Best Wishes 2021

Should mending the sky be our New Year's resolution? The title of the exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art Mending the Sky is timely and poetic. The allegory alludes to an ancient Chinese tale in which the goddess creator of mankind repairs a rip on the sky to stop calamities. Like all fables, it is simple but profound, timeless and universal. Eleven artists participate to the show which combines paintings, fiber art, videos, installations, sculptures and a musical performance.

Although the installation from Beili Liu is most enticing, for my second visit I saw the show in reverse, walking toward a huge tableau from Firelei Báez I had almost missed the first time. Superimposed on an architectural drawing, a strange creature takes over the foreground, arched backward between two tracks from the Illinois Central Railroad. The curves of the body and the headdress made of luxurious palms and tropical flowers contrast with the blend colors and sober lines of the blueprint. A mass of water on the left side (Bonnet Carré  Spillway) spills over the track and fills the vanishing point. The ciguapa, a Dominican mythological figure, seems to push against the flood with her feet. Allegory of nature versus human, the picture also alludes to the Great Migration facilitated by the construction of the railroad. Is the ciguapa also protecting the souls of the enslaved persons buried in the two cemeteries submerged under the spillway? Not only the composition is filled with a rich narrative fed by history, it also relates to the present as a reminder of nature's wrath. 

In the next two weaved pieces, water is looked at as a benevolent element sustaining communities, a sort of gold for the poor. Encontro das Aguas (Meeting of Waters), 2016-2018, from Clarissa Tossin, refers to mighty rivers: Nile, Amazon, Yangtze, Mississippi, evoked by a long blue ribbon meandering on a chevron patterned background, widening at the bottom for the delta. Satellite photographs of the rivers are printed on vinyl, providing the material to weave for this work, a reflection on rivers' local and global impact. On the wall, If you feed a river, 2019, from Diedrick Brackens has biblical undertones, depicting fishes swimming in a stream which connects two half bodies, one appears female on the right, the other male on the left. Adam and Eve? A symbolic scene about water, source of life. In the same room, Burnout in Shredded Heaven, 2018-2019, a "Munchean" closed composition from Heidi Hahn depicts the emotionally charged interaction between two women. Across the room, in A Sense of Memory, 2015, made in wood, metal and glass, Ana Hernandez looks at patterns found on wood and the brain convolutions, to find connections between "rhythms of nature and our thoughts, memories and dreams".

The three channel video installation from Thao Nguyen Phan provides a fifteen minutes interlude. It brings us to a faraway land (Vietnam) in a remote time. Between reality depicted by gruesome films and photographs from the famine (1940-1949), and folktales illustrated by hand-drawn animations, we are told about a story of starvation, resilience and hope. Lost in the dark between the five screens of Un chemin escarpé/ A steep path, 2018, from Jamilah Sabur, I stayed confused by the images of this ambitious work which "draws upon metaphysics, geology, and familial ties to reframe the landscape and history of the Caribbean".   

In the next gallery, at floor level, the convoluted roots of a tree pop out of the wall anchored on a metal support. Strength and fragility, Lore, 2017, from Lorna Williams is about us and where we come from. The third video Braidrage, 2017, from Baseera Khan should be a performance which had to be curtailed during the pandemic. If it looses some of its spontaneity, its physicality still transpires as we watch the artist climb a rock-wall. Grasping casts of her own body, loosing her grip, grunting at times, her slow ascend culminates with the view of a thick braid of human hair falling from the ceiling to the floor. Beyond the hairpieces' trade, the artist denounces the exploitation of women in the third world to feed our consumerism. 

Walking through Beili Liu's After All / Mending The Sky is a great way to start or finish the visit, or both. The light blue clouds weighted by thousands of needles gently swayed by the air flow, gleaming under the skylights, is a poetic interpretation of a Chinese tale about repairing a broken world. 

Natural calamities, human disasters are worldwide and it is fitting that the selected participants come from a cosmopolitan background, yet one can regret that  male artists are underrepresented, perpetuating the idea of females in charge of comforting, mending, healing.

Time to pick up a needle.  

photographs by the author

Beili Liu "After All / Mending The Sky", 2018-ongoing

Lorna Williams "Lore", 2017

Firelei Báez "the trace, whether we are attending to it or not (a space for each other's breathing)", 2019

Plastic and Porcelain at NOMA

"Stunting" Garniture Set, 2020, from Roberto Lugo, commissioned by the New Orleans Museum of Art is now on view in the Elise M. Besthoff Charitable Foundation Gallery, previous site of the exhibition The Quilts of Gee's Bend. The new addition will become a permanent installation within the decorative galleries in April 2021. Born and raised in a poor Philadelphia neighborhood, Roberto Lugo was a graffiti artist early on. He is presently best known for his use of porcelain as a medium for his socially engaged pieces and is the first ceramicist to have been awarded the Rome Prize (2019).

The sculptural triptych combines three Grecian pillar-pedestals. The highest in the middle supports a replica of a golden tank and on both sides, richly decorated vessels featuring a semi-profile of Louis Armstrong on the left and Lil Wayne on the right, set in white medallions. Baffled at first by the image of Armstrong next to a war machine, I was reassured by the wall text: the tank refers to No Limit Soldiers, a "group of hip-hop artists responsible for coining the sound of  Southern Rap". Beyond music and musicians, the rococo vessels painted in iconic bleu-de-roi are an unmistakable reference to Sèvres porcelain, the French kings' china. One of the golden handles represents an outsized trumpet for Louis Armstrong while Lil Wayne is surrounded by a massive chain necklace with a huge cross. The urns decorated with the artists' distinctive attributes could contain their ashes. They are set on crumbling neo-classical pillars in fake blue marble made of earthenware and plastic. Gold paint seeps from their cracks like blood from wounds.  

