María Magdalena Campos-Pons at the Frist Art Museum
For nearly four decades, María Magdalena Campos-Pons has built a body of work that moves fluently across photography, video, painting, and performance. Her exhibition, Behold, gathers that breadth at the Frist Art Museum and presents it with care. It looks back, it looks forward, and it offers new works and multimedia pieces that widen the view of her ongoing artistic journey.
Inside the Exhibition
More than 50 layered works fill the galleries—sketches, photographs, and recorded performances among them. Campos-Pons draws directly from lived experience to address enslavement, identity, migration, and race. The result feels less like a timeline and more like a conversation with the past and present, reflecting her perspective as a Cuban-born artist who now calls Nashville home.
A Narrative of Resilience
At the threshold stands the commanding triptych Secrets of the Magnolia Tree (2021). It acts as an anchor. In it, Campos-Pons appears in a quiet, reflective pose, a witness to histories that still press on the present. Magnolia branches carry their own associations—beauty, burden, the American South—while her owl-like gaze steadies the scene. The work gathers sorrow and resilience in equal measure and asks you to stay with both.
The Artist’s Path
Born in 1959 in Matanzas, Cuba, Campos-Pons threads cultural symbolism and personal narrative through everything she makes. She often brings Yoruba-derived Santería into dialogue with her own experiences in international contexts, allowing ritual, memory, and image to meet. Across time, her practice has remained rooted in heritage and a clear-eyed commitment to social concerns.
Key Works in Focus
Several touchstone pieces appear here. Spoken Softly with Mama (1998) is a contemplative installation that honors her family and the enduring bonds between generations. It’s intimate in tone and generous in spirit. Nearby, De Las Dos Aguas (2007) considers the currents of her family’s history while speaking to the layered nature of cultural identity. Together, these works demonstrate how she braids memory, image, and presence into a single, felt experience.
Contributions Beyond the Studio
Campos-Pons is also an organizer and advocate. She founded the Engine for Art, Democracy and Justice to foster collaboration among artistic and cultural institutions. The initiative encourages rigorous dialogue and insists on including a wide range of voices, keeping the arts connected to civic life.
Legacy and Recognition
In 2023, Campos-Pons received a MacArthur Fellowship recognizing the way she interweaves cultures and artistic forms to open space for social healing through art. Recent projects created during the pandemic—among them Miasma (2020) and Rise of the Butterflies (2021)—show her continuing to evolve, attentive to the urgencies of the moment while remaining grounded in history.
Exhibition Credits and Supporters
Behold is a collaborative endeavor organized by the Brooklyn Museum and the J. Paul Getty Museum, with curatorial choices that reflect the complexity of Campos-Pons’s practice. The exhibition is supported by multiple organizations and partners, helping sustain the visibility of her voice in today’s art landscape.
Frequently Asked Questions
What themes run through the exhibition?
Behold traces María Magdalena Campos-Pons’s long career while centering identity, migration, the legacies of enslavement, and race—subjects she approaches through personal history and cultural memory.
Where is the exhibition on view?
The Frist Art Museum is presenting Behold, bringing together a sweeping selection of Campos-Pons’s works across media.
What media does Campos-Pons work with?
Her practice spans photography, painting, video, and performance. In the exhibition, you’ll also encounter sketches and recorded performances that extend those approaches.
Who organized Behold?
The exhibition was collaboratively organized by the Brooklyn Museum and the J. Paul Getty Museum, reflecting a shared curatorial effort to present the full range of her work.
What recent recognition has she received?
In 2023, María Magdalena Campos-Pons was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for her cross-cultural, interdisciplinary practice and its engagement with social healing through art.
