October 15, 2016 - January 8, 2017
Red Grooms: Traveling Correspondent
Grooms’s treatment of New York City and Tennessee provides the focus for Red Grooms: Traveling Correspondent. The distinct bodies of work reflect time spent in these radically different environments, specifically those that most define him as a person and an artist.
Growing up in Tennessee, he encountered the southern storytelling and literary traditions as well as such spectacles as state fairs and the Grand Ole Opry. These experiences were manifest beginning in the late 1950s in his happenings, and from the 1960s on in his films, installations, paintings, prints, and sculpture.
The exhibition includes approximately 50 examples of Grooms’s signature three-dimensional paintings, sculptures, installations, prints, and films, spanning 1961 to 2015, and thereby provides an excellent overview of his artistic production. The accompanying catalogue will include three scholarly essays and full-color reproductions of all the works in the exhibition.
Pictured Below:
Red GroomsAmerican, b. 1937
Tennessee S Curve, 2001
Enamel on epoxy on Styrofoam
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art purchase; Morrie A. Moss Acquisition Fund
2001.10
© Red Grooms / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Red GroomsAmerican (b. 1937)
Rockefeller Center, 1995
Mixed media construction
Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC, New York
© 1995 Red Grooms
Exhibition Programs
Artist
Curators
Artist
Red Grooms
His studies with Hans Hofmann in Provincetown and subsequent immersion in the New York art scene blended with his southern background to produce a vibrant art that celebrates bustling city life; the city provided his subjects: people riding buses and subways, stores, street scenes, parades, and the urban landscape. Although the Tennessee works are quieter and more bucolic, they too teem with telling details—interesting characters, hand painted signs, and animals. Like a correspondent, he makes note of people and situations, capturing the salient details that bring a scene to life.
Mixed Media Artist
Red Grooms
His studies with Hans Hofmann in Provincetown and subsequent immersion in the New York art scene blended with his southern background to produce a vibrant art that celebrates bustling city life; the city provided his subjects: people riding buses and subways, stores, street scenes, parades, and the urban landscape. Although the Tennessee works are quieter and more bucolic, they too teem with telling details—interesting characters, hand painted signs, and animals. Like a correspondent, he makes note of people and situations, capturing the salient details that bring a scene to life.
Program Recordings
Tour of Red Grooms: Traveling Correspondent
Resources
The 901 Black American Portraits Soundtrack
Listen to a soundtrack of Memphis music that exemplifies Black Love, Power, and Joy. The 901 Black American Portraits Soundtrack celebrates the vibrant legacy and future of Black musicians in the city of Memphis. This playlist was curated by Jared “Jay B” Boyd, a Memphis-based multimedia artist, journalist, DJ, and on-air personality.
MCA Exhibition Questionnaire
Help us generate the fullest picture possible of the MCA experience.
Submitting a questionnaire, which includes a request for an image of an artwork, is essential to be considered for part of the exhibition.
Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?
The American art theorist Linda Nochlin (1931-2017) posed this question as the title of a pioneering article in 1971. This essay was considered one of the first major works of Feminist art history, it has become a set text for those who study art internationally, and it is influential in many other fields.