Thursday, June 28, 2012
Visual Art The End of the World As We Know It: Metamorphoses at The Frist
Posted by Veronica Kavass on Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 5:30 AM
The Frist Center's chief curator Mark Scala likes monsters. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Scala has a proclivity toward art that investigates the way the familiar can rapidly morph into the horrific (i.e. monsters), and how art can be a psychic tool offering a glimpse into dystopian (i.e., monstrous) landscapes. When the beastly works from the Scala-curated Fairytales, Monsters and the Genetic Imagination left the exhibition space — returning to their hiding spots under beds, no doubt — they left behind a thematic thread that as Scala puts it, "conveys the dissolution of a coherent understanding of the world."
Featuring Middle Tennessee-based artists Erin Anfinson, Kristi Hargrove, Mark Hosford and Chris Scarborough, Metamorphoses is currently on display in the Frist's Conte Community Arts Gallery along its entrance hallway. It ardently salutes Ovid's ancient epic poem, as the title implies, but it also attempts to resuscitate the spirit of André Breton-era surrealism through a selection of two-dimensional works generated by 21st century Tennesseans.
