Voyage in the Deep South

 

A trip to New Orleans is never quite complete without a visit to the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, famous for its collection of vernacular art. In addition, the museum hosts temporary exhibitions and the latest titled Vicinal Visions: Dusti Bongé, Ida Kohlmeer & Dorothy Hood features three women artists born at the beginning of the 20th century in the South of the United States. From affluent backgrounds, all three pursued their artistic calling following studies at reputable institutions, the Rhode Island School of Design and the Arts Students League of New York for Dorothy Hood, the Newcomb/Tulane College and the Hans Hoffman School of Fine Arts in New York City for Ida Kohlmeyer while Dusti Bongé was encouraged by her husband to skip art school and paint. During their travels, both Kohlmeyer and Hood became interested in the art of Central and South America. Hood's vacation in Mexico extended to a twenty-year stay. There, she befriended intellectual and artistic luminaries among them Jose Clemente Orozco, the poet Pablo Neruda, Rufino Tamayo and the famous couple Kahlo-Rivera. At some point the three artists found themselves immersed in the unescapable art circles of New York City where they mingled with Surrealists and Abstract Expressionists. Bongé was represented by the famous Betty Parson Gallery, Hood moved to Manhattan to study in the late thirties and visited the City frequently after her move to Mexico. They eventually returned to their birthplace mostly for personal reasons: Bongé to raise her son in Biloxi, Mississipi, Kohlmeyer solidly anchored in New Orleans kept a foot in New York City and Hood returned to Houston in 1961 where she taught at the School of Art of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, as she cared for her ailing husband. The exhibition curated by Bradley Sumrall, Curator of the Collection, showcases paintings from the permanent collection of the museum locally called the Ogden, last name of its founder. 

My first encounter with Hood's paintings was a revelation. Time seemed to stand still in the quiet gallery and surrounded by five abstract landscapes, I simply allowed myself to bathe in their colors. The paintings project a profound serenity reaching spiritual levels, a deep connection with nature translated through sky to ocean blues, murky bayou greens or the muted colors of an uncertain sunrise. The large expanses of colors are not flat, they are enlivened by gentle caresses of the brush and by geometric or biomorphic shapes providing the illusion of depth. Illuminated Earth (c. 1970) was inspired by the Landsat views of the earth which Hood compares to her own compositions, and she sums up her travel to Florence with a predominant burnt Sienna in Florence in the Morning (c.1976). The five paintings were made upon her return from Mexico, while back in Houston. Along the wall leading to the other side of the gallery, a sample of her collages started in the early 80s, Shards of the Earth (c.1980's) is an assemblage of fragments from earlier earthy-toned paintings and a woven piece of fabric featuring Mexican motives, like piecing her past together. One drawing summarizes her life-long practice (at least until the mid-70s), the foundation and complement to her paintings. It provides a smooth transition to Bongé 's two surrealist watercolors and on the other side of the partition wall, larger oil paintings. Bongé veered to an unmistakable abstract expressionism with Circles Penetrated (1952)  and Sails (c.1955) in sync with her peers at the time. Further, two semi-abstract landscapes from the late 1950s and 1960s take a distinctly Southern turn, capturing the palpable, mysterious atmosphere of the swamps. The limited display overlooks her productive later years, including her delicate watercolors on Joss paper and her vibrant pieces about the void, most likely reflecting the museum's holdings. 

Ida Kohlmeyer takes over the exhibition with her works filling the remaining space of the vast gallery and spilling into the hallway. Widely recognized for her public sculptures in the crescent city, ten key works summarize her practice influenced by the Abstract Expressionist Hans Hofmann and the Color Field style of Mark Rothko who spent two months as a visiting artist-in-residence at Tulane University's Newcomb Art School. She also mingled with the Surrealists in Paris and adopted similar compositions made of grids filled with pictograms. Back home in festive New Orleans, her glyphs and symbols took a joyous, colorful pop flair as illustrated by four of her paintings from the 80s. 

The exhibition wall texts deserve a special mention. They contribute to the quality of the show by providing pertinent biographical details, quotes from the artists, and in-depth analysis of each work. However, their length feels better suited for a catalogue or an exhibition brochure which would enhance its impact and preserve its legacy. 

The three Modernist artists are hailed as visionary pioneers of abstraction in the South, a well deserved recognition that limits their broader reach. Their creations warrant a much wider audience and looking back, a more prominent place in art history.

photographs by the author:

-Dusti Bongé "Sails", c.1955

-Dorothy Hood "Untitled", c.1972

-Ida Kohlmeyer "Signs and Symbols 85-1", 1984

-Dorothy Hood "Preceptors", c.1970

The Art of Wrapping, Binding, and More

Wrapping, binding, evoke ancient religious rituals from Mesoamerica or far away countries like Egypt. Famous contemporary artists like Jean-Claude and Christo (who passed away this month), appealed by its aesthetic qualities, rejuvenated the practice on a grand scale. Closer to home, eleven artists who incorporate the symbolic gestures in their body of work have been selected by Bradley Sumrall, curator at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, for the exhibition Entwined: Ritual Wrapping and Binding in Contemporary Southern Art. Following its press release in February, the long awaited show is finally open to the public who can interact with more than fifty works including installations, sculptures and paintings.

