Curated by Katie Delmez and Jamaal Sheats

This exhibition, which unfolds at two Nashville locations, pays tribute to Terry Adkins’s unique relationship to Tennessee. Among the show’s forty-some sculptures, works on paper, and videos, several are influenced by the artist’s time at Fisk, the historically black university where Adkins was mentored by the likes of Aaron Douglas, Stephanie Pogue, and Martin Puryear. The exhibition also features examples of the artist’s “recital” installations dedicated to musicians such as Bessie Smith and Jimi Hendrix, who have relationships with the state as well. Staging intersections of the sonic and the visual—and often foregrounding salvaged materials—Adkins’s distinctly lush, patinaed Minimalism summons tremulous, ceremonial landscapes of bygone personages, histories, and things.

— Adrienne Edwards