These are tough times for art in Nashville. First, penis-averse people protested Alan LeQuire's Musica, the well-endowed statue in the Music Row roundabout. Then a handful of Metro Council members complained about a postcard, mailed to promote a show at Ruby Green Contemporary Art Center, that featured a painting of a nude woman straddling a Hummer. Only two weeks ago, Watkins College of Art and Design made headlines when it decided not to display a student work that included audio and video of the beheading of American engineer Jack Armstrong and another photo that showed a man holding his penis. Watkins pulled the film and hid the photo.
And then last week the Frist Center for the Visual Arts canceled an upcoming exhibition, "Kickin' It With Joyce J. Scott." Scott, a respected contemporary artist and an African American woman, engages controversial social issues like race and sexuality in provocative ways. The word "nigger" appears in some of her art. Disturbing images—made more arresting by the intricate beading for which her tiny mixed-media work is known—are common in Scott's oeuvre. She pushes painful buttons and challenges the viewer to look without flinching.
But the Frist flinched. Center director Susan Edwards says that the Frist had no idea what it was getting into when it signed on for the Scott exhibition in early 2003. She and curator Mark Scala claim the Frist received only a sampling of slides "that didn't tell us the whole story," omitting the most controversial titles. They maintain that they didn't know about the objectionable pieces until they received a final exhibition checklist in August of this year.
The account of ExhibitsUSA, the nonprofit exhibition touring company coordinating the Scott exhibit, differs. Exhibitions relations coordinator Nicole Forster says she mailed the Frist a copy of the working checklist in late October 2001 and again in a revised form in January 2003. The original checklist, a copy of which the Scene reviewed, comes from the catalog of Scott's major 2000 retrospective at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Guest curator George Ciscle placed checkmarks next to items that would likely tour, including "Cuddly Black Dick III," "Catch a Nigger By His Toe" and "Cut the Shit." ExhibitsUSA officials say this list has been available to the Frist Center since that time—in addition to the several mailings they should have received—and Frist officials admit they never asked for a copy.
The Scott exhibition's short-circuited journey to Nashville started in 2000, when then-director Chase Rynd and Scala saw Scott's retrospective in Baltimore. Apparently, they liked it: the Frist was the first institution in the nation to express interest in the traveling Scott show after the ExhibitsUSA catalog came out in October 2001. Scala inquired about booking it for two seven-week slots starting in April 2005. Eventually, the Frist signed a contract for one slot next spring—although in January 2004, says Forster, Scala inquired about double-booking it again, only to have the request denied due to scheduling issues.
As recently as Sept. 27, 2004, plans were still on track. But some time after that, Scala talked to Forster about moving the show to fall 2006 because of concerns that the Scott exhibition would be the only thing on view when well-heeled trustees converged on the Frist for a spring 2005 gala. Ultimately, that idea was nixed, too, and last Monday, Oct. 25, Frist director Edwards called ExhibitsUSA to cancel the show, saying the arts center had been misled. Now the two organizations find themselves in a dispute over the $9,000 fee that the Frist was supposed to pay for the exhibition.
The situation is ugly—and unprofessional. After seeing Scott's 2000 retrospective in Baltimore, Rynd and Scala should have been well-acquainted with the raw language and imagery that characterizes much of her work. No one outside their building on Broadway thought the touring Scott exhibition would be Donna Reed fare. What's more, granting the strongly disputed assumption that a checklist only arrived in August 2004, no one at the arts center bothered to call and request one for the almost three years prior. It's hard to feel for Frist officials when they say they were taken by surprise.
The Scott cancellation is the latest in a series of art controversies that have made local news in recent months. And though Frist officials deny it, it's hard not to see their decision to cancel the exhibition as one fueled primarily by a fear of provoking public outrage at a time when controversial art is making headlines and enemies all over town. Perhaps Nashville has reached a tipping point where people are so sensitive to issues of artistic content that self-censorship kicks in. Or, optimistically, these recurrent episodes may be a sign of growth: the art scene in town is active enough for inevitably controversial works to appear with more frequency, and people are paying attention.
Even so, the pattern is discouraging. Interesting work is being attacked and withheld, and members of the city's visual arts community fear it won't be long before donors decide to punish the offending organizations by withholding funds. That prospect chills Nashville's art scene and should enrage those who care about it.