After walking through a Southern decor of exuberant trees, the visitor reaches the first gallery lined up on both sides by three black knotted brooms hanging from the ceiling. At the other end, a couple of grinding stones decorated with a full length portrait of the Virgin of Guadalupe cast in glass complete the funerary display. The objects-symbols reflect the cosmopolitan background of the artist. Raised in Mexico, Susan Plum was exposed to  Catholic religion, shamanism, and also Buddhism while travelling in South India. Luz y Solidaridad  created in memory of the victims of femicide in the vicinity of Juarez, Mexico, reaches well beyond borders, cultures and time. Through a process liken to alchemy, Ed Williford transforms found objects in thrift stores or hardware stores into magical creatures and abstract compositions. More than a dozen of his earthy colored works are displayed on pedestals and along the walls of his allotted space. Combining skills and imagination, the Mississippi artist recreates nature's perfection through his exoskeletons-like sculptures made with abandoned material revived through a laborious process of assembling, twisting, knotting, binding, staining, gluing, influenced by the discipline and rigor of minimalism.
In the next section, the three decorated brooms from Friendswood Brooms displayed on the wall illustrate a tradition born in the mid-eighteenth century while opposite, the installation from Elizabeth Shannon invites the visitor to reflect upon nature's bounty evoked by wood poles wrapped in fabric, growing on the wall like palmetto... with a twist: a black bird, a touch of red like blood, metal photogravure plates from Josephine Saccabo's studio for a horizon filled with hope. Re-Seeking Horizons conveys subtle hints more powerful than blunt statements. Sonya Yong James reminds us that white is also a color of mourning, and her tapestry draped along the whole length of the next passage is dedicated to the victims of the recent pandemic, police brutality and more. A detailed wall text describes the practice of  the fiber artist from Atlanta and its sources, material and spiritual. Sharon Kopriva' s Italian catholic background influences her work (graphite and collage) in which she depicts females like secular saints reaching a sort of ecstasy while discarding their bondage. The Red Headed Witness, 2020, is a portrait of  the recently deceased artist Nancy Redding Kienholz draped in a shroud made of white doves and two female torsos sculpted with coiled rope complete the display.
A solemn bust introduces Kristin Meyer's show which features more than a dozen of her smaller pieces compared to those selected for her exhibition Into the Light at Delgado Fine Arts Gallery or Sistema for Louisiana Contemporary last Summer. Gathering material, leaving it "ferment", wrapping, binding, are part of the process to create sculptures radiating spiritual energy. Pieces like Rob's Foot, 2018, or Eye, 2018, remind of votive offerings in Sicilian churches and Charon, 2016, with a title from the Greek mythology has also Voodoo connotations. The blending of references makes Meyers's practice well ensconced in the city known for its diverse heritage. Egg tempera, the medium for the five paintings from the multi-disciplinary artist Susan Jamison is fitting for the delicate pink lace decorations adorning perfectly smooth female bodies. Bound with pretty ribbons or in corset, surrounded by birds, butterflies or ... wolves, they belong to a dream or a fairy tale. As the works from  Jeffrey Cook (1961-2009) take more patina over the years they are more relevant than ever. Each piece deserves to be looked at as a link between its African roots, the city's history and current events. The exhibition ends on a bright note with the colored fiber art from Sarah Zapata. The Peruvian-American artist stated "I wanted to make work that's overtly female and overtly handmade. Like I am performing how I'm theoretically supposed to", revealing the deep personal and cultural conflicts that feed her practice.

One cannot avoid noticing that only two male artists are included in the show, most likely reflecting a gender disparity in the field of fiber art and also in the ritual act of wrapping and binding. Fiber art is still considered by too many a crafty occupation on the fringe of art (no pun intended). The exhibition with its informative wall texts shows that each individual practice is built on the artist's personal journey enriched by its cultural heritage. Featuring eleven artists, it does not feel like a group show due to the setting which allows to fully appreciate each of them, one at a time.
The exhibition is one of the compelling reasons to visit the Ogden ASAP.




                                           

photographs by the author:

Susan Plum "Luz y Solidaridad"

Kristin Meyers "Charon", 2016

Ed Williford "Articualated Sphere Over Perforated Platform", 2012

Listen

Post-war New York City saw the birth of abstract expressionism led by a group of white male artists. Norman Lewis, the only artist of color among them, is now considered the forebearer of African American abstraction. From then on, abstract enriched the vocabulary of artists who had to overcome the indifference, sometimes worse, the rejection not only from the art world but also from their own communities. Two years ago the Ogden Museum of Southern Art premiered a memorable exhibition Four Generations: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art. This time, the more intimate display assembles the works of sixteen African American artists, each represented by one piece from the museum's permanent collection. What Music is Within: Black Abstraction from the Permanent Collection complements a solo show Melvin Edwards: Crossroads set in the main gallery on the fifth floor.

