Serious Games

For his solo exhibition Finding Way at Antenna, Rontherin Ratliff has selected fifteen pieces to fill the gallery located on the building's second floor. They reflect his current practice inspired by his childhood and in keeping with his previous body of work are made of found objects and architectural material. Hung on the walls, the assemblages are of small to moderate size giving an intimate flavor to the show.
Three pieces from 2017, the artist's statement and a wall text, introduce the exhibition in the anteroom-like space at the entrance, and lead to recent works done this year. White Horse is a composition made of a wooden toy leaping out of a box suspended to the right side of a gate painted in gold. The fence draws a frame around an empty space and brings the focus to the off centered toy. Black Horse is almost identical, the horse this time gallops toward the box, showing his rear. The joyful pieces evoke a carousel and allude to childhood's dreams. On the other side of the gallery along the back wall, Heirloom, is a more elaborate monochrome assemblage of discarded furniture and objects covered by a heavy coat of black paint. A draped quilt adds a homey feminine touch to the funerary piece. A total of seven Mind Splinters are displayed in the gallery. The painted wood sticks decorated with found objects evoke homemade toy swords. Alphabetical Playscape and AlphaBollock Balance incorporate a sphere made of alphabet wood blocks. The two pieces facing each other are elegant in their simplicity with the former combining gate and lock, the latter a sash window weight as a counterbalance. The artist includes void (negative space) to fill gates, doors, frames and asymmetry in most of his latest compositions.
How can you build a future without a past? Since hurricane Katrina, Ratliff has been repurposing objects to reconstruct the past and rebuild memories. For example, in Perception or Self-Defense, 2017, mattress springs become relics protected by etched glass and are laid into wood boxes decorated with antique window sash weights looking like tassels. Most recently, he explores the world of childhood filled with dreams fed by unbound imagination and further, the passage of time and the fragility of life, through a conceptual language that not only brings up ideas but also tickles emotions. The self-taught artist has assimilated conceptual art to create simple playful compositions filled with rich meanings.
Titles matter and looking at the series of Mind Splinters, I thought about this quote:
“Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind …”

~ Morpheus, in ‘The Matrix’ 

photographs by the author:

"Emotional Symptoms", 2017
"Alphabetical Playscape", 2019

Strolling on St. Claude

"Second Saturdays" on St. Claude has become one of New Orleans art scene's highlights with the number of visitors growing exponentially, it seems. The opening night of the galleries located along the St. Claude corridor stretching from Elysian Fields to Poland Avenue is the occasion to become acquainted with local artists and, over the years, follow the members of collectives like Staple Goods, The Front or Good Children.

Venues have sprouted in anticipation of the triennial Prospect.4, among them Double Shotgun  displaying works from the collective Level Art and guests. This month, the show titled INSIDE OUT Reflections on Incarceration in Louisiana sounds daunting. The core of the exhibition is located in two rooms, one on each side of the double shotgun house. On the left, the mementos selected by Maria Hinds belonged to Herman Wallace, a convict later cleared of a crime he did not commit, after forty one years of solitary confinement. The personal objects, casual (a  pair of socks), playful (a ball made with socks) or official (legal papers or hand-written letters) are photographed by Matthew Thompson for this collaborative project. Grey takes over the black and white photographs about memories and their implied losses and regrets. The other side features the drawings from Glenn Ford, made while he was on death row. They reflect what a man without hope dreams of: birds, flowers, love. A starving man has visions of feasts, the prisoner finds freedom through his meticulous pictures. The reminding rooms are filled with works from artists like Rontherin Ratliff with his simple but poignant sculpture made of eight strands of steel falling from the ceiling to the floor, two of them featuring a basic knot. Less is more also in Out There, 2018, a white monochrome wall piece from Ana Hernandez. The two words written in braille  resume the epistolary exchanges between Herman Wallace and the artist who communicated for years without meeting in person. One can watch The Guilt of Innocence, The Truth of Lies, 2018, mixed media on TV from Carl Joe Williams, very relevant in the exhibition's context. So are the paintings from John Isiah Walton The Farm and Fruit of the Farm, both 2016. With a total of twelve artists included in the show, plan to spend some time. The exhibition is conducive to reflections about the grim subject without getting heavy and gives a purpose to lives which otherwise would have been forgotten.

