Statewide strategy continues in the next chapter of the Triennial, with exhibitions across four major museums and a focus on Tennessee artists
TENNESSEE (November 17, 2025) – Tri-Star Arts is pleased to announce the Tennessee Triennial for Contemporary Art will enter its next chapter under the leadership of a statewide consortium of art museums representing the state’s major metropolitan areas, including the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, the Knoxville Museum of Art, and the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga.
The Tennessee Triennial celebrates contemporary art across the state, highlighting the strength and diversity of Tennessee’s visual art scene while connecting it to the broader national and international art landscape. The program showcases work that is critically acclaimed, visually compelling, and accessible to the public.
“Tennessee has always been a creative engine for the nation, from its artistic grit and musical innovation to its spirit of design and legacy of craft,” said Tri-Star Arts co-founder Carolyn Jobe. “The Triennial builds on those strengths, connecting contemporary artists and institutions across the state as Tennessee continues to shape the national art conversation.”
The next Tennessee Triennial will run from Jan. 29 through Sept. 27, 2026, and will celebrate the work of contemporary Tennessee artists, with programming to center around featured exhibitions at the four museums, including:
Memphis | Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
Memphis College of Art, 1936-2020: An Enduring Legacy, Feb. 25 to Sept. 27, 2026
For eighty-four years, the Memphis College of Art offered a rigorous arts education to students from across the country and around the world. Through this exhibition of ninety works by ninety faculty, administrators, and graduates, Memphis College of Art, 1936-2020: An Enduring Legacy reflects on the school’s historical impact and celebrates its continued legacy regionally and beyond. The exhibition is guest curated by Marina Pacini, Chief Curator, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, 2002-2019, and is accompanied by a catalogue published by Paul Holberton Press.
Nashville | Frist Art Museum
In Her Place: Nashville Artists in the Twenty-First Century, Jan. 29 to April 26, 2026
Women have long been at the center of Nashville’s vibrant visual arts community, and In Her Place highlights their influence by presenting nearly 100 paintings, sculptures, textile pieces, and installations from 28 intergenerational women artists exploring ideas of place and identity. Part of the Frist’s 25th-anniversary celebration, the exhibition underscores the museum’s commitment to the local arts community and will be accompanied by a catalogue co-edited by Katie Delmez and Laura Hutson Hunter and published by Vanderbilt University Press.
Chattanooga | Hunter Museum of American Art
The Hunter Invitational V, Jan. 30 to April 26, 2026
The Hunter Invitational, conceived by Hunter Museum Chief Curator Nandini Makrandi and launched by the museum in 2007, highlights emerging trends and current events through the work of artists practicing in the Southeast. Opening January 2026, its fifth iteration will present new or expanded works by eight artists – including Anna Carll, Corrine Colarusso, Craig Drennen, Amie Esslinger, Jerushia Graham, Katie Hargrave with Meredith Lynn, and Althea Murphy-Price – offering audiences a chance to discover some of the region’s most innovative talent.
Knoxville | Knoxville Museum of Art
Wayne White, March 26 to July 17, 2026
In Spring 2026, the KMA will present a solo exhibition by the Chattanooga-born provocateur Wayne White – a multi-faceted artist, designer, and musician who has charted a kaleidoscopic path through multiple frontiers of art and culture. From Emmy award-winning work as Art Director for Pee Wee’s Playhouse and orchestrating pioneering music videos by acts like Peter Gabriel and The Smashing Pumpkins, to crafting illustrations for The New York Times and singing lead in the art band Username Password, White defies convention to revel in the fray of pop culture. He has also been the subject of the epic 2009 monograph Maybe Now I’ll Get the Respect I so Richly Deserve and an eclectic 2012 documentary titled Beauty is Embarrassing, but the breadth of his work still feels under-appreciated. At the KMA, in concert with a wall painting and a wide-ranging survey of his canvases, drawings, and sculpture, White will create a newly commissioned, room-sized kinetic puppet inspired by his memories of the South. This show will be a magnet for collaborators and will open in conjunction with the Big Ears Festival in 2026 – furnishing a marquee platform for White to unleash an especially unique rendition of his idiosyncratic enterprise.
Museums, galleries, and other visual arts organizations across the state will be invited to list exhibitions featuring work by contemporary Tennessee artists. Interested participants can submit relevant exhibition listings through the Tennessee Triennial website starting Dec. 1, 2025.
