'In Her Place' Debuts at Frist Art Museum

Almost a decade ago, artists Vadis Turner and Jana Harper invited Frist Art Museum senior curator Katie Delmez to coffee. The women’s caffeinated conversation swirled around Nashville’s burgeoning creative community and the “outsize number” of female artists building successful careers from the city.

“That was the Aha! moment for me,” says Delmez, who has served as a curator since the Frist’s 2001 debut year. “I had not looked at Nashville’s art scene through the lens of gender. That’s when the idea of an exhibition was planted.”

A decade later, Katie, along with co-curators Shaun Giles and Sai Clayton, has launched In Her Place: Nashville Artists in the Twenty-First Century, an exhibition of nearly 100 paintings, sculptures, textile works, and installations by an intergenerational group of 28 women artists, exploring place, memory and belonging.

“In many ways, this show is a love letter to Nashville,” Delmez says. “It’s a gift to our community to let everyone know what incredible visual artists are here.”

But more than a love letter, In Her Place updates the art historical record. This male-centric canon once prompted feminist art historian Linda Nochlin to ask in her 1971 ARTnews essay, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”

Showcased in the Frist’s largest gallery and headlining the museum’s 25th anniversary year, In Her Place quietly rejects the premise of Nochlin’s rhetorical question. Consider this celebratory cross-section of Nashville’s female creative community – with exposure and acclaim from Nashville to New York to Miami to Berlin – a correction. “We’re addressing an art historical shortcoming, while being very specific about art in our town, where women have been leaders for decades,” Delmez says. 

The catalogue accompanying In Her Place, coedited by Delmez and Nashville Scene arts writer Laura Hutson Hunter and published by Vanderbilt University Press, includes contributions by London-based Katy Hessel of The Great Women Artists podcast and Vivien Fryd, Vanderbilt University art history professor emerita (and Delmez’s former professor). The catalogue explores female leaders in Nashville’s art community, including Katie Shaw at Red Arrow Gallery in East Nashville, Artville founder Samantha Saturn and the late Prof. Alicia Henry of Fisk University.

“It’s a great resource and a substantial coffee table book,” Delmez says of the 168-page hardcover catalogue, which is available for sale at the Frist. “It’s a symbol of the literal weight of this community and the seriousness of these artists.”

In Her Place runs through April 26.

The Frist, with Vanderbilt University, hosts “Food for Thought,” a free lunchtime conversation inspired by In Her Place, with panelists including artists and educators Elisheba Israel Mrozik, Lauren Gregory and Jana Harper, Thursday, Feb. 19, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., in the auditorium. Gallery admission and boxed lunch included with registration at fristartmuseum.org