Reflecting on the kitschy piece about two New Orleans icons and a hip-hop group, one finds out that it has little to do with music. The title "Stunting" borrowed from street slang, meaning showing off, (jewelry, cars, clothes...) next to "Garniture Set", a term used to describe a display of precious china on a salon's mantelpiece, introduces various means of claiming status, through a composition blending low and high art. With his selection of African American artists from poor backgrounds reaching the pinnacle of fame and media mixing plastic and porcelain, the artist sees his practice as a challenge to the establishment. Featuring African American musicians born in the city, neo-classical columns a reminder of its architecture, and French china of its history, makes the work a "native" from New Orleans. A single edition will be displayed at New Orleans Museum of Art.

I cannot wait to see the piece embedded in the permanent collection, bringing a whiff of the street to the museum.

photograph by the author

Gone to the Fair

This month saw the first online edition of Frieze New York. Starting the 8th of May, the week long event allowed plenty of time to visit the two hundred and thirty nine galleries and view more than four thousand works of art. The visit could start by selecting a list of sites according to location (every continent was represented minus Antarctica), section (Spolight, Non profit, Main Galleries, Dialogos, ...), artist gender (Female, Male, Transgender, Non-binary or Other), price bracket or medium.
The registration was free and allowed to enter the "viewing rooms" which also provided direct access to the galleries' websites.
I relish visiting art fairs, Frieze London, FIAC, Miami Art Basel, The Armory Show, this time, I logged into Frieze New York, alone in front of my computer.
Color distortion, loss of texture, fuzzy lines, skewed depth, size, missing shadows and reflections, among the drawbacks of looking at photographs of artworks, the lack of physical interaction is the most frustrating for me. During my repeated visits to the online platform, I appreciated pieces from artists I encountered at previous shows but new ones stayed mute. I most likely would have just given a glance at a painting from Torkwase Dyson featured by Pace Gallery, if I had not seen the exhibition Torkwase Dyson: Black Compositional Thought/ 15 Paintings for the Plantatiocene at the New Orleans Museum of Art before its temporary closure. Looking at the image of a midnight blue and black composition filled with white geometric drawings on the screen, I would have missed the spiritual dimension of her work by skipping the act of contemplation which can only occur in front of the real thing. A photograph of James Turrell's light piece brought back memories of my visit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the adventure of going through the exhibition James Turrell: a Retrospective, bathing in colors, disoriented at times. I kept clicking my mouse for more.
Of course the fair on line has some advantages, especially for collectors, with prices displayed next to most artworks' photographs and I was able to visit daily for a whole week. I even fantasized about owning paintings I could not afford by projecting them on the white walls of my living room, thanks to AR (augmented reality) available on the Frieze New York app.

The new immersive technology (AR) is creeping in the art world making its debut at the fair with its own section called "Acute Art". The  website of the same name was launched timely in March and is described as "a new art platform that transforms the way we collect, trade and live with art". Indeed. After downloading the app and some practice, I was able to experience free digital art samples, small versions of COMPANION (EXPANDED), graffiti (sounds included) from  KAWS and objects from a "cabinet of curiosities" called AR WUNDERKAMMER created by Olafur Eliasson. It was fun to decorate walls with clouds, rainbows, or arrange virtual sculptures of COMPANION on the floor. Like in a magical world, objects would appear and disappear with a glide of my fingers while my eyes stayed glued to the screen of my phone. The business part happens on the website: for 10,000 dollars, I could own a 1.8 meter sculpture (edition of 25) from KAWS, download it on the app and project my newly acquired piece of art in my surroundings. Next, I could send pictures (shot with my phone camera) to my friends and share them on social media. Of course, I would receive a digital certificate of authenticity. Later, when tired of the work or to get my money back, I could sell it again on the site and feed a secondary market. The simple operation offers a way to trade art while bypassing galleries, fairs and auction houses.
How will this new field evolve? Future will tell, but museums have already adopted VR, AR, and we can predict that smartphones will multiply when they reopen. Will artists change their practice to adapt to this new technology?
It's a brand new world, but I can't wait to visit the next fair in the flesh.

photographs by the author:

Painting from Torkwase Dyson at the New Orleans Museum of Art

COURAGEOUS FLOWERS from Olafur Eliasson and AT THIS TIME (EXPANDED) from KAWS in my living room

THE SCOTTS from KAWS in my living room.

Worth a Thousand Words

Lately, climate change is on the news almost daily it seems, heightening our awareness of the phenomenon and its consequences on the planet and ultimately our lives. Tina Freeman's interest in glaciers was triggered by Brett Weston's photographs of Alaska in the seventies and brought her to visit the remote state in 1989. For the past seven years, she has spent time on a project which culminates with the exhibition Lamentations on view at the New Orleans Museum of Art. From the Wetlands of Louisiana where she was born and raised to the Arctic and Antarctica, she explores nature's changes  through twenty-seven photographic diptychs accompanied by charts and data.

An introductory wall text provides the key to the exhibition and next to it, two nautical charts from Southern Louisiana (1934, 2019) placed side by side illustrate the loss of land, so does a list of locations removed from the charts (2011). The diptychs are hung on the walls of the gallery's four rooms with date and location of the shots, leaving the visitor wander at leisure from one scene to another. Each is made of the juxtaposition of a southern and a polar landscape. The seamless transition between the two images makes it appear as if they had been shot at once. Taken at different time and place, they always have some kind of connection: subject (cemeteries, glacial lagoon and freshwater marsh, whaling station and oil tanks), shape (sea ice breaking and wetland, floating iceberg and cypress tree) or color (orange sunset and oil booms). The photographer "sees" beyond the landscapes and her technical mastery allows her to play with scales and perspectives to reveal compositions invisible to the untrained eye. Among more than fifty images, the closest hints of human or animal presence are cemeteries and the skeleton of a musk ox, as Freeman concentrates on the quiet world of nature. The end of the exhibition features a list of retreating glaciers (2138!) and a single aerial photograph of the Mississippi River flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.

