Arcade Arts Nashville, an organization whose goal is to create and sustain a well-supported home for the visual arts in the heart of downtown Nashville, launched last week with a special gallery show at its location in the historic Nashville institution, The Arcade.

More than 250 guests, including Mayor Freddie O’Connell, came to the celebration at the new arts center, located on the top floor of the newly renovated Nashville Arcade at 223 4th Avenue North between 4th and 5th Avenues, Arcade Arts.  The guests toured the studio spaces for Arcade Arts Nashville’s Artists in Residence, where visitors can engage with artists actively creating their work in a variety of media, an exhibition space for artists to display their work, and frequent curated art programs. Local galleries displayed their art and will continue to do so every Friday and Saturday from 1:00-6:00pm through August, and on Art Crawl Saturdays, July 6 and August 3, from 6:00-9:00pm.

Arcade Arts announced a call for artists, open through August 5, which will conclude with a juried selection panel. Selected artists will be in residence for six months at the Arcade Arts studios, beginning in October 2024. In addition to offering free rent for the studio space, Arcade Arts will organize and promote curated art events including workshops and exhibitions, artist talks, a monthly Art Crawl, curated gallery shows of participating artists, and other programming that engages and fosters a robust arts scene while creating a diverse community of emerging and established artists who support and champion one another.

Executive Director Mollye Brown announced the open call at the recent Art Between the Avenues launch event at the studios.  “Our mission at Arcade Arts is to build and create a long-term home for the visual arts here in the Arcade,” she stated. “This is a home for artist studios, a home for artistic and educational programming that will engage all of us in the visual arts. Through our Artist in Residence Program, these fabulous spaces will become a collection of 10 working artist studios. Here we will create a diverse community of emerging and established artists who will support and champion one another.”

Galleries participating are CE Gallery, Chauvet Arts, COOP Gallery, curated by Evan Roosevelt Brown, Electric Shed, Elephant Gallery, Forge, Gallerie Tangerine, Random Sample, Red Arrow Gallery, Tinney Contemporary, the TSU Hiram Van Gordon Gallery.

Arcade Arts Nashville was founded from a desire to create and participate in meaningful collaborations that contribute to the elevation of the visual arts in Nashville, and to provide an affordable, safe, sustainable, and cooperative working environment for working artists.