The beginning of a new year is a natural time for predictions about what the next 12 months might bring. One of the best ways to make accurate predictions is through the rumors and gossip circulating around a particular cultural space. The good news is that there’s a lot of chatter about new art galleries happening in Nashville in 2025. I’d never compromise my sources, but I predict favorite art spots moving into fresh new digs, and new crawl additions that are aiming to be more permanent than pop-ups.
Wedgewood-Houston
I celebrated Red 225’s tenure at The Packing Plant in these pages when curator Katherine Boyle announced the gallery’s closing in October. The small gallery space in the northwest corner of The Packing Plant is the littlest room in the building, but its modest square footage and relatively low monthly rent have inspired experimental exhibitions for years. The cozy display space gave Coop a foothold on the neighborhood when the collective left The Arcade in 2016 as the center of gravity of Nashville’s contemporary art scene shifted from downtown to Wedgewood-Houston. And following Red 225’s exit, the space has become something called Landfill.
A Wedgewood-Houston gallery’s final show and photos by Tamara Reynolds lead November’s highlights
Landfill is the brainchild of local artist Charlie Smyth. Smyth is an abstract painter whose expressive works often include his signature motif of repeating patterns of colored dots. Smyth regularly paints on colored velvet, and he’s recently made a number of small soapstone sculptures. Landfill is shaping up to be a new iteration of classic Nashville artist-curator spaces — Smyth will be sharing his own work in addition to the art and objects of his peers, and the space is way more eccentric and stylized than a commercial gallery might ever be. Walking into Landfill is like discovering a curio shop in an opium den. When the gallery opened for December’s First Saturday events, Smyth had covered most of the gallery’s walls in rusty-brown fabric. There was a vintage oriental rug in the middle of the floor. Smyth arranged paintings on the wall in salon-style groupings, and sculptures and other creative objects were displayed on odd bits of furniture. This month, Smyth is sharing a selection of his paintings along with a textile piece by Briena Harmening, paintings by Todd McDaniel, a pair of David Piñeros’ street protest photographs, large works on paper from Noah Kittinger, and a handful of surreal figurative paintings by Danny Sofa. Opening reception 3-9 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 4, at Landfill, 507 Hagan St.
Zeitgeist celebrated its 30th birthday during last month’s First Saturday happenings, and the gallery’s Rise Above exhibition continues through Jan. 25. This group show of 14 artists features lots of familiar faces from the gallery’s roster, but each artist was challenged to share work that featured new explorations, techniques and materials from the edges of their creative practices. The results feel fresh and of-the-moment as Zeitgeist ponders its past and future, and everybody gears up for a new calendar year. Rise Above includes work by Caroline Allison, Marteja Bailey, Alex Blau, Sai Clayton, doughjoe, Brady Haston, Richard Feaster, Arielle Gray, DaShawn Lewis, Megan Lightell, Vesna Pavlović, Jerry Phillips and Lars Strandh, as well as Zeitgeist’s gallery director Lain York. Reception 5-8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 4., at Zeitgeist, 516 Hagan St.
If I had to nominate a local artist for sheer prolific production, Jodi Hays would definitely make the short list. If you subscribe to Hays’ newsletter, you know she maintains a fairly relentless exhibition schedule, opening various shows around the city and the country from season to season. This Saturday, Hays will be the first artist to open shows in David Lusk’s Nashville and Memphis locations simultaneously. Many artists would blanch at the notion of filling all that wall space, but it’s not even a little bit surprising that Hays has met the challenge. She’s also currently showing work in San Francisco, and she has another solo show running through Jan. 8 at Scott Miller Projects in Birmingham, Ala. See what I mean? Befores and Afters spans two gallery locations, but it’s all of a piece. Hays’ large collages are made from reclaimed cardboard, which the artist paints, dyes and bleaches before assembling the various textures and colors into arrangements that speak to contemporary painting as well as quilting and sign-making. Hays’ work is unmistakably her own, and while Nashville is home to many abstract painters, she’s a great example of an artist who has taken inspiration from the mid-20th century and refashioned it into a signature style that’s both new and familiar. Opening reception 4-7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 4, at David Lusk, 516 Hagan St.
After a fantastic first year of programming, Neue Welt is doing what it does best this January — hosting a new display of multimedia installation art that resonates with brooding narratives of art and grief. Nashville artist Lauren Taylor collects photographs, clothing and random objects from her home, garden and studio. She displays the various objects and bits of detritus in novel arrangements that put together stories about the artist and her relationship with her recently deceased father. Taylor showed in the same Packing Plant space when it was occupied by Mild Climate back in 2017. And like Jodi Hays’ show at David Lusk, How Deep Is Down? is a two-part exhibition — it will conclude with a second chapter, which will debut at Neue Welt in February. Opening reception 5-9 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 4, at Neue Welt, 507 Hagan St.