Any decision to back out of an exhibit because of content is reason for concern, regardless of artistic merit. But in this case of a national artist showing at our premier venue, it is also worth considering what we lose by not having a chance to see Joyce Scott's work. Should we give a damn for any reason other than general principles?
In this case, yes. Scott lives in Baltimore, and her career has spanned three decades. She uses traditional "crafts" methods and materials like embroidery and beadwork, sometimes pulling these into larger installation groupings, and she also engages in performance art. She is known for no-holds-barred commentary on issues from her personal experience: racism, sexism, stereotypes of all sorts. Many of her works deal with the uncomfortable aspects of race relations and include images of lynchings, black sexuality and African American stereotypes. She addressed women's body image in a performance piece called "The Thunder Thigh Review."
"I believe in messing with stereotypes, prodding the viewer to reassess," she has been quoted as saying. "My work is not meant to be openly offensive. I skirt the borders between comedy, pathos, delight and horror. I invite the viewer to laugh at our collective selves. Humans are hilariously precocious." Jerry Waters, director of the art gallery at Tennessee State University, points out that "her images may prompt the viewer to contemplate a multiplicity of issues and experiences that are part and parcel of the human condition in the early 21st century."
Scott may not necessarily fall in the very first rank of contemporary black artists, but she's awfully close. Her reputation has grown based on the Baltimore Museum of Art show. The descriptions of that show sound captivating, and it's easy to understand why Rynd and Scala responded so strongly to it. Many black artists deal with similar issues, but Scott seems to take an unusually wide-open approach. Waters sees her as "really significant." There is little question that she is worthy of a Frist Center exhibition.
The Frist has not neglected African American voices, with previous shows dedicated to Jacob Lawrence, Aaron Douglas, Alicia Henry and African American photography and quilts. The problem is that the Frist has a unique position in Nashville's art scene. It is the closest thing we have to a comprehensive civic art museum, and it's the only institution that has the resources to fill that role. It should meet a high standard of comprehensiveness, and its track record thus far has been encouraging. The art world the Frist aims to show us contains a lot of controversial stuff, as well as safely uplifting things like 17th century portraits of children or Van Gogh landscapes. We need our flagship venue to show the whole range.
Scott represents an extremely significant portion of contemporary art in her reclamation of craft techniques, her perspective, and her willingness to deal with material that some people will find disturbing. She challenges viewers but seems genuinely constructive in intent. If her pieces contain words or imagery unsuitable for children, there are ways to handle that with signage, exhibition placement and viewer education. Don't decide that no one in Nashville will see the stuff. The reproductions in this article cannot substitute for looking at the works themselves.
Why is this show a problem for Nashville when it wasn't for Baltimore—or Los Angeles, or Logan, Kan., for crying out loud? Maybe these other cities have better or worse race relations. Maybe people with conservative social values have less sway there. Maybe their cultural institutions have a more secure relationship with funders and can risk offending a few.
The pressure to suppress art in Nashville seems to be coming from all around. As a city, we need to see more and hear more, not less. We need to fully participate in modern culture if we want to be a modern American city. A decision to suppress artistic expression has economic implications. Will Nashville be seen as a place that can absorb and generate ideas, or one that's closed to them? If we aren't open to the full range of artistic discourse, what's to say that we are willing to consider new ideas in business? You really can't separate these things in the modern society and economy. Innovation in one sector creates an environment that encourages innovation in others.
Our institutions and leaders need to show they understand this. If they see something that makes them feel uncomfortable, they shouldn't shut it down. It's a sign of intellectual life that should make them very happy, and it's something they'll point to when they argue that Nashville is as sophisticated as anyplace else in the country. Our children need the economic prospects of an intellectually dynamic community more than protection from an artist's use of racially and sexually charged material to make important points.
Regardless of why the Frist chose to pull Scott's exhibition, recent events suggest this city is only willing to go so far with challenging art. "I hope there will come a time in Nashville when we can explore themes like this without the angst that we are experiencing now," says Frist director of communications Ellen Pryor. But who will lead the way? As Joyce Scott tells the Scene, "I don't know if the climate is ever right for work that asks people to go beyond their comfort zone."
