The Reece Museum has partnered with Bravissima and the Mary B. Martin School of the Arts to gather a collection of artworks titled “Local Art in the Age of the 2020 Global Pandemic.”
After the shelter in place order was given in March that caused businesses, schools and churches to close down, the Reece Museum staff decided to gather a collection by local artists so the pandemic would always be memorialized in the museum’s private collection.
“When we got the order to shelter in place, it was such a huge change,” said Randall Sanders, director of the Reece Museum. “We as a staff talked about what we could do during this time to turn it into an opportunity.”
Museum staff used social media to reach out to artists in Tennessee’s First Congressional District and asked them to submit art created during the shelter in place order.
Artists in northeast Tennessee had to be at least 18 years of age and did not have to pay an entrance fee to submit their art for consideration. Over 106 pieces of artwork were submitted, and jurors chose 40 pieces to join the Reece Museum’s private collection.
“We wanted to see what we could do right now that in 50 years from now could be of interest to other people,” said Sanders.
Once the artists have been paid for their artwork, the museum will post an online catalog of “Local Art in the Age of the 2020 Global Pandemic” on the Reece Museum website for the fall semester. As of right now, there are no solid plans to show the artwork in person.
“We will not schedule a physical exhibition until we can hold a celebratory reception for those artists that does not require social distancing or mask wearing,” stated Sanders. “In other words, until there is a vaccine that has been widely distributed through the population, we will not physically display those artworks on the walls of the museum.”