Colors hit you when you enter the space. How can such a busy group show fit in the small gallery? A second look reveals the carefully laid out display which includes a large drawing from
Ron Bechet surrounded by wall sculptures from John T. Scott and Kevin Cole facing the entrance, and on the right side, three geometric abstract compositions in conversation with three expressionist paintings across the room. When turning around, the visitor encounters a stunning draped canvas from Sam Gilliam and next to it a smaller "box" in shades of pink constructed by Jeffrey Cook. Clifton Webb's Totem, N.D., completes the show introduced by a wall text, a painting from Horton Humble, the youngest artist, member of Level Art Collective and a sculpture from Martin Payton profiled on the window's light in the hall.

This is a short description of the exhibition which warrants an in-depth look for the occasion to discover less famous artists like Merton Simpson or Moses Hogan who was better known as a pianist, conductor and composer. One can get lost in Forest Party, 1993, from the former, a textured rendition without focal point or look for the spiritual meaning of Turning Wheels, 1984, from the latter. Of course, local artists with their deep-rooted ties to music are well represented. John T. Scott was known to create his work while "jazz thinking" in his studio. His three pieces from the Ritual Cutter  series (1978) hung on the wall evoke instruments of torture, pain, tears, a song filled with sadness, and also of hope with colors bright like the sun. Music is a family affair for Martin Payton, brother of the famed trumpet player Nicholas and his sculptures often bear the name of  musicians, on view here Dexter, 1998, for Dexter Gordon. When I look to Ron Bechet's (related to Sydney) works, I hear Spirituals. Jeffrey Cook was a dancer for a period of time. Sam Gilliam is a fan of  Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Eugene Martin thought about becoming a jazz musician like his father and it shows in his jazzy composition illustrating the correspondence between rhythm and lines, melody and colors. Both Gilliam and Martin were connected in some ways with the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design in Washington, D.C., Robert Reed spent most of his career further North as a teacher at Yale University School of Art and  Arlington Weathers migrated from Guyana. The exhibition stretches not only geographically but also in time, representing fifty years of African American abstract art and its various styles from expressionist to geometric and color field.

Music needs to be heard, visual art needs to be seen and the exhibition is a great occasion to look at pieces of the permanent collection in the context of music. William T. Williams states that he was often asked:"Why are you making abstraction? It's not African American art" and he would answer "Jazz is the most abstract of all music. Music is totally abstract. How can you not say there's a tradition of abstraction."

photographs by the author:

view of the exhibition: 
Robert Reed "San Romano, Monticello, Brick II", 1982
John Barnes "Doe Poppin' II", 2015
Clifton Webb "Totem", N.D.

Eugene Martin "Geometric Abstract", 1999

Sam Gilliam "Drape Work", 1970

Pic of the Day

PhotoNOLA, "an annual festival of photography in New Orleans" now in its fourteenth edition, is the occasion to binge on photographs at diverse venues during the month of December. Overwhelmed by the sheer number of images, I cannot remember why I selected this photograph for my daily Instagram post. More I look at Go Back, Go Back 217 from Bradley Dever Treadaway, more I find it mundane and riveting.
The banal shot depicts a mother waist-deep in water, enjoying an afternoon at the pool with her two pre-teen sons. The trio soaking in the sun, looking up at the camera and smiling, represents the picture-perfect scene of a blissful Sunday in suburbia. The photograph is divided by a diagonal line caused by a sharp drop of the pool floor and on the left side, a greenish dark color replaces the background's cobalt blue surrounding the young family. Deep at the bottom of the pool a coiled hose is lurking.
The snake-like object creates tension and the picture becomes a story: Could the children fall into the pool's abyss? Could the inert shape become alive and strike them? Could a fun afternoon end up in tragedy?
Like a collage, the superposition of a childhood's photograph on a recent shot of the same pool blends past and present, contrasting a carefree joyful time with today's neglect, decay and emptiness. Where are the protagonists? What happened? Like a bad omen, a black frame surrounds the composition.
Go Back, Go Back is a vast project described by the artist on his Website as "exploring spatial, historical and technological ambiguity that concerns the recollection, reconstruction and failure of memory, manifesting as memento mori and the closing chapter of 50 years of family history."
The joyful moment next to the scene of abandonment hints at before and after, loss and death.

Bradly Dever Treadaway "Go Back, Go Back 217", 2019

Timeless

Photographs, paintings, videos, installations, the forty four works from twenty three artists selected by the guest juror David Breslin, Director of Curatorial Initiatives at the Whitney Museum of American Art are not only made of different media, they also represent a whole gamut of styles. At the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the highly anticipated opening of the yearly juried exhibition Louisiana Contemporary on White Linen Night is the occasion to discover new artists and works, and sometimes look at previously seen pieces in a new context like Sistema, 2018, from Kristin Meyers.
Near the entrance, the full-length humanoid of sizable height, wrapped in black material and red strips of cloth, is a free-standing sculpture with multiple points of view and focal points. Top-heavy, with a base anchored on a small golden pedestal, it defies the laws of gravity. The rigid torso supports two arms, each telling a different story. The left limb gracefully ends with a slender hand fit for a ballet dancer as the right with a gloved hand is ready to deliver a punch like a boxer. Above, the head is tilted upward, its face hidden by a heavy protective mask. The assemblage of sundry objects embedded in the fabric is an invitation to spend some time to look at the numerous perspectives. Shotgun, stethoscope and blood pressure cuff, a small black panther, diverse metal pieces, pommel of a sword or a knife, scalped bunches of hairs, sometimes hardly recognizable amulets, become part of the mummy-like shape. Weapons and trophies evoke a warrior. Like Janus, the androgynous creature has two faces, a small head can be spotted hanging from the upper back, tilted downward. The fixed piece is not static. Asymmetry and instability provide movement and energy. Dancing or fighting, there is action.
Going back to the title, "Sistema" or system in Italian is derived from Latin and earlier, Greek. The composition is an amalgam of cultural references crossing continents and centuries and adopts a universal language to "explore the human condition" (artist's quote).