The connections between distant lands affected by the same phenomenon, i.e. climate change, are documented by the artist through photographs of places we will most likely never visit. Acting as a witness on our behalf, she explores a threatened natural world and reveals its accelerating changes. The stark data accompanying the poetic, dramatic, beautiful, sometimes dreary images make comments superfluous and the long list of places already gone written in white on a black background is fit for a funerary monument.
Lamentations, a biblical term, expresses the grief felt upon the realization that the changes witnessed are most likely irreversible, impacting the future of our planet.

pic#1:
Left: 20140222_Dritvik_016
Ice along a stream, western Iceland
Right: 20130911_Louisiana_Deltas_270
Healthy marsh along the lower Mississippi River, just West of South Pass

pic#2:
Left: 20111203_Deception_Island_037-3
Deception Island, Antarctica
Right: 20060531KatrinaEastbank217
Cemetery near Violet, Louisiana, in the Katrina aftermath

pic#3:
Left: 20130819_Iceland_058
Glacial outflow, southeastern Iceland
Right: 20130911_Louisiana_Deltas_566
Sediment near Wax Lake, Louisiana

Ongoing at NOMA

The new exhibition Bodies of Knowledge at the New Orleans Museum of Art offers a display of videos, photographs, installations, in the galleries on the first floor and a number of related events including curators lead gallery visits, artists talks, musical and dance performances, site activation, movies through October 13th. Eleven artists contribute to the show, some internationally renowned like William Kentridge, others locally based like filmmaker Garrett Bradley. The "role that language plays in archiving and asserting our cultural identities" is the theme developed by the artists through diverse media.

Opening night brought an enthusiastic crowd to attend the first event, a dance performance in five movements choreographed by Edward Spots and Donna Crump. With the Great Hall and its staircase as a backdrop, Black Magic culminated with a celebration  of black culture's beauty and joy. The vision of Spots shadowing Rodin's famous sculpture L' Age d'airain, 1877, was enthralling.
Of course, it was not a propitious night for an in-depth visit and the twelve stills from Garrett Bradley's film America hung along the Great Hall's walls were unreachable. A few days later, a walk-through the exhibition started with Black Mask, 2012, the video from Wilmer Wilson IV facing the gallery's entrance. During its six minutes length, the artist slowly covers his face including eyes, ears, mouth, with black Post-it notes until they sculpt a black mask and then removes them all but one, revealing his visage, reborn. In Family Tree, 2000, the Chinese artist Zhang Huan now living in New York City is also in front of a camera for a day-long performance documented in nine giant photographs of his face eventually concealed by layers of selected texts of personal thoughts, family stories and Chinese folktales written in black ink by calligraphers.The wall texts are informative and relate the artist's intend to underline the body as bearer of identity. On a lighter note, Wilson lampoons hurried tourists in six booklets of blurry photographs. Taken in diverse cities like Paris, Philadelphia, New Orleans,..., they feature monuments, known places, in fuzzy images reflecting the sightseers' confused memories back home.
In the main gallery, William Kentridge who trained as an actor early on, tells a story in five acts. Zeno Writing, 2002, is a video made of archival film footage, shadow puppets, writings, drawings, short animated films accompanied by a sound track from Kevin Volans. Filled with historical references, packed with texts and graphics, it takes several viewings to appreciate its diverse facets and its life lesson: our trivial pursuits are futile swept by the course of history. It all ends in smoke (last picture of the video), death is unavoidable so is the annihilation of the world. "Smoke, Ashes, Fable? Where are they all now? Perhaps they are not even fable."
Nearby, Memento, 2013/2019, from Adriana Corral can be called a funerary installation. The site specific piece includes two horizontal panels along the walls bearing a long list of  names and on the floor, a thin coat of ashes from burned documents laid in the shape of a plot. It denounces the disappearance of women subjected to violence in Central and South America. Compounding the tragedy of their life and death, the names obtained through classified documents are illegible and the victims stay anonymous, lost for eternity.
How to find beauty and peace after war? Wafaa Bilal's four photographs from the Ashes Series, 2003-2013, are pictures of models of houses destroyed during the Gulf War. The Iraqi-American artist has selected a grand piano surrounded by debris, an abandoned swimming pool and living rooms covered with gravels. The scenes are eerily quiet, filled with the vestiges of violence. His ongoing project 168:01, 2016, is about the future and the white empty books lined up on the white bookshelves are rapidly replaced by colorful publications about art donated by the visitors to rebuild the library of The College of Fine Arts at the University of Baghdad looted during the war. They are all written in English (one is in Chinese) and if the eager donors offer the gift of knowledge, the choice of books brings up the question of acculturation.
More ashes, this time from burned silk paper are randomly spread on a wall and interact with music for the site specific installation  from Manon Bellet Brèves Braises. Musical events are scheduled throughout the length of the exhibition and include performances by students from NOCCA. A photograph from Shirin Neshat's Rapture Series, 1999, featuring Muslim women wearing chadors with inscriptions in Farsi on the palm of their hands is a resume of her work, mainly films, which will be projected throughout the coming months.
The last piece America, 2019, is an immersive multi-channel video installation from Garrett Bradley. A mixture of archival material and Bradley's own short films featuring non-actors from New Orleans, the thirty minutes black and white film projected simultaneously on three screens is a succession of beautiful images, a celebration of African American silent film. The thorough review from Devika Girish is a must read before or after the visit.
The richness of the exhibition can be overwhelming and one tour will not be enough to absorb all the material available. The ongoing performances are the occasion to discover different aspects of the works and each visit brings a new experience. From Mahmoud Chouki's musical compositions to the movie from Neshat or the talk from Bilal, the variety of events will attract different crowds.

photographs by the author:

Edward Spots and Donna Crump "Black Magic"
Wafaa Bilal "The Ashes Series: Pool", 2003-2013
William Kentridge "Zeno Writing", 2002 (still)

Drawing with Light

Keith Sonnier was born in the heart of Cajun country, Mamou, Louisiana, best known for its food, music, and rowdy Mardi Gras celebrations. The visual artist moved to New York City early in his career and became part of its art scene. His contemporaries include Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt, ..., and he is associated with the post-minimalist movement. After experimenting with various media, Sonnier gained international recognition with his neon sculptures. Keith Sonnier: Until Today at the New Orleans Museum of Art is a retrospective of the seventy-seven-year-old artist's work. The  exhibition includes more than thirty of his iconic sculptures, early videos and a large immersive installation.

