Saturday, January 26, 2019

Where?






Where can you find a collection of works from Anita Cook, visit a solo exhibition from Esther Murphy or Leslie Friedman? Where can you discover an artist you never heard of? ... in the Arts District Saint Claude. Its website recently published offers a list of galleries, collectives and more.
Starting at Good Children Gallery, Leslie Friedman's solo show Yaddah Yaddah Yaddah fills the front and back of the gallery space with screen prints on various materials and a video. The print maker addresses an endless subject through her pop art: "identity, social inclusion and exclusion". Belonging to a group validates our status in a society and is key to our identity. Jackets, flags, patches, decorated helmets or "fish chandeliers" provide a way to join a group made of "all those skipped over". The artist is not only making art, her pieces become a membership to this "new gang on the block" and the video is a personal invitation. Somewhat disconnected with the exhibition's theme, abstract geometric black and white screen prints with decorative shapes and patterns complete the display. 
Humor spreads from The Front, featuring thirty one women comic artists with "stories concerning their bodies and experiences in patriarchal society", to Antenna Gallery where Natalie McLaurin shares her new experience with motherhood through sculptures and drawings. Far from the serenity displayed by nursing Madonnas, her reality appears filled with pain, frustration and guilt. Breastfeeding is not easy, humor helps!
Nearby, BrickRed Gallery offers a display of photographs from Esther Murphy. The exhibition's title Orekticos I refers to the word orectic, "concerning desire, appetite". Influenced by her recent year-long stay in China, her luscious, exuberant still lifes reach beyond photography and in the genre's tradition include symbols like decaying fruits or citrus peels. The artist's compositions remind of the best chinoiseries made popular in France in the eighteenth century and beyond... with a twist.
Anita Cook is represented by fifteen works at the New Orleans Art Center. Her practice is about lines, texture, sometimes colors and ultimately rhythm. For example, the busy cityscape City Streets/Control Panel made of juxtaposed small squares contrast with the waves of Windswept/ Ohio Fields in Winter. The undated works on display represent different series or processes per Cook's website. Three of Not Your Mother's Apron series, older works, are more actual than ever. The show allows an overview of her work spanning decades and underline her tight connection to the city. In one of her statement Cook describes "the energy of the process" to create the dense compositions which take several years to produce. 
In the back of the gallery, one can find the works from D. Nuego who gathers left over packing material like Styrofoam as his media to carve giant monochrome sculptures weighting only a few pounds. Like a true outsider, D. Nuego is not found on the Internet or social media. His mythical creations with Spanish titles appear to be inspired by Mayan art  and refer to animals, objects or places.
The UNO Saint-Claude gallery is a great venue to meditate this month. Two videos ensure a visual as well as auditory experience with the acoustic music composed by Jane Cassidy.

So... Cross the railroad and visit the Arts District Saint Claude, there is more to see ...






photographs by the author: 
"Yaddah Backdrop" from Leslie Friedman
Anita Cook: "ColorWheel, from the InsideOut" from Quilt Series. 


Friday, January 18, 2019

The Art of Curating





If a cursory look can titillate a visitor's interest, ultimately an exhibition's content makes the visit memorable. Hive Mind at Loyola University's Diboll Gallery is a show that offers both: a strong visual impression and a rich compelling display. Curated through the collaborative effort of twenty three undergraduate students, it assembles the works of fifteen graduate artists, and includes paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos and small installations.
The white space on the top floor of the building, above the library, is bathing in natural light on one side and artificial light on the other. Its center is surrounded by a sort of semi-circle walkway. Rendere: Pouring myself out to render...life, 2013, a large piece from Luba Zygarewicz, faces the entrance, floating in the air. The fragile construction made of bee wax with a single word "life" painted in red on it, projects a web-like shadow on the panel behind it. Heaps of colored used tea, remnants from the artist's consumption, are lined up below it. Her second piece found nearby is eye-catching as well. A Thousand Wishes, 2017, is a dress made of used teabags, hanging from the ceiling to the floor, spreading like a train. Starting on the left, a wall text describes the exhibition and provides a list of the artists' and curators' names. Smaller framed works like photographs, prints, watercolors, needlepoint, are hung on the columns supporting the structure and are usually grouped by artists. Sculptures on pedestals fill empty areas, allowing a view on all sides. Peter Barnitz is well represented with five of his unique compositions scattered from the entrance to the back. Three of Esther Murphy's colorful photographs made in 2017, inspired by her year long stay in China, are next to each other, across one of Barnitz's monochrome black work, while a fourth is found further amid works from Michel Varisco and Jenna Knoblach. Lighter, humorous prints from Dianna Sanchez are spread throughout the show. The selected pieces reflect the artists' practices, sometimes with smaller works for Carlie Trosclair, due to the constraints imposed by the space.
The artists are known, some works were previously displayed in other venues, Contemporary Art Center, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, galleries,..., or are available to look at on the web.
The exhibition provides a way to rediscover them in a different context, through the fresh eyes and the hive mind of undergraduate students.




photographs by the author:
Luba Zygarewicz "A Thousand Wishes", 2017
Peter Barnitz "Amid the Strikes" (detail), 2016
Erica Larkin Gaudet "Reclining Figure Maquette", 2018