State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now

Exhibition Website

May 26 2017 - Sep 10 2017

Frist Art Museum

Nashville, TN

State of the Art celebrates the quality and diversity of contemporary art created throughout the United States, both in major art centers and smaller cities and communities across the country. The curatorial team from the Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas took the ultimate road trip, logging more than 100,000 miles, visiting a thousand destinations around the USA to produce this one unforgettable exhibition. 

They conducted hundreds of hours of one-on-one conversations with artists in their studios and selected more than 100 artists, many of whom were relatively unknown beyond their regions. The exhibition presents a selection from approximately half those artists. 

The result of this unprecedented journey is a one-of-a-kind exhibition that draws from every region of the US, offering an unusually diverse look at American art. State of the Art brings together the artwork ranging from works on canvas and paper to photography and video to installation and performance art, and more. The exhibition examines the ways in which today’s artists are informed by the past, innovating with materials old and new, and engaging deeply with issues relevant to our times.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website


Whether you go or not, State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now is the book and card set originally published in 2014 to accompany the Crystal Bridges exhibition of the 100 works.


  • American
  • Contemporary
  • Various artists

Exhibition Venues & Dates