The show's entrance is like an invitation to Keith Sonnier's world. Waves of neon lights suspended from the ceiling like celestial decorations reflect on the shiny floor below, leaving puddles of colors. Passage Azur, 2015/2019, is paired with Quad Scar, 1975, an alignment of ship to shore black boxes aligned on both sides along the walls and broadcasting weather reports. The passageway leads to a succession of smaller galleries organized by themes: "Forms in Space: Sculpture, Architecture and the Body", "Industry, Agriculture, and the Everyday", "Future Ruins: Technology and Monument", "Global Influence", " Portals and Passageways" and "Evoking Louisiana: Color and Light".  Each sculpture/installation (hung on the walls or in the round) is introduced by a text and is allotted enough space to spread its glow and shadow. While the first rooms are filled with pieces from the late sixties, the following displays are a mix from different periods. For example, "Industry and Agriculture", features Deux Pattes, 1982, and New Blatt Cinema (Cinema series), 2016, both semi-abstract. Farther, one can find a collection of works inspired by Sonnier's trips abroad, Japan in 1984 or Greece in 2011. The heart of the exhibition is a large site specific installation from the museum's permanent collection. Fluorescent Room, 1970/2019 offers views from two opposite windows into a cave-like structure covered with splashes of orange and green fluorescent paint. Close by, three videos from the sixties provide a glimpse into a period of experimentation with the new medium in collaboration with other artists like Tina Girouard.

The walk through the entrance is an immersive experience with lights, reflections, glows, shadows and sounds reverberating on the walls. In contrast, a peak in Fluorescent Room is somewhat frustrating as one misses the sensation of bathing in colors like in  Chromosaturation, 1965, from Carlos Cruz-Diez or more recently the Pop Cosmic Caverns from Kenny Scharf.
The visit is like a voyage in time and space, from the late sixties until today, from Louisiana to the Far East. Through the combination of electrical wires, fabrics, wood, transformers, porcelain, artifacts, bamboo, found objects and neon or argon lights, the works connect distant cultures. Swamps' ghosts haunt Fluorescent Room also filled with shimmering colors evocative of festive celebrations in India. Back and forth from semi-abstract to conceptual, Sonnier uses all languages to spread his message.
The exhibition gathers works from a number of series: from early Neon Wrapping Incandescent Series in 1968, Ba-O-Ba Series 1969, Herd Series, 2008, to Portal Series, 2015, and more. Spanning the artist's career, it emphasizes the relevance of his body of work to today's world and provides an overdue recognition of Sonnier's originality in his creativity.

photographs by the author:

"Passage Azur", 2015/2019 (detail)
"Neon Wrapping Incandescent II (Neon Wrapping Incandescent Series), 1968
"Propeller Spinner (Antenna Series), 1990

Second Look

Ear to the Ground: Earth and Element in Contemporary Art at the New Orleans Museum of Art features eighteen artists, each represented by a work selected from the museum's or the artist's  collection. As suggested in the title, all relate to the four elements: water, earth, wind, fire, and the natural world through various media. The exhibition occupies the contemporary art space on the museum's second floor.

After walking through the display and reading the detailed wall texts found next to each work, I spent some time in front of two pieces which captured my interest for different reasons. My encounter with Persian Waterfall, 1990, one of the famous "Waterfall" paintings from Pat Steir was a non-event. A rapid glance revealed white drips with splashes on a black background and I carried on with the visit. My first impression is never final and I went back for a second look. What did I miss? The seventy-eight-year old artist is in the news lately with two well publicized exhibitions: ongoing at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia with eleven commissioned works for Silent Secret Waterfalls and upcoming, a site specific exhibition for the circular space at the Hirshhorn in Washington, DC. This time, I walked TO the painting from the show's "entrance" all the way back, staring at it, ignoring the surroundings. It grew bigger as I came closer (no surprise!) but it also became alive. Immersed in the painting, twice my size in height, even larger in width, I finally "saw it". Through the techniques introduced by the Chinese "ink-splashing" painters centuries ago, Pat Steir captures the spirit of nature. Splashing, pouring paint on the canvass, by chance, the artist created the powerful and dynamic waterfall with skills she describes as control of the "fluidity, gravity and timing... the timing of the pour" making her Waterfall paintings qualify as performance art.

Who would not be attracted by The Hinged View, 2017, from Olafur Elliasson? The artist, also involved in creating waterfalls in New York City (2008), this time deals with the visible light spectrum through six glass spheres lined up on a black metal stand. Walking by, the visitor animates the display. Like planets, the spheres appear to rotate, changing from black to transparent, and even reflect an upside down pic of the viewer at some point. Their respective color seeps in and transforms them in vibrant red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet orbs when facing them. About color, light and beyond, alluding to the unseen spectrum and other dimensions, the piece is in the vein of Elliasson's works.  I was just baffled by the wall text next to it which states: "created against the backdrop of the 2016 presidential election in the United States, Elliasson's sculpture seeks to heighten perceptual awareness as a way of counteracting the polarizing nature of current political discourse."... Would the artist endorse these comments? Can we look at art without searching for some hidden political intend? Art can be political and sometimes it is not.
It is a great responsibility to be the viewer, it takes second looks!  I cannot agree more with Olafur Elliasson who during an interview in 2018 stated: "Without the viewer, there is nothing"


photographs by the author:
Pat Steir "Persian Waterfall", 1990
Olafur Elliasson "The Hinged View", 2017