The contrast is jarring at  Antenna Gallery where the one man show from Devin Reynolds Tyrone Don't Surf  takes place. Murals and smaller size works lined up along the walls feel like a visual scream. While studying architecture at Tulane University, the artist born and raised in Santa Monica, California, started to delve into printmaking and sign painting. He applies his skills for these mixed media compositions built with words from vernacular language and caricatures of a black man called "Tyrone". Surfing becomes the symbol of exclusion as implied in the title of the exhibition. The artist widens the subject and also treats of incarceration in his punchy works filled with derogatory sometimes bitter humor. Their ambivalence keeps you "on the edge" throughout the show which will leave you between tears and a smile.

The visit goes on to The Front where Brian St Cyr, a versatile artist presents his latest works on paper for his show Mississippi Mud. The display includes drawings and watercolors with their distinctive "bayou green" shade and a new work, experimentation with children toys. Upon leaving the gallery, Embrace, is the occasion to get a hug from Vanessa Centeno's interactive sculptures. Across the street, new pieces from Aaron McNamee at Good Children, a stop at UNO St. Claude Gallery to look at the works from MFAs (congrats Ruth Owens, Natalie Woodlock ), William dePauw at Staple Goods, an outstanding show at Barrister's, a visit at the New Orleans Art Center, Second Story Gallery and BrickRed, the latest gallery on the block ...
It now takes several strolls during the month-long exhibitions to see them all.

photographs by the author:

John Isiah Walton "Fruit of The Farm", 2016
Devin Reynolds "Everyone's Favorite Black Guy Until its 11 pm and hes the only other person on the street", 2018
Brian St Cyr "Mississippi Mud #1"

Circle of Life

ROOTS, an exhibition featuring three artists, prompted my first visit at the Chapel Gallery on the Xavier University campus. Located on the first floor of the administrative building, the gallery is a wide open space well-suited for the display of Ron Bechet's charcoal drawings, Patrick Waldemar's paintings and Rontherin Ratliff's sculptures. From diverse backgrounds, the three artists share a common heritage expressed through their work. Ron Bechet, born and raised in New Orleans, is presently Art Professor at Xavier University, the Jamaican painter Patrick Waldemar is a recent Crescent City's adoptee and Rontherin Ratliff represents a younger generation of New Orleans artists, deeply afflicted by hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

A wall text at the entrance introduces the exhibition's theme. ROOTS is about trees and their sacred nature as perpetuated by the African Diaspora in today's Louisiana. Across the hallway, a second text describes the symbolic meaning of trees in West Africa. Connections between earth and sky, ancestors and livings, trees are also considered spirits. Walking into a narrow room lined-up with Bechet's twelve feet high drawings
(charcoals on paper), the visitor experiences the energy and power of nature. Surrounded by overgrown, contorted giant tree roots, one feels lost in a fairy tale. Farther down, smaller framed works Why Trans Formation, Restoration of Consciousness and Vulnerability, 2014, are tracing knots, arcane paths, ways to a secret initiation. They illustrate a quote from the artist painted on the wall: "Roots are passages and opportunities, a subtle dialogue between secular and the sacred."
Nature is nurturing but can also bring havoc and destruction. Ratliff experienced nature's wrath and Things That Float, 2010, three models of shotgun houses suspended from the ceiling, represent the vessels of his memories. Made of wood boards and Plexiglas, their glaucous walls expose stacks of water-damaged photographs, some flying in the houses, like blown by an ongoing storm. The weathered pictures have acquired a pinkish tint and, here and there, the shadow of a child can be seen, left over testimony of happy times. Ratliff contributed also a giant sculpture-installation Rooted, 2017, towering the largest gallery on the other side of the hallway. Built with found material, including bricks, a fireplace grate, window screens, a bicycle, discarded wood, and more, the tree, composite of inert material, becomes alive. Well anchored with its roots spreading on the floor, the trunk climbs the wall and spreads its limbs and foliage. Charged with their history, the objects loose their function and contribute to a new life form with a soul, a kind of resilience following disasters.
Ten paintings, acrylics on canvas, from Patrick Waldemar hung on the three surrounding walls add bright colors to the display. The square compositions of moderate size (50 x 50 inches for the largest) could be divided in two series according to their predominant colors and their subject. Four of them built with geometric shapes, lines framing masked actors and circles from the moon, infer magic and rituals.  Red and white on a black background add drama and mystery. The six remaining paintings are depicting white magnolia flowers on a black background with touches of yellow and green. In his artist statement, Waldemar relates his work to deeper meanings about a society "where the history of slavery still looms as a spectral presence at the racially exclusive balls and social clubs of the city."
The major themes of the exhibition, life, death, decay and rebirth, are powerfully expressed through the art works filled with Southern references.
"As the Magnolia browns, new seeds seek fertile ground. Stripped of petals, passion remains in the bones." Patrick Waldemar
" My roots are my connection to my ancestors, and my "knowing" without being told. In my landscape there is the intermingling of community, a metaphor for joy, grief, pleasure, and suffering. Death is respected here, as the continuation of life." Ron Bechet.

