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Building Empathy Connection Chaos and Awe at the Frist Art Museum June 22–September 16
Corinne Wasmuht, Bibliotheque/CDG-BSL, Triptych: Oil on wood mounted on aluminum; each panel: 83" x 95", overall: 83" x 285"
WORDS Milena Castro
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hief Curator of the Frist Art Museum, Mark Scala, has brought together an array of powerful artworks for his latest exhibition, Chaos and Awe: Painting for the 21st Century. Motivated to confront complex topics that have emerged at a global level, Scala has developed a thematic show that introduces a range of philosophical ideas. He explains that he conceived this show considering his own state of mind in recent years. “I’ve been feeling that people have little control of the network of systems that shape their lives, which makes us concurrently more connected and more vulnerable; things like communication technology and the dark web, fake news, international networks of terrorism or shady finance, racism, and extreme nationalism. These things are often invisible, and they can be frightening. At the same time, the complex of ungraspable forces provides hope for new understandings of how seemingly disparate parts of existence are linked, an exhilaration at possibilities that can arise out of the seemingly incoherent present.” The exhibition presents a framework to consider the invisible systems that we may not even sense or be aware of but shape contemporary reality and attitudes toward the future.
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