photograph by the author

Then and Now, AA Abstract Art

              The long anticipated exhibition Solidary and Solitary at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art allows visitors to catch a glimpse of the Joyner/Giuffrida Collection of African American abstract art with its display of approximately sixty paintings and sculptures representing fourteen artists, through January 2018. Four Generations: The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art is the title of the catalog published in conjunction with the show scheduled to travel to seven additional venues following its New Orleans debuts.

                 A Private Stranger Thinking about His Needs, 2016, a soaring sculpture from Mark Bradford suspended from the Stephen Goldring Hall's third floor, provides a spectacular introduction to the exhibition. While still looking up, the visitor catches a sight of the yellow neon work from Tavares Strachan, I Belong Here, 2012, and on the way to the library walks by Drape Work, 1970, a major piece from Sam Gilliam. The Mississippi native's work occupies a prominent spot at the exhibition's entrance located on the museum's fourth floor. A sensuous folded canvas from his color field period in the seventies, along a short biography, is followed by nine works spanning  more than forty years of the artist's career, illustrating his search for shapes, colors, media, to build his compositions. The next featured artist, Norman Lewis was the only African American artist to join the first generation of Abstract Expressionists. Each selected work provides a clue about the artist's maturation, starting with Conversation (Two Abstract Heads), 1945, which exemplifies the juncture in the artist's career. During that decade, Lewis moved on from figurative and social realist themes to abstract in his quest of purely aesthetic goals. The juxtaposition of two bright yellow paintings, projecting the same aura of warmth and lightness, Easter Rehearsal, 1959, and Afternoon, 1969, provides a great example of the abstraction's process. A total of eight pieces sums up the artist's legacy. Following these "solo" shows, the exhibition takes a faster pace, featuring two artists in each gallery like a "duet" as described in the complementary pamphlet, with Melvin Edwards and Leonardo Drew sharing a space. The former is represented by five wall sculptures from his famous series Lynch Fragments started in 1965 in response to racial violence and two rocking sculptures for A Conversation with Norman Lewis, 1979. The latter's wall compositions contribute to the conversation about African American history and broadens it, reflecting on our society. Edwards's message is quite blunt while Drew's leaves us ponder and dream. Kevin Beasley and Shinique Smith have been selected for the next duet. Both use found fabrics as a media. Here ends the similarity. Beasley builds colorful sculptures, Smith, cosmic landscapes. Charles Gaines's works are spread on the four walls of a small gallery taken over by Numbers and Trees, Central Park Series I, Tree #9, 2016. The colorful tree on a black and white photographic background is drawn through the juxtaposition of  red, yellow, green, blue squares on a grid, giant pixels arranged with a compulsive precision to reach perfection. The minimalist pieces from Jennie C. Jones made with piano keys or painted on acoustic absorber panels are mixed with two neon wall sculptures from Glenn Ligon and Stranger #68, 2012, made with oil stick and coal dust on canvas. The last room is filled with the larger than life portraits from Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, charged with a symbolic overtone. The show spills in the hallway with Untitled (America America), 2015, a black neon work from Ligon. Facing down, belly and wires exposed, it looks like a broken object with its flickering lights. Three sculptures from Serge Alain Nitegeka, made with crate material (about refugees), and painted in red (blood) and black (skin color) are randomly scattered, falling short of their intended message. A side gallery offers a unique experience with the display of works from Marc Bradford and Jack Whitten energizing the space.

The show about four generations of African American abstract artists starts on a high note featuring works from two major artists. As it progresses, it looses its thread due to weak links between artists' practices for its duets and the inclusion of Yiadom-Boakye's figurative portraits. The setting which is not by chronological order would benefit from more didactic wall texts about the artists and their works, directed at a lay audience. The key to an exhibition is usually found in its title. The association of the words Solidary and Solitary epitomizes the quandary African American artists were faced with when embracing abstract, as exemplified by Norman Lewis. Other artists of the collection should have been included or mentioned. We miss Alma Thomas, Edward Clark, Richard Mayhew, Julie Mehretu, William T. Williams, ..., even just one work from each!
The exhibition helps us understand the contribution of African American artists to American art as they paved the way to new generations and hopefully will promote the inclusion of their works in the museums.

photographs by the author:
Leonardo Drew "Number 185", 2016
Charles Gaines "Numbers and Trees, Central Park Series I, Tree #9", 2016
Mark Bradford "No Time to Expand the Sea", 2014

Let's Talk About It

This year, White Linen Night will be remembered for its downpours and flooding, but I attended the gallery openings, all decked up in my white clothes under an umbrella. Jonathan Ferrara Gallery offered a memorable performance spilling in Julia Street and Arthur Roger Gallery an extensive collection of works from John T. Scott and Dapper Bruce Laffitte. The following week-end, the openings in the St Claude Arts District were overwhelming due to the abundance of works from diverse artists. Overall, political art was the predominant subject.

