Horizons is an installation by noted Icelandic artist Steinunn Thórarinsdóttir (pronounced Stay-nun Thorens-daughter). The exhibition includes 12 androgynous, life-sized iron figures in the KMA’s South Garden. Each is unique in pose and expression, and has a polished glass band inserted in its torso. The artist explains this juxtaposition of glass and iron, “The color of the iron signifies their primal quality—as if they are emerging from the earth” while “Glass as a material has a lot of different connotations. It can be fragile, yet dangerous. It can be translucent, or solid . . . It's like water, but also like air.”

Several Silences is a group exhibition exploring various kinds of silence – meditative, ambient, memorial, etc. – calling attention to the rarity of the absence of sound in our growing “culture of distraction.” Works range from Ryan Gander’s 100 laser-etched glass spheres to Gran Fury’s neon sculpture to Troy Brauntuch’s shadowy drawings on cotton. Organized by the Renaissance Society, University of Chicago.

This exhibition highlights the work of a group of eight American photographers who focused their lenses on rapid social and political changes that transformed their nation during the turbulent 1960’s. The featured images present a realistic, sometimes dire, view of America ranging from the “outlaw culture” of bikers and chain gangs, Boston’s red light district known as the Combat Zone, Black Panthers; the gritty streets and neighborhoods of New York, the politically charged South, and fringe communities and sub-cultures around the country.

Semmes, A Brooklyn-based artist, is known internationally for her unique multimedia installations. She works in contradictions, challenging the conventional definitions of craft and “women’s work” by creating completely non-functional pieces out of traditional materials such as clay and fabric. Treading the line between fantasy and reality, she evokes visions of fairy tales with her massively lush silk and velvet dresses, pieces that evolved from costumes the artist designed for her photographic and video pieces. Semmes’ ceramic and crystal pots defy the time-honored symmetry and beauty expected in pottery and glass. Although irregular and distorted, the crystal work poses a dazzling contrast to the lusciously colored, but misshapen, clay pots. Organized by the Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga.

This renowned video by Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss earned a cult following since it premiered at international art festivals in 1987. The video documents the artists’ use fire and fireworks, blasts of air, gravity, and a variety of corrosive liquids to sustain a chain reaction of materials and events for 30 minutes. The imagery touches on themes common in the duo’s work, such as order and chaos, humor, transformation, and illusion. In 2007, the Tate Gallery, London, organized “Flowers and Questions,” a major retrospective exhibition devoted to Fischli and Weiss’s creative achievements.

Contemporary Focus is the KMA’s annual exhibition series designed to serve as a vital means of recognizing, supporting and documenting the development of contemporary art in East Tennessee. Each year, the exhibition series features the work of artists who are living and making art in this region, and who are exploring issues relevant to the larger world of contemporary art.

This is a collaborative project with the East Tennessee Art Education Association designed to bring together the best student work grades 6-12 from a 20-county region; award winners are eligible for $600,000 in scholarships to national art schools. Organized by the KMA

Larry and Brenda Thompson have amassed a remarkable collection of art by African Americans from around the nation. The strength of the Thompson’s collecting process lies in their considered attention to artists who have typically not been recognized in the traditional narratives of African American art.

This pioneering exhibition will present an under-appreciated side to the work of Thornton Dial, Sr. (b. 1928), an artist best known and celebrated for his large-scale, multi-media assemblages dealing with a wide range of charged social and political themes. Since the early 1990s, Dial has also produced a rich body of lyrical works on paper, often engaged with themes of gender and human relationships. This exhibition focuses on the very earliest of those drawings, a group of 50 sheets with Dial’s characteristic and broadly coherent iconography of women, fish, birds, roosters, and tigers, rendered in a variety of media. Organized by the Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina.

This is a collaborative project with the East Tennessee Art Education Association designed to bring together the best student work grades 6-12 from a 20-county region; award winners are eligible for $600,000 in scholarships to national art schools. Organized by the KMA.

Contemporary Focus is the KMA’s annual exhibition series designed to serve as a vital means of recognizing, supporting, and documenting the development of contemporary art in East Tennessee. Each year, the exhibition series features the work of artists who are living and making art in this region, and who are exploring issues relevant to the larger world of contemporary art.

Ansel Adams’ ability to create photographs with a remarkable range and subtly of tones is legendary. Yet for all his technical mastery, Adams recognized that what made a compelling photograph was far more elusive. This exhibition of 23 Adams photographs from the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts’ collection emphasizes the role of the artist’s intuitive and emotional response to the landscape in the creation of his powerful and enduring photographs. Included in the KMA’s presentation of this exhibition will be three rare prints Adams made during his little-known 1948 visit to East Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains. Organized by the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts.