Quilts and coverlets have always been a feature in folk art museums, but increasingly they’re the subject of exhibitions in mainstream museums. This show, which features nearly 50 quilts, looks at the stories these patchwork pieces tell, the ways they reflect American history, and how they answer the questions: “What is American? Who is American?” Works date back to the 1800s and come up to the present day, and they were made by people of both European and African descent. Expect to see mind-bending geometries, sophisticated abstraction, and pictorial imagery. As part of the Frist’s Art in the Atrium series, three contemporary textile works by the Nashville-based artists Shabazz and Ashley Larkin will be on display in an adjacent space. —Laura Jacobs