About New Orleans

While the San Antonio Museum of Art focuses on the city's Spanish heritage to celebrate its Tricentennial with a display of paintings from The Prado and other prestigious Spanish museums, the New Orleans Museum of Art features its community through the works of seven artists to commemorate the event. Changing Course: Reflections on New Orleans Histories, is a collaborative project between the museum's curators of contemporary art and of photography. It involves installations, photographs, drawings, sculptures, videos, multimedia works, and is located on the first floor of the museum.
Eleven photographs from the War on the Benighted series, 2015-2018, from L. Kasimu Harris were selected to introduce the exhibition in the Great Hall. Each deserves some time to ponder over its aesthetic qualities as well as its content. The staged scenes remind of events or important figures of African American history, and also pinpoint to the failures of the school system and other ongoing struggles. The adolescent actors stay stern, remote, sometimes defiant, and appear frozen in action, participants of a silent but powerful protest through the constructed reality of their surroundings. The series's title is sobering, benighted means: "existing in a state of intellectual, moral, or social darkness". The photographs are haunting.
A short walk to the back of the museum allows to shake off some heavy thoughts before entering the main gallery. Faced by a black wall with the title of the show and the list of artists in white letters, the visitor can find an introductory text in the anteroom of  Skylar Fein's installation Remember the Upstairs Lounge (2008), a memorial to the victims of the fire that destroyed the dive in 1973. A short passage between glowing red glass walls leads to a reproduction of the Upstairs Lounge's door and the bar itself: used red wallpaper with ragged edges, wood panels, pulpit for the guest book and tunes from the seventies in the background. In the semi-darkness, the funerary draping of framed official papers gives an eerie feeling to the display and horror soon follows at the sight of gruesome enlarged newspapers' images of charred bodies, each accompanied by a short text providing the story behind it. Across, smiling portraits of the innocent victims who were shunned by the community for being gay render the graphic scenes even more disturbing. By now, visitors are whispering to each other, walking slowly along the photographs, in respect. Around the corner, the second room of the installation is filled with artifacts, memorabilia, neon signs, giant portraits in woodcuts and photographs, "a fantasia of gay culture" according to the artist. In a photo booth (graffiti included), a video loop of the local news about the tragic event completes the display.
Without transition, the visitor enters the mystical world of  Sister Gertrude Morgan revisited by Lesley Dill through her installation Heaven Heaven Heaven/Hell Hell Hell: Encountering Sister Gertrude Morgan, (2010). Two mannequins dressed in sumptuous gowns, one black, the other white, fill the room. With her head shrouded in light white fabric, the "bride" wears a multilayered veil rising to the ceiling (the sky). Both have words taken from the Scriptures embroidered on their costumes, written in various calligraphic letters' style, size and color. The four walls are covered with words and symbols recounting Sister Gertrude Morgan's revelations, references to her life and prophetic visions of floods, cataclysms caused by sins. At the top, a frieze of delicately drawn figures runs around the room. The ethereal atmosphere created by the luminous prevailing white is followed by complete darkness in the next room where The Living Need Light, The Dead Need Music (2014) from The Propeller Group is projected on a large screen. The images provide a glimpse in the funerary practices of Vietnam and New Orleans, two geographically distant places linked by their colonial past. The background music consist of  Vietnamese songs from the fifties performed by a New Orleans brass band. Cultural and environmental commonalities are highlighted in the inspiring film. Katrina Andry' first major museum exhibition is a site specific installation Diverge Divest Deny (repeat) which transforms the space into a tropical forest of palms decorated with epiphytic plants scattered in the greenery. The visitor can navigate between the forty-three panels of woodblock prints, and the aesthetically attracting work after a second look reveals its rich conceptual content. The designs on the folded papers: graphs, maps, texts, diagrams, evoke the rejected projects of an urbanist. They refer to the failed reconstruction projects that plague the African American community in New Orleans. A large room is dedicated to Willie Birch, represented by a wide variety of works from drawings to sculptures. Abandoned objects, portraits, architecture, the artist shares views of his neighborhood in his graphite and acrylic drawings hung on the walls. Bones found in a backyard are immortalized with a coat of gold paint and laid in a heap on the floor, while others are carefully displayed in a glass cabinet. For a Generation not yet Born: The Louisiana Slave Revolt of 1811, 2018, is a three hundred inches long tapestry/quilt made at the occasion of the city's tricentennial and another sizable work Waiting for a Serious Conversation on the History of the South, 2017, leads to a room filled with a table, chairs, books, an invitation to reflect on the past and future of the city and its people, surrounded by works from artists like George Dureau, John T. Scott or Sister Gertrude Morgan. The last and seventh project is organized by the New Orleans Photo Alliance and The Everyday Projects, an outreach program with a stand located in the hall.
Two of the works are now part of the museum's permanent collection. Skylar Fein's installation may have lost some of its intense feeling of confinement and dread generated by the smaller space allocated for Prospect.1 while Lesley Dill's gains another dimension with the higher ceilings and walls. Willie Birch's display could be called a retrospective or War on the Benighted series from L. Kasimu Harris could be a photographic exhibition on its own. The artists are all dealing with the subject of marginalized and disadvantaged groups living in the city. The landmark exhibition emphasizes the role of the museum, not a remote institution catering for a selected few, but  one of the community's gathering center, a place to expose and heal its pain through art.

