The Parthenon
25th at West End Ave,
Centennial Park,
Nashville, TN 37201
(615) 862-8431
Map

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Visit the Parthenon website: www.parthenon.org

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HOURS OF OPERATION
The Parthenon is open year round Tuesday - Saturday, 9:00 - 4:30.
Admission: $6.00 for Adults and $3.50 for Seniors (age 62 and over) and Students (ages 4-17), Children under 4 are free. Prices and hours subject to change without notice.
Closed New Year's, Thanksgiving, and Christmas
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The Metro Board of Parks and Recreation does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, sex, color, national origin, or disability in admission, access to, or operations of its programs, services, or activities. For TTY (relay service), call 1-800-849-0299. For questions, concerns, or requests regarding the American Disabilities Act call 862-8400.
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The Parthenon stands proudly as the centerpiece of Centennial Park, Nashville's premier urban park. The re-creation of the 42-foot statue Athena is the focus of the Parthenon just as it was in ancient Greece. The building and the Athena statue are both full-scale replicas of the Athenian originals.
Originally built for Tennessee's 1897 Centennial Exposition, this replica of the original Parthenon in Athens serves as a monument to what is considered the pinnacle of classical architecture. The plaster replicas of the Parthenon Marbles found in the Naos are direct casts of the original sculptures which adorned the pediments of the Athenian Parthenon, dating back to 438 B.C. The originals of these powerful fragments are housed in the British Museum in London.
The Parthenon also serves as the city of Nashville's art museum. The focus of the Parthenon's permanent collection is a group of 63 paintings by 19th and 20th century American artists donated by James M. Cowan. Additional gallery spaces provide a venue for a variety of temporary shows and exhibits.

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Exhibitions:

Heliotrope
Floating Earth Art Sculpture Installation Scheduled for Lake Watauga
Early September through end of November

Nashville artist and Vanderbilt Professor David Wood has agreed to install his Heliotrope, a piece of floating Earth Art, in Centennial Park’s Lake Watauga for three months. The piece bears witness to our increasing dependence on the daily energy of the sun and commemorates this year’s flooding in Nashville by marking a more harmonious relation to water.

The piece was briefly installed at the University of Richmond in the spring of 2010 and will be in Lake Watauga, in the shadow of the Parthenon, until the end of November. Wood was particularly drawn to this site by the formal echoes of the radial pattern of Heliotrope in the fountains and water features of the lake, as well as the circular viewing area. “The radial symmetry of Heliotrope will resonate well with the classical vertical lines of the Parthenon,” he said.

Heliotrope is made of wood, steel, aluminum, rope and wire and is thirty-six feet in diameter. It consists of forty sixteen-foot wedges joined together in the shape of a sunflower. Each wedge is topped with shiny aluminum discs that sparkle in the sun.

David Wood is professor of philosophy and of art at Vanderbilt University. His most recent large scale works have been Weerewaa Vortex (2009), Lake George near Canberra, Australia, and Spiral Resonance Field (2009), at the Balloon Museum, Albuquerque, and the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, part of New Mexico’s Land Art project. He has a lively relation with the legacy of Robert Smithson, recharting the journey recorded in “Incidents of Mirror-Travel in the Yucatan” (1969), and temporarily adding a new layer to Spiral Jetty. He also buries Chronopods around the world, marking place and history. Wood is the director of Yellow Bird Sculpture Park (also an Artists Retreat & Wildlife Refuge), an ongoing project located in Woodbury, TN.

The installation of Heliotrope involves students from Wood’s Environmental Ethics class and the Department of Art at Vanderbilt, as well as various graduate students, friends and colleagues. Heliotrope will be installed in early September in cooperation with Parthenon Director Wesley Paine and Parks Assistant Director for Consolidated Maintenance Mike Bays.

For further information please contact Dr. David Wood at david.c.wood@vanderbilt.edu

WOMEN IN MYTHOLOGY: The Power of the Feminine in Ancient Tales
Paintings by Rachael McCampbell
THE PARTHENON, East Gallery
July 17- November 27, 2010

Opening Reception, Friday, July 23, 2010 6-8 pm
The reception is sponsored by SunTrust Bank, Nashville

As water rose through the front door of Rachael McCampbell’s home and studio in Leiper’s Fork, friends struggled to get her large-scale paintings for this exhibition upstairs and away from the rising waters. The house and studio were heavily damaged but the paintings were saved. McCampbell has found a temporary place to paint and prepare for this exhibit. The show, of course, must go on.

