Best of Nashville 2009: Arts and Entertainment

Best Actress:
Martha Wilkinson
It wasn't a prolific year for Wilkinson as far as quantity was concerned, but her brilliant performance in Tennessee Rep's production of Sweeney Todd once more stamped her as a local treasure. She's an incredibly versatile actress, and her turn as Mrs. Lovett brought lushness to a somewhat cartoonish character—delivering jokes with coquettish charm, ratcheting up the drama when pertinent and singing with high class. It was quite possibly the apex of her already distinguished Nashville career—so far. MARTIN BRADY

Best Solo Art Show:
Hunt Slonem at The Rymer Gallery
Hunt Slonem is one of the highest-profile painters working today: He's the subject of three published books, his works have been bought for the permanent collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and his splendid lifestyle has been written up on Gawker. April's full-scale Slonem show at The Rymer was something of a coup, and it also justified the hype. On display were dozens of gorgeously colored, hypnotically patterned oil canvases that offered visionary takes on monkeys, rabbits, birds and butterflies. No show this year was more joyously invested in the sheer sensual pleasure that vivid color and rich texture can create. These costly canvases suggest that living with beauty is the ultimate luxury. EMILY BARTLETT HINES

Best Art Crawl After-Party:
The Rabbit
The Rabbit is a multimedia enterprise—part magazine, part social network, part event promoter—and it all amounts to possible upstart competition for the dear old Scene. In addition to the release parties for the magazine that feature bands and art installations (the latest at the Mercy Lounge), they've hosted after-parties for the First Saturday art crawls at Rabbit HQ—i.e., the house a couple of the ringleaders rent. They make sure the Art Crawl can go on all night if you need that. DAVID MADDOX

Best Show For Art Wonks:
Chuck Close at the Frist Center
The Frist's exhibit on Chuck Close's prints was a bit challenging for a non-artist, crammed with lots of information to wade through on every one of the many printing techniques Close has used. And he went way beyond printing, trying out every imaginable method of producing artistic multiples with ink or paint, often done to the extreme—for instance, silk screens built up from 126 colors. The amount of calculation and raw artistic chops required to create these works is mind-boggling. If you took the time to get into the details, the impact was overwhelming. DAVID MADDOX

Best Duo Art Show:
Lain York and Richard Feaster at Zeitgeist
Opening a few weeks ago, this show was one of the last we could consider for the Best of Nashville issue, but it was obvious from the promotional postcards alone that this two-painter exhibit would be a contender. With Cluttered Landscape, Lain York takes his familiar style to another level yet again, creating a number of pieces that crackle with newfound punk-rock simplicity and directness. Richard Feaster's The High Window is the strongest collection the painter has shown in Nashville. Displayed together, the entire gallery is a noisy monologue on the limitless possibilities of art unfettered by self-consciousness and free from professional abstractions. JOE NOLAN

Best Going-Away Gifts:
Erika Johnson
One of the pleasures of the Nashville art scene in recent years has been watching Erika Johnson develop as an artist. This summer she left for Pittsburgh, and celebrated her departure with a show at Twist. She filled the gallery with odds and ends she accumulated over the years as part of the scavenger practice that goes into her installations. She invited people to take the items from the gallery, as long as you filled out a form explaining why. It was typical Erika stuff, letting you in on parts of her life but asking in return that you think about your own life. The night of the opening, she did a performance in which she gave away a few choice items: She provided a little story behind each piece, then picked people out from the audience and drew them deeper into the life represented by the objects. DAVID MADDOX

Best Converted Tire Disposal Warehouse:
Open Lot
Just when you thought the potential for gritty, glamorous, idealistic art environments had run out due to a lethal dose of speculation, sterile civic projects and economic desperation, a new crop of young artists has leased a tire disposal warehouse off Douglas Avenue in East Nashville, converted it into studios and set up space for exhibits and performances. Open Lot's openness is apparent in the resident artists, who include painters and potters. Beyond that, early programming has reached past the group's immediate circle to include video and music bills. They are still working on establishing their programming rhythm, and people are just figuring out where it is, but Open Lot has the potential to fill the gap left by the Fugitive Art Center as a venue founded on a sense of community with the aesthetic sophistication to help shape the local culture. DAVID MADDOX

Best Retrospective Exhibit:
Paint Made Flesh at the Frist Center
When Frist Center chief curator Mark Scala set out to organize the expansive figurative painting exhibit Paint Made Flesh, it's unlikely he knew he was about to score a hat trick. The challenging show attracted local audiences and media attention while simultaneously gathering kudos on a national level. More importantly, the exhibit is arguably the most articulate, personal vision the curator has organized, examining the role the figure and body continue to play in contemporary art while also illustrating a unique perspective on how ideas about beauty transcend the attractive as well as the fashionable. JOE NOLAN