The conversation can start, looking at the past, thinking about the future.
 

photographs by the author:

Katrina Andry "Diverge Divest Deny (repeat)" (detail)
Lesley Dill "Heaven heaven heaven/Hell Hell Hell" (detail), 2010
Willie Birch "For a Generation not yet Born: The Louisiana Slave Revolt of 1811", 2018

Lee Friedlander at NOMA

Lee Friedlander's love for music and his photographic career are deeply intertwined. From his portraits of musicians for album covers, he went on to capture the spirit of America through his camera's lens. While living in New York City, he visited New Orleans for extended periods of time following his first stay in 1957, attracted by the jazz scene and the idiosyncrasy of the place. The exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art, Lee Friedlander in Louisiana, is a compilation of photographs shot in Louisiana, mainly New Orleans, spanning over sixty years. Set on the museum's second floor, the show is introduced by a line-up of colored prints from his famous album covers hung along the walls of the Great Hall.


The black and white photographs are more or less organized in chronological order starting in the late 50's. Portraits of musicians and second lines, they reveal Friedlander's skills at catching the moment in his unique compositions. Obstruction (Sweet Emma Barrett, 1958), photographs within photographs (photograph of the Perron-Williams Band, Johnny St. Cyr's House, 1958), shadows, juxtaposing the bell of a sousaphone and the head of a musician or silhouetting Louis Keppard against his guitar, Friedlander uses various techniques to capture the subjects in their surroundings and render memorable scenes. Of note, a picture never shown before is a view of the streetcar made in 1958. It echoes the famous photograph from Robert Frank, found on the cover of his book The Americans with text by Jack Kerouac published in 1958, reminding of Frank's influence on Friedlander. Moving on to the 60's, the next room is filled with photographs illustrating Friedlander's techniques, this time applied to buildings, street scenes and storefronts. The results are minimalist like two poles crossing the line drawn by a sidewalk or busy compositions, interplay between reality and reflections of it. In a photograph acquired by the museum, Friedlander's shadow and his image on a mirror result in a double selfie only seen through the camera. Another pic features the statue of a horse reflected in a car's side-view mirror side by side with a man on a bicycle who appears to be riding into the mirror, an illusion due to the skewed scales. These are not staged but caught by the photographer who sees like his camera. Monuments are the next theme. With their unusual points of view, the photographs reveal shots of statues or buildings in quirky and humorous surroundings. They also document the changes in the city recorded over forty years and include nine views of the Plaza Tower at different times, the statue of Robert E. Lee just taken down this year or the Superdome under construction. Foreshortening, square format, ..., new camera, new options highlighted in the more recent photographs displayed in the last gallery.


Musicians, cars, monuments, self-portraits, are among some of the themes of books published in the past by the prolific photographer. The exhibition provides a sample of each through the carefully selected images linked by their location in Louisiana. The artist's connection to New Orleans over several decades reflects in his work which with time is also gaining a historical significance making the photographs' display during the celebration of the city's Triennial a timely event.
It is also a tribute to the photographer who never stops "clicking" his camera.

"I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them." --- Diane Arbus.
So could say Lee Friedlander.

photographs by the author:

1. "New Orleans, Louisiana", 2003
3. "New Orleans, Louisiana", 1958

photograph courtesy New Orleans Museum of Art

2. "New Orleans, Louisiana", 1968

More than Fashion

Stunning! The word overheard from visitors and buzzing on social media describes my first impression. A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes which recently opened at the New Orleans Museum of Art offers an enchanted visit with a walk through seven themed areas related to femininity defined by fashion. The seven archetypes include Thespian, Mother Earth, Explorer, Magician, Enchantress, Sage and Heroin queens. Each is represented by clothes displayed in fitting decors accompanied by accessories representing their character with a total of more than one hundred items from renowned to more obscure avant-garde fashion designers. Related wall texts, videos and prints complete the display.
The exhibition starts in a dark space illuminated only by a few spotlights aimed at a central pedestal on which are perched mannequins wearing gowns, dresses and suits from Alexander McQueen who inspired the show. David LaChapelle's photograph of a costumed McQueen and his mentor Isabella Blow near a Scottish castle is a reminder of the fashion designer's heritage. The section about Thespian includes detailed wall texts and photographs from Omar Victor Diop and Cooper and Gorfer. Nearby, Mother Earth features an artificial grotto as a backdrop for a garden of Eden filled with pink flowers. A closer look reveals protest signs and banners embedded in the paradisaical display. Designer Vivienne Westwood's clothes are accompanied by her hand written manifesto/poem about "Climate Revolution" and one can find a pair of trainers from Adidas made with recycled plastic, a smog free ring, T-shirts with slogans like "Be Gentle and Kind" or a bag made of tarpaulin from Sweden as well as a scarf from Lebanon addressing the refugee crisis. The next gallery hosts the five remaining queens starting with Explorer. Everyday clothes like checkered shirts or cardigans with distorted shapes represent the adventurer and rebel. She is not afraid of being different as illustrated by photographs of models on wheelchairs or the deformed prosthetic torsos from Maja Gunn. Magician or "the impossible made reality" is rendered by outlandish outfits set in a fairytale installation. Holes allow to peep inside a white plastic enclosure surrounding a blooming orchard that contains sixteen items fit for a seductress-Enchantress. Sage is characterized by her wisdom and wades into "smart-garments": shoes made of pineapple waste, sounds-suits for deaf people, a "cymatic" dress, biodegradable textile made of cow manure or jewelry controlled by mobile devices. Ecological to sci-fi, fashion has no limit thanks to new technologies presented in six short videos while samples of the real things are displayed in a glass case. The final queen, Heroin, a soldier and warrior, wears shiny or padded dresses like armors and elaborate headpieces like helmets.


