Acclaimed British artist Bruce Munro will exhibit Light, an exhibition of 10 breathtaking, large-scale outdoor and indoor lighting installations coupled with indoor sculptures, at Nashville’s Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art from May 24 through November 10, 2013. The exhibit will include four installations never before seen in the U.S.
 
Using an inventive array of materials and hundreds of miles of glowing optical fiber, Munro will transform Cheekwood’s magnificent gardens, manicured grounds and rolling hills into an enchanting, iridescent landscape that emerges organically at nightfall.
 
Munro’s site-specific exhibit will mark only the second time he has showcased his solo work in the U.S. In 2012, Munro debuted Light at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pa., drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors and critical acclaim. Cheekwood’s Light will include three entirely new installations: Bell Drop Chandelier, Fagin’s Urchins and Light Reservation. Two of these new works were inspired by the subtleties of Cheekwood’s grounds and the third by a lighting technique that Munro only recently began to explore. Blue Moon, which will be in Cheekwood’s Japanese Garden, is a work never before seen in the U.S.
 
“Cheekwood is honored to host Bruce Munro’s Light and to invite Nashville residents and visitors from around the world to experience the transcendent power of his inspired installations,” said Jane Offenbach, president and CEO of Cheekwood. “We were among several premier botanical gardens nationwide actively courting Munro, and are thrilled he selected Cheekwood to mount his mesmerizing exhibit. Cheekwood’s Dale Chihuly exhibition in 2010 was a huge success, and I am confident that Light will draw record crowds and solidify Cheekwood as a preeminent setting for other major artists to showcase their work.”
 
Wiltshire-based Munro is an installation artist working with light in all of its forms. His work has been exhibited at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum—the world‘s largest museum of decorative arts and design—and at the 13th century gothic Salisbury Cathedral, where it garnered international praise. Munro’s work has also been shown at the Holburne Museum in Bath, Kensington Palace in London and the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
 
“During my first visit to Cheekwood earlier in the year, I had a visceral reaction to the scale and positioning of the estate’s buildings. They are at one with the landscape, breeding a sense of understated balance and harmony that truly inspired me and undoubtedly permeates the visitor experience,” said Munro. “This is the most perfect place to exhibit because it provides a variety of opportunities to respond to – each space varies in both scale and topographical character. In addition, Cheekwood’s world class exhibition galleries are a veritable jewel in its crown. I feel lucky and privileged to install my work at this prestigious and beautiful estate.”
 
At the center of the exhibit’s 10 site-specific installations will be the Field of Light (pictured left) featuring 20,000 lighted glass spheres, each rising from the ground on a slender stem. The sheer volume of spheres, the glow of the lights and the gentle shapes create an effect that is both natural and otherworldly. Notably, the Field of Light that Munro will create at Cheekwood will be his most expansive to date.
 
In Cheekwood’s color garden, 40 monumental towers made of recyclable water bottles will evanesce and reappear in a glowing dance as the individual towers change color in synchronization with music. This installation, Water-Towers (pictured on page 1), seeks to “capture the spirit of life’s continual flux,” explains Munro. “It reinforces the idea that reality is simply a beautiful improvised dance that lives in the moment.”
 
Along with the large-scale outdoor installations, Light will also feature a collection of illuminated sculptures within Cheekwood’s Museum of Art, including a gallery dedicated to Munro’s works. Again, several of these works have never before been installed in the U.S., including the Bell Drop Chandelier – comprised of 500 fiber optic cables – that was created for the main stairwell of the museum.
 
Located on the western edge of Nashville, Cheekwood is a privately funded 55-acre estate built by the Maxwell House Coffee fortune and one of the finest examples of an American Country Place Era Estate in the U.S. The Botanical Garden at Cheekwood is a spectacular showcase of color and horticultural diversity with eleven specialty display gardens and stunning natural landscape. Cheekwood’s Museum of Art, housed in a 30,000-square foot Georgian-style mansion, features world-class collections of American and contemporary painting and sculpture, English and American decorative arts and traveling exhibitions. With its history, beauty, year-round family-friendly activities and stylish seasonal celebrations, Cheekwood attracts more than 250,000 visitors annually.
 
While hosting Light, Cheekwood will offer extended hours on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings until 10:00 p.m. to share the luminous beauty of the exhibition in its most stunning state: under the night sky. On First Tennessee Fridays, Cheekwood will open its Pineapple Room Restaurant for dinner, host several bars with drinks and snacks throughout the property, and feature live music to enhance visitors’ Light experience.
Light is presented by First Tennessee Foundation and co-sponsored by Gullett, Sanford, Robinson and Martin, PLLC. Additional sponsorships are available; for information call Bennett Tarleton at 615-353-6983 or btarleton@cheekwood.org.
 