Among all, The Banality of Evil, 2017, from Brian St Cyr, stirred up conflicting emotions for me. The piece was selected for Louisiana Contemporary, a yearly juried exhibition at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and can be found near one of the entrance (or exit) of the largest gallery. The wall sculpture is minimalist in design and color and, like a child's puzzle, is made of simple triangular and rectangular shapes arranged symmetrically along a horizontal line. The bottom, built with wood is painted turquoise, the top is an assemblage of hamster cages, water bottle included. The mustard wall is the perfect background for the piece which projects heavy shadows on it. The resulting design represents... a swastika. The seemingly benign construction, evoking cute furry rodents and a paradise of tropical islands with its Caribbean color, became a provocative sign of hate, racism, fascism, and its view made my heart race from uncontrolled anger, fear and disgust. Some people learned about the symbolism of the swastika from history books, others from their family history.

Despite a lengthy wall text in which the artist provides clues about his inspiration and shares his personal thoughts about his work, some viewers have been incensed by the representation of the loathed emblem. In her book about war criminal Adolf Eichmann, Annah Arendt coined the phrase "the banality of evil". St Cyr states that: "As a visual artist I have long thought of how I would express in visual terms the essence of such a powerful literary phrase." This sums up the purpose of the conceptual piece. However, the artist should not be surprised to provoke strong reactions from the audience challenged by such an inflammatory subject. After all, we are more used to art "underlying political and social realities that the artist sought to cover up with sensuous appeal" (Sylvan Barnet 2009). This time, the graphic statement is blunt. Visual art can be cathartic and provide the occasion to engage in discussions, or better, conversations. The artist's long explanation feels superfluous, the work (and its title) speaks for itself and viewers will decipher the message.
To conclude, this quote attributed to Robert Rauschenberg: "The artist's job is to be a witness to his time in history." This piece reaches the goal.

photograph by the author:

Brian St Cyr "The Banality of Evil", 2017

Order in Chaos

Can you see a link between a leaf and an iceberg, hurricanes and galaxies, the brain cells of a mouse and your ear? Referring to rules of mathematics and geometry like the Golden ratio, the Fibonacci number and fractals, Sarah House's works reflect on her love of nature and her search for its "interconnectedness" through patterns. The twenty pieces selected for the exhibition Artist Spotlight: Sarah House at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art represent a diverse sampling of her work. The ceramist favors the media due to its versatility, combining shapes and colors, sculpture and painting. After obtaining a BFA from Temple University's Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, she was the recipient of several prestigious ceramic art residencies and graduated from Tulane University with a MFA.
In glass cases, on pedestals or attached to the walls, most of the sculptures have a "natural" look due to their earthy colors and unpolished surface. Spheres for Self-Similar or dodecahedrons for Ode to Mandelbrot are assembled to create the final work, which itself could be part of a bigger installation. Water Study 1 and 2, flat thick pieces of ceramic with an abrupt edge, appear to be made with a cookie cutter: leaves? coastlines? The title gives the answer. A series of works have a similar haptic roughness with mountains and deep valleys, creating bare, moon-like landscapes sprinkled with ocher to underline the relief. Among these, It's Alive 1 and 2 have dynamic features with the material falling from the pedestal, petrified in action, puddling on the floor.
The display is somewhat odd with a few sculptures placed at floor level in glass cases below traditional potteries from the permanent collection, and the narrow space allotted for the exhibition puts some constraints on the artist who created installations in other venues. Sarah House through her works allows us to consider the media beyond its utilitarian aspect and discover its potential for artistic expression. Following the visit, one will be looking for the universality of nature expressed through the ad infinitum repetition of primary models, varying in scale.
Can you see a link between mountains and tormented waters?

photographs by the author:

"Water Study 1"
"Ode to Mandelbrot"
"Hydro Dynamo"

Epic: Meads at the Ogden.

For the exhibition Bent Not Broken,  the Ogden Museum of Southern Art's fifth floor is dedicated to Michael Meads, a versatile artist, photographer, draftsman and painter. Presently living in New Mexico, Mead was born and raised in the deep South, Alabama, where he learned about the Crescent City through the Sunday sermons from Baptist preachers on the radio. He moved to New Orleans in 1998 and was an active member of the community till the disaster struck in 2005. Following hurricane Katrina, he left for good and is now living in New Mexico. Visiting home must be a bitter sweet experience and some nostalgia seeped through his presentation of the show on a Sunday afternoon.

