Exhibitions
HIGHER GROUND: A CENTURY OF THE VISUAL ARTS IN EAST TENNESSEE
Knoxville Museum of Art / 1050 World's Fair Park Dr. November 2, 2023 - December 31, 2036
Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in East Tennessee traces the evolution of artistic activity in Knoxville and its Appalachian environs from roughly the 1860s to the 1980s. Many of the featured artists spent their entire lives and careers in the area, while some moved away to follow their creative ambitions. Others came from outside the region, attracted by its natural beauty. Together, these artists’ works form the basis of a visual arts tradition that is both compelling and largely unheralded.
Higher Ground, the KMA’s flagship permanent exhibition celebrating the richness and diversity of East Tennessee’s visual culture, was reimagined in the museum’s newly renovated entrance level galleries in the fall of 2023. The exhibition and accompanying 300 page catalog are organized into broad thematic sections that follow the period of Knoxville’s development into a vital commercial and cultural hub, from the emergence of the first professional arts community to the establishment of the area’s first major arts institutions.
About Knoxville Museum of Art:
The Knoxville Museum of Art began its institutional life in 1961, establishing core values as a community-rooted organization that mined what art and culture could mean in East Tennessee. In the late 1980s, operations moved to a downtown location to serve a growing community. The modern-day KMA opened in 1990 in a 53,200 square-foot facility designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes. By the new millennium, the Museum’s collecting and programming mandate also advanced from an array of traveling blockbusters and local craft to focus on an archaeology of the fertile history of Appalachia and its evolving present. Our core exhibition project, Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in East Tennessee, was decades in the making, proposing a more inclusive historical narrative that entrenches the importance of stalwarts such as Lloyd Branson, Catherine Wiley, and the Knoxville Seven, while also recognizing the contributions of previously marginalized artists, most notably brothers Beauford and Joseph Delaney, as well as the self-taught Bessie Harvey. The KMA enters its next organizational chapter by way of a programmatic vision that pushes our purview into a more expansive geography. Under the banner of Appalachian Imaginary, the Museum presents a dynamic series of exhibitions that embrace a wider lens with which to see our site, and ourselves. Located at 1050 World’s Fair Park Drive in downtown Knoxville, the museum is open Tuesday through Saturday (10:00 AM–5:00 PM) and Sunday (1:00–5:00 PM). Admission and parking are free. Learn more at knoxart.org.
Press Contact: Sarah Kaplan, skaplan@knoxart.org, 865-934-2034