After eight years of planning, Tri-Star Arts launched the inaugural Tennessee Triennial for Contemporary Art in 2023. Over three months, 16 museums and art venues presented projects under a shared theme that was developed by consulting curator María Magdalena Campos-Pons, with 26 community spaces presenting companion exhibitions in cities and towns across Tennessee. Building on the success of the inaugural event, Tri-Star Arts recognized the need for a broader institutional framework. Co-Founders Brian and Carolyn Jobe invited Tennessee’s four major art museums to form a long-term consortium to guide the initiative, a proposal welcomed with enthusiasm.
“Each of our museums places a strong emphasis on showcasing contemporary art from our region and is committed to fostering deeper connections across Tennessee,” said Zoe Kahr, Executive Director of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, on behalf of the four museum partners. “Through the Triennial, we look forward to advancing Tri-Star Arts’ important work in highlighting and bringing greater recognition to the extraordinary artistic talent within our state.”
Tri-Star Arts will continue to focus on its full slate of year-round programming, including art exhibitions, artist studios, annual Current Art Fund project grants, public art projects, LocateArts.org web resource, and additional statewide programming.
Tri-Star Arts Co-Founder, Carolyn Jobe states, “The Tennessee Triennial for Contemporary Art has always belonged to the state, and reflected its vibrant and innovative contemporary art activity. Brian and I are honored to have been a part of launching this groundbreaking event through our small arts non-profit. It was always an unlikely venture, and the fact that it happened across Tennessee, in a collaborative way, is a testimony to the strength of the state’s contemporary artists, arts professionals, art venues, and art activity. We are thrilled to give the Tennessee Triennial to the four art museums that we respect and love, so that it can grow into a stronger recurring event.”
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About - Tri-Star Arts:
Established in 2014, Tri-Star Arts serves Tennessee by cultivating and spotlighting the contemporary visual art scenes in each region while fostering a unified state-wide art scene. Their programs promote art dialogue between the different cities in the state, and between the state and the nation. Tri-Star Arts initiatives include a gallery and artist studios at the historic Candoro Marble Building, annual Current Art Fund project grants, statewide collaborative projects, and the LocateArts.org web resource.
Press Contact: Carolyn Jobe, carolyn@tristararts.org, Co-Founder, Tri-Star Arts
About - Memphis Brooks Museum of Art:
Located at 1934 Poplar Avenue in historic Overton Park, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art is one of the leading art museums in the American South. Over 10,000 works make up Memphis’ art collection at the museum, including ancient works from Greece, Rome, and the Ancient Americas; Renaissance masterpieces from Italy; English portraiture; American painting and decorative arts; contemporary art; and African Diasporic art. In 2026, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art will open its new home and become Memphis Art Museum: a state-of-the-art, 122,000-square-foot facility at the heart of downtown Memphis. For more information on the current programming and future plans for Memphis’ art museum, call 901-544-6200 or visit brooksmuseum.org.
Press Contact: Kelly Helton, kelly.helton@brooksmuseum.org, 901-590-6935
About - Frist Art Museum:
Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Frist Art Museum is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit art exhibition center dedicated to presenting and originating high-quality exhibitions with related educational programs and community outreach activities. Located at 919 Broadway in downtown Nashville, TN, the Frist Art Museum offers the finest visual art from local, regional, national, and international sources in exhibitions that inspire people through art to look at their world in new ways. Housed in Nashville’s former main post office building – the city’s treasured art deco structure that was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 – the Frist Art Museum is a 124,400-square-foot facility with more than 45,000 square feet of combined exhibition and public space. On site, there is a gift shop, Café Cheeserie, and the award-winning, interactive Martin ArtQuest gallery, where guests can create their own works of art. Information on accessibility can be found at FristArtMuseum.org/accessibility. Gallery admission is free for guests ages 18 and younger and for members, and $20 for adults. For current hours and additional information, visit FristArtMuseum.org or call 615-244-3340.
Press Contact: Buddy Kite, bkite@fristartmuseum.org, 615-744-3351
About - Hunter Museum of American Art:
The Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tennessee, collects, studies, and presents American art from the Colonial period to the present day. The collection includes paintings, works on paper, sculpture, photography, mixed media, furniture, and contemporary studio glass covering a range of styles and periods. A few of the artists represented in the Hunter’s collection include Winslow Homer, Robert S. Duncanson, Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, Robert Henri, Thomas Hart Benton, Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Nevelson, Robert Rauschenberg, Nick Cave, Lorna Simpson and Lesley Dill. To learn more, visit huntermuseum.org.
Press Contact: Cara McGowan, cmcgowan@huntermuseum.org, 423-227-0562
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
For full press release, please refer to the downloadable PDF.