The tour started with a photographic exhibition made of sixteen Cibachrome photographs

and nine Polaroids along the walls, mainly male portraits. Featured with  attributes related to Southern culture: guns, knives, snakes, beer, live or stuffed animals, … and surrounded by a rustic environment, the sitters breathe of eroticism suggested by subtle details like a flash of skin or a pose. The compositions are simple and repetitive with the subject in the foreground and little room left for the background. A slideshow titled It Was Lovely When It Lasted, composed of more than one thousand slides and lasting two hours (I missed some of it) is a visual diary of a kind with photographs of acquaintances and familiar surroundings.
No space is left empty on the way to the main gallery, from charcoal drawings lining up the white walls to masks in glass cases. This is a short introduction to the major show which at first sight appears bathed in a festive atmosphere with its twirling world of Mardi Gras corteges, beads and masked revelers... till a closer look reveals scenes of chaos, disasters and death. Love and sex, celebrations with heavy libations are depicted in the mist of end of the world scenes, life versus death. The subjects are grim, AIDS epidemic with Der Lieberstod (2013-2014), hurricane Katrina with Ghosts along the Levee (2012-2013) or the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico with The Baptism (2012), gigantic narrative pieces, stories within stories, scenes within scenes. The magnum opus, The Grand Pageant of the Mystic Krewe of Saint George the Divine (2015) is about the disposition of Dureau's ashes in the Mississippi river. All the works are related to the yearly celebration of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and the centaurs, Egyptian gods or archbishops are renditions of real people, actors in the compositions. We can recognize the painter George Dureau, well-known musicians or friends from the artist. Meads is a narrator of tales from real life. My visit could have ended then, following the enchanted time spent in front of these masterpieces.
The exhibition goes on in the adjacent hall, with a collection of works from watercolors to illuminated diaries and pieces salvaged from the artist's studio after the flood. But I just would like to remember Meads as the artist who, through his works, transcended New Orleans's culture to a myth. A labor of love, each major piece takes nine months to be completed, a symbolic number. He describes two months of feverish creativity followed by seven months of physically challenging manual labor, crouched or on his knees, days after days. With pencils and Velum paper, Meads stages operatic compositions (he relishes operas), translating the spirit of the city. As a whole, the exhibition is a display featuring the multi-talented artist, a retrospective of a sort, sometimes lacking critical insight to "show it all", cheapening some of the purely magnificent works.

photograph by the author:
"Plague Doctor, Mask I and II", Michael Meads, 2004

Basquiat Belongs

With its catchy title, the exhibition Basquiat and the Bayou at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, part of Prospect.3: Notes for Now, is an attempt to relate Jean-Michel Basquiat's legacy to the culture of the Crescent City and the South in general. Nine paintings have been selected for the show which starts with a biography of the artist set along the hall leading to a vast room filled with the works.

Facing the entrance, Zydeco, 1984, a dark green triptych, color of "haricots" (beans), catches the visitor's attention with its reference to the music from Louisiana. The camera on the right panel focuses on the accordionist, the central figure. The left panel, harder to decipher, includes a black refrigerator, four black skulls topped by two iconic crowns and two seated black silhouettes. The painting is surrounded by Natchez, 1985, on the right, an aggregation of Xeroxed pieces on plywood mounted on a wood door, covered by texts and drawings treating a variety of subjects and, on the left, by CPRKR, 1982, dedicated to Charlie Parker. Facing these, two works appear loosely related to the theme of the exhibition: Embittered,1986, a complex juxtaposition of cartoonish figures including African inspired drawings and Back of the Neck, 1983, a painting inspired by Gray's Anatomy. Procession, 1986, appears racially charged with its simple sinister cortege led by a figure wearing bright clothes and carrying a white skull, followed by four black silhouettes. Another prominent piece Exu, 1988, is a mythical painting radiating energy, a late work possibly made after Basquiat's visit to New Orleans. Two paintings, King Zulu, 1986 and Untitled (Cadmium), 1984, are similar compositions treating unrelated subjects. The first refers to New Orleans and the musician Louis Armstrong, the later has a religious overtone featuring a black torso and a sacred heart.
The physical relationship between the bayou (South) and Basquiat is tenuous at best and consists of one visit to New Orleans during Jazz Fest in April 1988, shortly before his death. Basquiat himself claimed his New York City roots which are not incompatible with his preoccupations with the South, racial bias, his Haitian and Puerto Rican origins, and his musical choices, as described by Robert G. O'Meally in his essay published in the exhibition's catalogue. So it is not surprising to find themes related to the South in his works long before his trip to New Orleans like in Undiscovered genius of the Mississippi Delta, 1983, or Jim Crow, 1986, among others, important works selected for the great retrospective which took place at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2010 for his fiftieth birthday. Furthermore, some of Basquiat's late paintings appear to be an attempt to reconnect with his preferred themes following his collaboration with Andy Warhol.
It is not surprising that the exhibition's intent feels somewhat contrived, twisting Basquiat's vernacular to make it fit into a Southern experience. Cataloged as a neo-expressionist artist, ultimately, Basquiat is recognized as Basquiat and like Gauguin, found at the New Orleans Museum of Art during the Triennale, it is fitting that he should be part of Prospect.3 because, referring to Tavares Strachan slogan floating on the Mississippi, he "belongs".

