Exhibitions

ALEXANDER ZIMMERMAN: 72 • 69

Hiram Van Gordon Gallery / 3500 John A. Merritt Blvd. May 13 - 30th (Reception: May 30 4:00pm - 6:00pm)

Alexander Zimmerman

In April (2023), the Republican-led Tennessee State House voted to expel Justin J. Pearson and Justin Jones, two Black Democratic members of the House, for speaking out on the House floor as part of a gun control protest following a school shooting in Nashville that left three children and three adults dead. A third member, Gloria Johnson, escaped expulsion by one vote. A week later both Pearson and Jones were reinstated by local government panels and sworn back in to the legislature.

This news went national, and Alexander Zimmerman, aka Zim, an artist and professor of art currently at Northwest Missouri State University, heard about the Tennessee Three and from that proposed, 72 • 69. A live stream performance drawing portraits of Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, the number of votes that they each received in an attempt to expel them from the Tennessee State House floor. The drawings will hang three deep around the Hiram Van Gordon Gallery. Blank sheets are to be taken down, drawn on, and put back up once the portrait is drawn.

Zim will live stream via YouTube.com/theZimvideo from May 13th to May 26th, drawing daily to create 141 unique depictions of the two representatives. Zim chooses to produce portraits of people he believes stand for a better society, utilizing activism and action for those who need a voice. The recognition and press that the Tennessee Three received nationally, along with art projects like this, can help insight change and awareness of what happens in these public yet closed spaces like the Tennessee Capital and whose voices get heard and represented.

“And instead of doing something about gun violence, our supermajority Republican legislature silenced House representatives and others who wanted to speak. The reality is the antidemocratic behavior of our state legislature in expelling me, Representative Jones, and nearly expelling Representative Johnson should be worrisome for all of us. Why does this issue of the “Tennessee Three” matter for our democracy? It is because if we are going to address the real issues of gun violence, poverty, health care, accessibility, all of the ills that we know we face as a society, it is going to require a synergy of different ideas that are sometimes divergent in the voices that they come from, but are respected in the House and in the institution where people send us to represent.” -Justin Pearson from interview with Archon Fung for Harvard Kennedy School

You may view the exhibition till May 30th during regular hours, Monday - Thursday from 10-4 pm. The closing reception will be May 30 from 4-6 pm, directions and parking available at www.tnstate.edu/art on the gallery’s page.