists of Tennessee, the rich history of arts throughout the state’s history, the hard work and rich array of spaces and organizations and this opportunity to engage a global conversation on art, democracy and our shared experience.
Dr. María Magdalena Campos-Pons
Consulting Curator & Ambassador
María Magdalena Campos-Pons is the Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair Professor of Fine Arts. Campos-Pons interdisciplinary practice has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Canada, among other institutions. She has presented over thirty solo performances commissioned by institutions like the Guggenheim and the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. She also participated in the 49th Venice Biennial, the 55th Venice Biennial, Documenta14, Johannesburg Biennale, Liverpool Biennial, 3rd Biennial of Bahia, Prospect 4 and Havana Biennials. Her works are held in over 50 museums around the world, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Perez Art Museum, Miami. A survey of her practice was held at IMA in 2007.
Campos-Pons is the founder EADJ Vanderbilt and of Intermittent Rivers / Rios Intermitentes project in Matanzas, Cuba. Campos-Pons is the recipients of numerous awards.