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photographs by the author:

"Untitled (cadmium)", 1984

" Exu", 1988

" Zydeco", 1984

Basquiat at Prospect.3

Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1960 from an Haitian father and a Puerto Rican mother. Early on, he visited museums with his mother and following an accident in which he was severely injured, she bought him the Gray's Anatomy book to distract him. Unfortunately, she suffered from a severe mental illness and was committed to a mental institution. From then on, Basquiat was raised by his father and his parents separated. He ran away at 15 years old and was eventually banned from home, living in the streets and supporting himself with small jobs like selling T-shirts. He never had a formal training but started to draw at an early age and did not graduate from high school.  He started to spray paint buildings in 1976 signing his graffiti .SAMO (same old shit), the project went on for two years and was featured in the Village Voice. In 1979, SAMO IS DEAD, a graffiti on the walls of Soho buildings announced the end of the project.

Basquiat by then was becoming famous, appearing on television shows. He also formed the rock band Test Pattern (renamed Gray later) and performed in nightclubs. In 1980, under the umbrella of the Annina Nosei gallery he had a first solo show followed by an article in Artforum in 1981 which brought his works to the art world's attention. He was affiliated with Neo-Expressionism. In 1982, he traveled to Italy, then worked for Larry Gagosian during a stay in Venice, CA, far from his NYC roots and friends and from 1983 till 1985 worked with Andy Warhol on series of collaborative paintings. But the artist became more isolated and depressed, overtaken by his heroin addiction. The death of  Andy Warhol in 1987 precipitated a down spiral of Basquiat's life who died in August 1988 of a drug overdose. Julian Schnabel portraits the artist in the film "Basquiat" in 1996. An exhibition of works from Jean-Michel Basquiat will take place during Prospect.3 at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans.  The Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris presented a major retrospective of his work in 2010.

                                                   "Zydeco", 1984, Jean-Michel Basquiat


photograph by the author

White Linen Night

Saturday, August 2, I was at White Linen Night. It was a success considering the number of attendees. I did not see art, just got a whiff of it making my way through the crowd. For the 20th anniversary, I noticed more colors on Julia. This is not Saint-Patrick's day, a touch of white won't do, white should be worn from head to toes.

For a start, I visited the Ogden Museum of Southern Art which presents Rolland Golden's works in an exhibition aimed at highlighting his style of "Magical Realism" or as he calls it "Borderline-Surrealism". Born in New Orleans, raised in the South from Mississippi to Alabama to Louisiana, taught by the regionalist painter John McCrady and the owner of a studio/gallery in the French Quarter for a decade, Golden possesses all the needed qualifications to be called a Southern artist. Nevertheless, I had difficulty finding the South in his compositions combining realist and surrealist styles. Figurative, bathing in Fauvist colors, usually built with a quiet landscape in the background and the narrative in the foreground, the repetitive technique brings boredom. French countryside, bridge in Paris, church, southern landscapes are all looking soulless and empty, lacking the mystery and the suspense felt in Magritte's paintings, the Surrealist master Golden refers to in one of his works. There are no surprises while going through the seventy oil paintings, watercolors and drawings.

Encased in a dark room, Shawn Hall's Pastoral Universe is an experience for the senses. Immersed in the cosmic composition, the visitor walks around a central island bubbling like magma, spewing oval sparks of light on the floor and the walls. The installation includes "one mirrored terrain, two suspended projectors and one channel video loop with sound" and the well hidden machinery creates a world of reflections on the walls, through mirrors and projection of images. The meditative piece is spoiled by the number of visitors, chattering and taking selfies. This is not the best time to savor the work.
On the top floor, Shawn Hall is also represented by a diptych for Louisiana Contemporary, the annual statewide-juried exhibition assembling Louisiana artists. Two works from Bonnie Maygarden are prominently displayed at the entrance. Desert of the Real and Greyscale both pieces made in 2014 are evidence of her commitment to the world of "virtual reality" or hyperreality. One can also find a piece from Cynthia Scott, Punditry, 2014, a great satire with punchy images. There is art for every taste, figurative, abstract, sculptures and a walk through takes some time to discover all the artists.

Across the street at the Contemporary Arts Center, more female artists from New Orleans are featured for the exhibition Mark of the Feminine. The themes are enduring and treated through different media, like at the entrance, a work from Vanessa Centeno made with canvas, polyfill, glitter, LED lights, a psychedelic rendition with a provocative title Keep It Up which  made me think of a white version from Yayoi Kusama, 1962, Accumulation #1. Farther, Cristina Molina's  Saber, Sabor, Savor, 2011, is a gallant stereoscopic installation in which she relates twenty five sites with a meal, a romantic text with courtship in mind. From video like the untitled piece from Ariya Martin to sculptures like Annoint, 2014, from Kristin Meyers, all media is represented and no subject is taboo.
My wandering along Julia to visit the galleries was cut short when I got bogged down in the crowd...
an evening to enjoy the company, the food and have a drink like everybody else.

photographs by the author:

view of Julia Street
"Startled by Magritte", 1991, Rolland Golden
"Pastoral Universe", Shawn Hall
"Keep It Up", 2014, Vanessa Centeno

