Since moving here in 2017, María Magdalena Campos-Pons has been continuously working to bring international conversations to Nashville — and bring local art into international conversations. She founded the Engine for Art, Democracy and Justice with the aim of connecting artists with activists across the globe; she took a crew of Nashville-based artists to Cuba for the 2019 Havana Biennial; she oversees a strong exhibition schedule at Begonia Labs on West End; and she’s been teaching at Vanderbilt University throughout. In late 2023, right on the eve of her career retrospective Behold at the Brooklyn Museum, Campos-Pons won a MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship. Before it heads to the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center in L.A. next year, Behold opened in September at the Frist here in Nashville, giving the influential, mega-talented artist a kind of homecoming in her adopted hometown. But all of those accolades and accomplishments pale in comparison to the deeply personal but universally relevant work Campos-Pons creates. She is truly a master, and Nashville is lucky to have her.
