Which suggests that old, sweeping views of the South as a bastion of stuck-in-past political denial are, and have always been, wrong. Yet large-scale museum surveys of art from and about the South are scarce. It’s as if the mainstream art world — specifically navel-gazing, Europhilic New York — didn’t know, or believe, or care that whole, rich art cultures were unfolding in Atlanta, and Houston, and New Orleans. One of the few recent broad-spectrum shows to tackle the subject was “Southern Accent: Seeking the American South in Contemporary Art,” organized by Miranda Lash and Trevor Schoonmaker at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham, N.C. Now comes another one, a big, juicy, thought-through thematic sampler here at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Source: International New York Times July 15, 2021 20:03 UTC