Celebrations in New Orleans

Two events combining music and visual arts occurred recently in New Orleans. A two hours concert at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, featuring music composed by Matt Lemmler at the occasion of the museum's 10th anniversary, titled "Southern Sonatas and Songs in Celebration of the Ogden of Southern Art's 10 Year Anniversary" and inspired by works from its permanent collection, like a painting from Clementine Hunter for What a Friend We Have in Jesus/ Solace, Lynda Benglis and Eudora Welty for Angels or the entire collection of the museum for Colors of the Wind with a total of sixteen diverse pieces played by Matt Lemmler's band. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Wassily Kandinsky listening to Schoenberg's music created famous abstract pieces and explored synesthesia, Arnold Schoenberg established a relationship between colors and notes. In this venue, the opposite occurs with compositions rhythmically and musically in harmony with a painting from the museum. I hope that a recording will be available in the future. The musicians should be commended for their performance sometimes hampered by the poor acoustics of the museum's hall.
 The following week, NOCCA started its concert season with The Art of Music, an event combining visual art and music, even dance. The Faubourg Quartet started with an impressionistic piece from Debussy followed by the String Quartet No.4 (Buczak) from Philip Glass performed along a poignant video from Michel Varisco Currents displayed on a giant screen. The next piece At the Octoroon Balls from Winton Marsalis brought energy with its rhythms in sink with the frenetic brushstrokes from Ayo Scott (or vice versa) filmed painting Motive, inspired by Hellbound Highball.
The iconic charcoal on paper from Ron Bechet For my Fathers was a great backdrop for the group of dancers on the stage. Inspired by to my father from Tania León, the large work links the natural and spiritual world and the dancers added another dimension to the dynamic piece from Bechet.
To close the show, Just a Closer Walk with Thee with Ellis Marsalis at the piano was a tribute to John Scott, known for his "Jazz thinking" when creating his musical sculptures or paintings. Photographs of works from the artist were projected in the background reminding us of his legacy. Ellis Marsalis concluded the evening sharing stories about his longtime friend John Scott.


... only in New Orleans.


photographs by the author

" Panorama of Baptism on Cane River", Clementine Hunter, 1945
"Circle Dance: Treme Cornice", John Scott, 2001
photograph, Michel Varisco

Southern Landscapes

Will Henry Stevens (1881-1949) is well represented at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art with the display of a rich permanent collection in a special area dedicated to his works. A new selection of rarely shown paintings has been assembled for the exhibition Will Henry Stevens: Selections from the Permanent Collection of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and the introductory piece at the entrance of the private room gives a resume of the show with its theme and colors. At first sight, a lush southern flavor exudes from the paintings lined up along the walls and a more detailed visit reveals the artist's different styles.

The short biography and the artist's statement posted on the wall allow the visitor to get acquainted with Stevens who was born in Indiana, lived ten years in Louisville, Kentucky and then moved permanently to New Orleans where he taught at the Newcomb College for twenty years. He painted exclusively the outdoors and is called a naturalist but what he looked for in nature was more than colors, shapes and landscapes. His  spiritual quest brought him to discover the Sung dynasty paintings and Eastern philosophies. In addition, in the late 20's, on his yearly trips to New York City, he was introduced to Kandinsky's work, a search for the spiritual through art. These influences are very clear in the paintings selected for the exhibition.
Mainly pastels, mixed media, few watercolors and oil on canvas, the figurative paintings evolve to abstract.

The Japanese influence is not subtle in some of them and brings a serene harmony to the compositions, especially two views of forests on each side of a video giving a glimpse of the artist's human dimension through memories of students or friends. In the same area, a well illustrated book about Wassily Kandinsky attempts to show the similarities between the works from the European master and Stevens's owns.
Influenced by Kandinsky and others, Stevens also admired Paul Klee and it  becomes a game to figure out the style and flavors, figurative, cubist, expressionist even surrealistic, found in different paintings. The lack of dates on the works is somewhat of a drawback if one is interested in following the artist's career. But ultimately, what makes Stevens so unique are his colors and his commitment to nature. He saw curves, fluid shapes and one seldom finds straight lines or geometric figures in the works.  After learning how to grind and mix his own pigments, he developed a special technique to avoid fading and smudges. His oranges, yellows, blues with subtle variations or intense, dark, vegetal greens, his earthy, generous, warm browns feel like he is sampling nature directly on his palette to create his musical landscapes.


The result of his search for spirituality is a non objective rendition of  forests, water, fishes, the Mississippi river or the sea in paintings offering the essence of the natural world. Kandinsky followed an intellectual journey, Stevens's path is through aesthetics. His communion with nature is expressed with soft shapes and dense colors in compositions bathing in southern luxuriance. Saturated with organic colors the works are almost tactile and one can feel the humidity, the heat.

A Southern master to rediscover, surprising in his variations on one theme: nature.

photographs by the author

Untitled, n.d., Will Henry Stevens
Untitled, n.d., Will Henry Stevens
Untitled, n.d., Will Henry Stevens
View of the exhibition