From sculptural jewelry and dresses to adorned shoes, the blurry boundaries between art and fashion are highlighted throughout the show. The print from Maïmouna Guerresi, a multi-media artist, conveys ideas about life and death through soap bubbles escaping from a round black hole suggesting an outsized womb built in the garment worn by the model. Another memento mori, LaChapelle's photograph of McQueen and Isabella Blow features the two partying in extravagant costumes near a Scottish castle. The scene includes a discrete skull at the lower right. Premonitory? They both did suicide. A dazzling sculpture from Raoúl de Nieves made of thousands of minuscule colored beads contrast with a white gown from Alexander McQueen set along the wall like a figurehead. At every turn, the show offers not only visual stimuli but also fodder for thoughts about ecology, cultural diversity, psychology of colors, technology, economics, sociology, psychoanalysis, politics, ... Fashion is glamorous but also engaged. The concept of the exhibition itself is bold defining seven feminine archetypes modeled after Carl Jung's universal symbols. Feminist movements questioned Jung's theories in the past due to their stereotyping of femininity. Fashion tends to submit women to trends and conformity but this time it appears as a "reflection of women as talented and multifaceted". If the abundance of wall texts appeared overwhelming at first, it contributes to an  enriching visit.

The exhibition was curated by MUSEEA, a collaborative platform based in Barcelona. It is accompanied by an enlightening pamphlet from Mel Buchanan, Curator of Decorative Arts and Design and a catalog.
... stunning, fascinating, informative, provocative, artistic,...

photographs by the author:

Vivienne Westwood Red Label, UK Placards "Mirror the World", Spring/Summer 2016
Raúl de Nieves "Day(Ves) of Wonder", 2007-2014
Hassan Ajjaj "Kesh Angels" series, 2010

Prospect.4: at the New Orleans Museum of Art

At the New Orleans Museum of Art, Prospect.4 starts in The Great Hall with eleven paintings from Barkley L._Hendricks. The special exhibition spreads to the second floor in two different locations: photographs on the left side, paintings, collages and videos on the right. Raised in different cultures and countries, the seven artists featured in the show share common themes through their art.

Hendricks's portraits inspired by European Masters like Velasquez, are in tune with a modern world and the museum's neo-classical white columns provide the perfect frame for the compositions. His subjects contrast with or melt in monochrome backgrounds and project an aura of sophistication through their pose, expression and/or attributes. Hendrick's portraits are the story. On the second floor, Dawit Petros's portraits contribute to the narrative as part of the landscape. At times, a mere observer, the photographer does not get involved in the drama captured through the lens, like the beaching of a boat. Other times, he stages uncanny scenes involving strangers surrounded by their natural pristine environment, partly hidden behind framed images preserving their anonymity and disrupting the quiet landscape. By whatever means of expression, including the construction of abstract compositions with fragments of photographs, the artist brings the viewer along his journeys, from Sicily, Mauritania, Morocco, ..., sharing his travels through places and time. The ten works on display in the adjoining gallery are the result of the collaboration between a photographer Gauri Gill and a Warli painter Rajesh Vangad. The photographs, mainly landscapes, depict the present and through the addition of aboriginal drawings connect to the past and gain a spiritual dimension.

In the contemporary art gallery, Alexis Esquivel's four "narrative paintings" deal with nationalism, colonialism, racism, through allegories. La Muerte de Gulliver, 2015, illustrates the artist's "civic" engagement. Gulliver (Spain) is depicted as a dead toreador, chest pierced by banderillas representing the Basque National Flag and the flag flown by supporters of Catalan Independence among others. Cuba and Puerto Rico's flags are also featured, reflecting the shared yearning for nationalism on both sides of the Atlantic. The painting could not be more prescient as the fight for Catalonia's independence goes on. The site specific piece from Xaviera Simmons is a great introduction to her work. A mural made of a succession of words taken from political speeches and texts, written in white on a black background lines up an entire wall. Like a graffiti, it is an expression of protest. Political art defines Simmons's practice. Two videos and a series of photographs in which she performs confirm this. Her message is focusing on "the vast financial, social and hierarchical disparities between people from the African and European Diasporas" and is aimed to the United States and New Orleans in particular. Njideka Akunyili Crosby, a 2017 MacArthur Fellow, is represented by four of her paintings-photographs-collages. Starting with images found on the internet and photographs from her family, she rebuilds a composite world born from her roots and manages to harmonize three different cultures: rural and urban Nigeria where she is born, and New York City. The life size of her figurative collages engages the viewer who becomes part of the scenes.
Of the seven artists, five were born in the seventies and deliver a message through their practice, call it "civic" engagement for Esquivel or political for  Simmons. Not only do they favor figurative, from Crosby, the youngest (born in 1983) to Hendricks, the oldest (born in 1945), they also keep being inspired by European Masters. Hendricks who revived the tradition of portraiture is now followed by younger artists like Kehinde Wiley. It is not a surprise to find Barkley Hendricks displayed prominently at the NOMA. Trevor Schoonmaker, Artistic Director and Curator of this year's Triennial, organized the first retrospective of his work Birth of the Cool at the Nasher Museum of Art in 2008 and was in the process of selecting the portraits to be displayed at NOMA when the artist passed away last April.
The list of selected artists includes a culturally varied group. Their common theme can be resumed in three words found on one of the exhibition's wall text: "identity, displacement and cultural hybridity".

photographs by the author:

Barkley L. Hendricks "The Way You Look Tonight/ Diagonal Graciousness (Self-Portrait)", 1981

Alexis Esquivel "La Muerte de Gulliver", 2015

The New World of Ceramics

Lacking a formal knowledge of ceramics, it is with candid eyes that I visited the latest exhibitions at the New Orleans Museum of Art. New Forms, New Voices: Japanese Ceramics from the Gitter-Yelen Collection and Personalities in Clay: American Studio Ceramics from the E. John Bullard Collection  just opened and will run through the Summer of 2018. Respectively located in the Japanese galleries and the Besthoff Gallery, the combined displays feature more than one hundred and fifty works from seventy-three craftsmen.

