21c Museum Hotel Nashville @ Hyperallergic
NASHVILLE — The 21c Museum Hotel chain represents a new model for art in the public sphere. The flagship location opened in Louisville, Kentucky, just 11 years ago and has since expanded to six operating locations in Southern-Midwestern population centers like Cincinnati, Ohio; Durham, North Carolina; and Lexington, Kentucky, with the newest addition slated to open in Nashville, Tennessee, by mid-May. With the developing location comes a fresh opportunity for 21c to introduce a new community to its unique approach to contemporary art.
“We’re a hybrid, but still, what is it?” said Chief Curator and Museum Director Alice Gray Stites, who took a break from installing the inaugural exhibition in Nashville, Truth or Dare: A Reality Show, to speak with Hyperallergic. “It’s very hard to understand until you come here. So we want to use the inaugural exhibitions to express something that’s really seminal to the character of the whole organization and what it wants to do.”