About Cheekwood
Cheekwood is a 55-acre botanical garden and art museum located on the historic Cheek estate. Cheekwood’s missision is to preserve Cheekwood as an historical landmark where beauty and excellence in art and horticulture stimulate the mind and nurture the spirit. Cheekwood is located at 1200 Forrest Park Drive in Nashville, 8 miles southwest of downtown Nashville. Open Tuesday through Saturday 9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.; Sunday 11:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Admission is $12 for adults, seniors $10 and children 3-17 are $5. Parking is $3 per car. Admission during Bruce Munro Nights will be $15 for adults, $12 for seniors, $8 for children 3-17, and $5 for Cheekwood members. For further information call 615-356-8000 or visit www.cheekwood.org.
 
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Inspired by the Frist Center’s historic Art Deco building, Sensuous Steel: Art Deco Automobiles will feature spectacular automobiles and motorcycles that exemplify the classic elegance, luxurious materials and iconography of motion characterizing vehicles influenced by the Art Deco style.
 
Fascination with automobiles transcends age, gender and environment. While today automotive manufacturers often strive for economy and efficiency, there was a time when elegance reigned. Influenced by the Art Deco movement that began in Paris in the early 1920s and propelled to prominence in 1927 with the success of the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, automakers embraced the sleek new streamlined forms and aircraft-inspired materials, creating memorable automobiles that still thrill all who see them. The exhibition will feature 18 automobiles and three motorcycles from some of the most important collectors and collections in the United States.
 
Sensuous Steel is organized for the Frist Center by guest curator Ken Gross, a noted authority on automobiles who is the former director of the Petersen Automotive Museum. A catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

Vik Muniz is celebrated for his photographs of everyday materials, which have been arranged to reveal provocative and delightfully unexpected images when viewed from a distance. These transformative still lifes often relate to social concerns, as seen in the selections from the series Pictures of Junk and Pictures of Garbage on view in this exhibition. Merging high and low cultures, Muniz used castoff materials to recreate such masterpieces as Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and Jacques Louis David’s The Death of Marat.
 
By exploring the relationship between the supposedly timeless beauty of Western art and the grim realities of poverty and waste, Muniz reminds us that great cultural attainments throughout history have often been achieved in environments—and often as a consequence—of repression and economic disparity. This does not alter the greater truth of Muniz’s vision: beauty, humanistic values, and spiritual aspiration can be found in the most abject of worlds.
 
This exhibition is organized by the Mint Museum in Charlotte, N.C.

A Nashville resident whose work has been exhibited and collected internationally, Jack Spencer alters the surfaces of his photographs with techniques suggestive of painting—rich tones and colors, softly-focused or veiled forms, slight imperfections and painterly textures. Jack Spencer: Beyond the Surface is composed of approximately 70 photographs that exemplify the relationship between these compelling surfaces and Spencer’s interest in myth, mystery and the ephemeral nature of existence.
 
This exhibition is organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts and curated by Frist Center Chief Curator Mark Scala.
 
A catalogue published by Vanderbilt University Press will accompany the exhibition.

30 Americans showcases works by many of the most important African American artists of the last three decades. This provocative exhibition focuses on issues of racial, sexual, and historical identity in contemporary culture while exploring the powerful influence of artistic legacy and community across generations. Drawn from the extensive Rubell Family Collection in Miami, the exhibition comprises over 70 works—including paintings, sculpture, photographs, videos, collages and multimedia works—from leading artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kara Walker, Nick Cave, Wangechi Mutu and Robert Colescott.
 
30 Americans is organized by the Rubell Family Collection, Miami.

Ana Maria Tavares finds inspiration in the architecture of the modern city, particularly the stylistic grammar of Oscar Niemeyer and other utopian modernist Brazilian architects who have transformed urban Brazil in the post World War II years. She employs materials such as steel, glass, and mirrors, often alluding to building interiors and product design, to make structures that occupy the border between design and fine art. Airports and departure lounges—places that symbolize exit from everyday life—are a recurrent theme in her work, evoking feelings relating to floating and falling, meditating, and the co-existence of the real and virtual.
 
The centerpiece of this exhibition is her four-sided immersive video, Airshaft (to Piranesi), 2008, comprising sequences of elaborate interiors as seen from multiple perspectives in constant motion.
 
This exhibition is organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts and curated by Frist Center Chief Curator Mark Scala.

Norman Rockwell, one of America’s most beloved and recognized artists, honed his visual storytelling abilities creating illustrations for some of the nation’s most prominent publications, and is fondly remembered for his emotionally appealing, idealized scenes of early 20th century American life. Rockwell’s images portray scenes of human triumph and frailty with affectionate humor, dignity and kindness, often emphasizing the importance of tolerance and America’s democratic ideals.
 
Featuring over 40 paintings and a selection of drawings, tear-sheets, and other related works, including original Saturday Evening Post covers, American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell traces the evolution of Rockwell’s art and iconography throughout his career—from carefully choreographed reflections on childhood innocence to consciousness-raising images documenting the traumatic realities of desegregation in the South.
 
This exhibition was organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass.