The building’s Tennessee marble cladding was cleaned and restored, and the entry plaza and third floor terrace were rebuilt and repaved with pink and gray Vermont granite.

Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in East Tennessee is a permanent exhibition that highlights the works of noted native artists such as Lloyd Branson, Catherine Wiley, Joseph Delaney, Beauford Delaney, and Bessie Harvey, as well as major artists from outside the region who produced significant work in the Knoxville area, such as Ansel Adams and Elliot Porter.

A new permanent exhibition of modern and contemporary studio glass highlights a collection area growing in strength, with important works by Harvey Littleton, Karen LaMonte, Andrew Erdos, and William Morris.

In the Spring of 2014, the museum unveiled a permanent glass installation Richard Jolley, Cycle of Life: Within the Power of Dreams and the Wonder of Infinity.

[4] The museum supplements and complements its core permanent installations with a lively schedule of temporary exhibitions that explore aspects of regional culture and its relation to national and international artistic developments.

The museum has featured solo exhibitions by contemporary artists such as Anne Wilson, Jun Kaneko, Candida Höfer, Maya Lin, Jim Campbell, Anton Vidokle, Johanna Billing, Eva Zeisel, Chuck Close, and Ai Weiwei.

The KMA has organized solo exhibitions of work by artists such as Liz Collins, Tam Van Tran, Oliver Payne and Nick Relph, Clare Rojas, Sarah Hobbs, Michael Raedecker, Timothy Horn, Seonna Hong, and Tomory Dodge.