Will Red Grooms’ whimsical, wonderful Tennessee Fox Trot Carousel ride again?

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — For a few years at the turn of this century, Nashville was home to a remarkable carousel.

Described by its artist-creator Red Grooms as a sculpto-pictorama, the “horses” were 36 whimsical figures related to Tennessee. Legendary country musician Chet Atkins rode the neck of a guitar. Davy Crockett wrestled a bear. You could even ride a chigger, a summer mite that latches onto ankles causing an intense itch.

The Tennessee Fox Trot Carousel was magical but was perhaps in the wrong place at the wrong time, perched on the riverfront at the edge of downtown Nashville when the area was up-and-coming but not quite the tourist draw of today. When it could no longer support itself financially, the carousel was disassembled and given over to the care of the Tennessee State Museum, which placed it in a storage facility where it sits to this day.

Now, more than 20 years later, momentum is building for the carousel to ride again.

A carousel that has lived in memory longer than it was in operation

Tennessee State Museum Executive Director Ashley Howell says the question she most commonly hears from the public is: “What about the Red Grooms carousel?”

The museum was planning a grand new building when it took custody of the ride, but it didn’t create an area for the carousel due to a lack of funds, Howell said. The new museum opened in downtown Nashville in 2018 with a retrospective of Grooms’ work but no carousel.

In November, the museum put out feelers for private parties interested in “partnering with the Museum in the restoration, placement, and operation of the Red Grooms Fox Trot Carousel.”

Howell, who took the top job at the museum in 2017, said she had planned to turn her attention to the carousel sooner, but was hindered by twin disasters in 2020: A tornado clipped the new museum and destroyed a storage building then, just days later, the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down.

However, all the questions about the carousel’s return underscore “how beloved this work of art is to the community,” she said.

“It was only on the riverfront for a short time, but it has sort of lived in memory much longer than it was in operation,” Howell said. “We’re excited to think about next steps.”

Raising a Ruckus

Grooms, who was born in Nashville in 1937, left the city after high school and spent most of his career in New York.

His work is colorful and whimsical, and he often creates large installations that viewers can enter and touch.

One of his best known exhibits is Ruckus Manhattan, from 1976. The New York Times described it as “a walk‐in carnival reconstruction of Manhattan landmarks and the sometimes bizarre fauna that inhabit them,” including a subway car that was “a form of participation theater.”

Marina Pacini, who curated a Grooms exhibit for the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in 2016, said he is really a storyteller whose work is filled with “absolutely riveting” details.

“They operate on multiple levels, but you do not have to be an art expert in order to enjoy unpacking what’s going on in them,” she said, adding: “People adore his work.”

While selecting pieces for the exhibit, Pacini visited the carousel in storage. She said it was hard to choose from among them.

“The generosity of him making something like a carousel — that he put that much thought and effort into the individual characters and into how he defined them — and then to create them into something that you can actually climb on! I mean, most people go to museums and you’re not allowed to touch anything,” she said. “Here you are, you’re actually getting to climb onto a work of art. How much more fun could it possibly be?”

Grooms, who is 89 years old, did not respond to questions about the carousel.

Carnival ride or fine art?

Some of Grooms’ biggest fans and collectors are in Nashville, so when his Manhattan gallery closed a few years ago, he moved his representation to David Lusk, who operates galleries in Nashville and Memphis.

An exhibition last year of drawings and ephemera from the making of the Fox Trot Carousel reminded people about the carousel, Lusk said.

He said the question remains as to “whether it’s an artwork or whether it’s meant for people to be straddling and riding it.”

If it has to be restored like an Old Master painting, then the cost is likely prohibitive. But if the goal is for it to be a working carousel, it need not be in pristine museum condition.

“He’s pretty assured that it is in good shape and ready to go again. So it’s just frustrating that it’s not out there for people to enjoy,” Lusk said. “Red wants it used — looked at, used, loved.”