The Parthenon is excited to announce a new show by local artist Rachael McCampbell on “Women in Mythology.” This collection of large-scale, contemporary paintings, which depict goddesses in various scenes from Greek mythology, is a perfect complement to the Parthenon, the world famous temple to the goddess Athena. McCampbell has chosen to illustrate moments when the mythological women display both great strengths and weaknesses, moments of glory and despair. She was first inspired by Greek goddesses when she frequented the Getty Museum in her former home, Los Angeles. One statue in particular, Leda and the Swan, with its sensuous lines and shapes, inspired her to initiate a series of her own interpretations of these myths. “Their stories and struggles are archetypal and timeless and relate to women even today. Our examination of the human condition through myths and stories is something we never tire of,” McCampbell says.

Anne Christeson, Latin and French teacher at Montgomery Bell Academy, has spent years studying Greek and Roman mythology and is the academic consultant for McCampbell and this show. “McCampbell has made these ageless stories come to life. Each painting vividly narrates an important moment in the mythic history of these goddesses and women. The images show them both as living beings and as symbols of the eternal power and influence of the feminine throughout man’s history.”

The artist will also work on a triptych in the gallery on Fridays in August, 1:00-3:00 PM. Gallery visitors will be able to observe the process of this accomplished artist as she paints.

Please join us for an artist’s reception on, Friday, July 23rd from 6-8 pm. Opening remarks by Anne Christeson, Academic Advisor, will begin at approximately 7:00 PM. This reception, sponsored by SunTrust Bank of Nashville, is free and open to the public.


SPATIAL SCHEMES: OBSERVATIONS OF NATURE: Paintings by LISA RIVAS
July 10-October 30, 2010
West Gallery

The Parthenon is pleased to announce a new exhibition of artwork by Nashville artist Lisa Rivas.

Rivas creates large computer-generated prints on rice paper. “She actively paints with technology, layer upon layer, creating a complex environment. The shapes find their origins in Nature manipulated with the latest technology,” Curator Susan Shockley states.

Rivas visually dives into the landscape she wishes to portray, showing us a detail of what is already a detail. She repeats the shape she chooses with delicate and precise drawing. This is especially evident in Las Botanicas, which is a series of 10 x 10” natural shapes arranged in a grouping to create a large design, just as the small parts of nature create the larger ecosystem. Her vitally colored images, based on natural forms and shapes, suggest the repetition found in Nature. This concept of repetition is well known in mathematics as the Golden Mean. The Parthenon’s architectural proportions also conform to the Golden Mean.

Lisa Rivas holds a graphic design degree from The Hans Neumann School of Graphic Design in Caracas, Venezuela. She also earned a BFA in Fiber from Memphis School of Art, Memphis, Tennessee. She completed graduate work at The Appalachian Center for Crafts in Tennessee and the Instituto Allende in Mexico.

• Please join us for an artist’s reception on Friday, July 16, from 6-8 p.m. This reception is free and open to the public.

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THE PARTHENON TO PARTICIPATE IN HERITAGE PRESERVATION'S CONSERVATION ASSESSMENT PROGRAM

Heritage Preservation is pleased to announce that the Parthenon has been chosen to participate in the 2009 Conservation Assessment Program (CAP). The Parthenon joins the 2,400 museums that have participated in CAP since the program began in 1990. Heritage Preservation's CAP is supported through a cooperative agreement with the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services. CAP assists museums by providing funds for professional conservation and preservation specialists to identify the conservation needs of their collections and historic buildings and recommend ways to correctly improve collections and building conditions. Heritage Preservation's President, Lawrence L. Reger, praised the Parthenon for "making the vital work of caring for collections and sites a priority at their institution and helping ensure that they are available to present and future generations."

CAP provides a general conservation assessment of the museum's collections and building. Professional conservators will spend two days surveying the site and three days writing comprehensive reports that will identify conservation priorities. The on-site consultation will enable the Parthenon to evaluate its current collections care policies, procedures, and environmental conditions. The assessment reports will help the museum make appropriate improvements for the immediate, mid-range, and long-range care of their collections and building. "The Parthenon is very pleased to receive the CAP grant," says Museum Director Wesley Paine. "Participating in this program will enable us to fulfill our mandate to ensure that the building and the art objects it contains are preserved for future generations to enjoy."