Japanese ceramics have earned a world-wide reputation due to their centuries of tradition and the visit on the fourth floor starts with a short review of the craft's history through the display of three jars characteristic of  Haji , Echizen and Chigaraki ware, spanning from the fourth until the sixteenth century. This short introduction leads to the exhibition divided in five sections and featuring exclusively contemporary Japanese artists. Elegantly displayed, protected by glass, the works are accompanied by enlightening wall texts. Inspired by nature or avant-garde compositions, milky blue or heavily decorated, they represent a second and third postwar generations of Japanese artists. Following this impressive presentation, the selected pieces from the John Bullard's collection are set in a more random manner, featuring artists who built the history of ceramics in the United States from 1945 until 1990. The eclectic works range from functional vases to a teapot filled with an antiwar message or pure art through sculptures. The display appears overcrowded at first, but each artist shines with his/her different style and expression through the media and one can appreciate the works from "major figures in handmade American studio pottery". The two exhibitions complement each other and the order of the visit has no bearing on their overall appreciation.

With these two major shows, the New Orleans Museum of Art offers a review of modern and contemporary ceramics and casts some light on a neglected side of the art world. In doing so, it also revives the ongoing controversy about it: craft versus art. Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus, wrote: "For it (an object) to serve its purpose perfectly, it must fulfill its function in a practical way." Today, the use of ceramic to create functional items belongs to an industrial world. Meanwhile, highly skilled artists working in their studios have discovered new means of expression through the media. Their creations should encourage hard core opponents to the inclusion of ceramics in the realm of art to reevaluate their standpoint. Mythologies foster the belief that man was first made of clay, giving a symbolic meaning to the craft.
On a personal level, what did these two exhibitions accomplish? Without expertise, I was able to  appreciate the aesthetic aspect and significance (somewhat the technicalities) of the works and get a grasp of the modern and contemporary world of ceramics, from the East to the West.

photographs by the author:

Satoshi Kino "Fall Wind 150202", 2014 
Daniel Rhodes "Untitled Head No.1", c.1980, "Untitled Head No.18", c. 1980, and "Untitled Head No.223", c.1985
Richard Notkin "Heart Teapot: Afghanistan", 1986

Pride of Place at NOMA

Over the years, Arthur Roger nurtured artists through his art gallery opened in 1978 and in doing so, helped shape and promote the art scene of his native city. Joining the list of benefactors, he recently gifted his sizable art collection accumulated over four decades to the New Orleans Museum of Art. The eighty-seven objects, including paintings, sculptures, videos, photographs, are on display this Summer for the exhibition Pride of Place: The Making of Contemporary Art in New Orleans, curated by Katie Pfohl, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at NOMA.

 Pride of Place starts with a bang, featuring at the entrance Deborah Kass's silkscreen Camouflage Self Portrait, 1994, a major piece of The Warhol Project. After a short text introducing the exhibition, works lined up along the walls include a red, gory wood print from James Surls and a woodblock from John T. Scott surrounding a piece from Clyde Connell, a Louisiana self-taught artist. These are followed by photographs from George Dureau and face Green Drops, 1983, a cross from John Torreano, Star of David, u.d., from Keith Sonnier and a hieroglyphic composition from Ida Kohlmeyer. In the middle of the room, an early kinetic sculpture from Lin Emery, Fledging, 1965, represents the cornerstone of her future works. All in all, a first glance embraces nine pieces (also Lovers (2 Bronze Horns), n.d., a sculpture from Ersy Schwartz), promising a challenging visit due to the number and variety of works. Their connections to the South and the Arthur Roger Gallery are sometimes subtle. For example, Peter Haley's print A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey, 1989, a colored architectural geometric abstraction with squares he calls "prisons" and "cells" connected by "conduits" is about the densely populated northeastern city. How did his work become part of the collection? Haley obtained a Master of Fine Arts from the University of New Orleans in 1978 and lived several years in the crescent city before moving back to New York. Self  Portrait/Cutting, 1993, a photograph from Catherine Opie is related to the landmark show curated by Deborah Kass which took place at the Arthur Roger Gallery in 1993, titled Regarding Masculinity. The setting makes for a pleasant walk through the display. Sculptures, even huge like An American Family, 1991, from Willie Birch  made of papier-mâché or  Fence Row, 2013, from Gene Koss are provided ample space, allowing a view from all angles. Robert Colescott's satirical painting, Whitfield Lovell's ghostly installation, Radcliffe Bailey's piece about the African Diaspora, define the artists. Among the photographers, Robert Polidori who documented the aftermath of hurricane Katrina in the devastated city is represented, so is Gordon Parks. Controversial photographs from Robert Mapplethorpe, George Dureau and John Waters are displayed in a more private space while portraits, Magic Johnson by Erb Ritts or Andy Warhol by Greg Gorman, underline the diversity of the collection. A narrative mural from Luis Cruz Azaceta provides a background for a sculpture from Lesley Dill, Untitled Figure-Delight, Bliss, Murder, 1995, a story on its own, featuring a headless female body carved with messages. The deep South is not forgotten with  Courtney Egan's magical video while Dawn Dedeaux and Jacqueline Bishop's works bring darker thoughts about our future.
What is striking, especially in the last room, is the juxtaposition of styles, figurative next to pop or conceptual art, taking some viewers beyond their comfort zone. Through artists from co-op galleries like Aaron McNamee, Alex Podesta or Cynthia Scott, representing the lively St. Claude Arts District, the donation rejuvenates the museum's contemporary art collection and fosters the inclusion of local artists. It also propels NOMA on the international art scene with names like Polidori whose photographs are in the permanent collections of MoMA, Centre Pompidou in Paris or the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Treating subjects like the HIV/AIDS epidemic, sexuality, gender, race, the collection provides material for reflection over place and time. It also follows the tribulations of the city with works inspired by hurricane Katrina. Each carefully selected piece contributes to its overall goal: "collecting contemporary art, reframing regionalism and championing emerging voices".

Be aware, one visit will not be sufficient to appreciate the art collected over four decades!

photographs by the author

Ida Kohlmeyer, "Synthesis BB", 1983
view of the exhibition
 Alex Podesta, "Untitled (Pointer)", 2012, detail