photographs by the author:

Ron Bechet, "Transformation: to the Question of Who" (detail), 2016-2017

Rontherin Ratliff, "Rooted", 2017
Patrick Waldemar, "Morpheus and the River of Dreams", 2017

Art with Ideas

A century ago Marcel Duchamp submitted Fountain, a urinal-basin, for the first exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in New York. It was refused but Conceptual art was born. Still engendering controversy, it has become a full fledged mean of expression for artists. NOLA CONCEPTUAL, the latest exhibition at The New Orleans Art Center in the St. Claude Arts District features the works from eleven New Orleans artists, including paintings, sculptures, installations, a performance and a video.

The gallery space is left wide open for the exhibition, setting the stage for the numerous and diverse works. The immediate attraction is a slow paced performance from Ricardo Barba featuring an actor wrapped in a white blanket and bound by the wrists to a cord hanging from the ceiling. In the name of the anonymous victims of injustice, Another One Bites the Dust (Love No Matter What), 2016, makes a powerful statement. I chose to focus on one work from each artist, drawn by subject and/or aesthetic. Starting with John Isiah Walton, I found his monochrome piece compelling: a clear glass jar filled with blue water, rocks at the bottom and syringes floating on top. Its simplicity emphasizes the message. The stones refer to the heaviness of being, the syringes to the escape from it through artificial paradises while the color is about infinity, eternity and ultimately death. In this piece, the artist rejuvenates the art of the memento mori. Among the four wall compositions from Ana Hernandez, an idiosyncratic piece related to the St. Claude neighborhood and its divisive neutral ground, They call it "The Shooting Side" can also be interpreted in a larger context. A thick green line crosses the dark brownish landscape, like a slash. Carl Joe Williams's Ladder intrigued me. The least narrative of his five pieces, it is also the most conceptual. Joan Miró incorporated the symbol in his works as a mean of escaping reality and reach the imaginary world. Williams's ladder is festive, covered with glitter and bright colors but with broken steps, like a broken dream, an escape to nowhere. Locked from Alex Podesta features two symmetrical creatures with antlers, facing each other in a passive confrontation, on wheels but static, frozen in action, without past or future, locked for eternity. Nearby, Cynthia Scott brings us into a world of fairy tales with three works inspired by well-known legends. Rapunzel Moves On is a lavish installation with its golden locks spread on the floor and antique scissors laid on top. The blond mane belongs to a now cropped haired head. The gesture of cutting is final and at the same time implies a new beginning. Rapunzel is leaving, turning her back on the "prince". The piece is a whimsical reference to women's liberation from their submissive roles. Rontherin Ratliff is somber, preoccupied by death, the carceral world and a future overshadowed by genetic engineering. His sculpture Biological Fear, 2016, relates to the DNA's double helix. Will its manipulation be used for the benefit of the human race or become another weapon? In the 9 min video from Jason Childers, physical and digital worlds intermingle to create a bizarre atmosphere filled with unrelated images and sounds where reality becomes "both meaningful and meaningless". On a lighter note, Christina Juran's Good Day is a silhouette frolicking in the clouds, oblivious of surroundings and ...happy. Across, Gina Laguna offers what feels like a forest of sculptures ( six). They can be appreciated one at a time or as an installation. Their common message is about nature and its life cycle. The numbered series of sculptures from Keith Duncan, Body Brace, alludes to infirmity and suffering. The silvery replicas are witnesses of the pain endured when growing up. This can start or conclude the visit of the exhibition.

Group shows can be overwhelming, confusing, lacking cohesion. The clear labeling of the works, the short but informative wall texts and the use of the space avoid these shortcomings. The selected pieces are representative of the eleven artists, each expressing their angst, sharing their intimate thoughts through their work. Conceptual art requires the viewer's participation  and more than aesthetic pleasures, provides thought-provoking material. Challenging, it is also rewarding if one spends some time interacting with the work.
The exhibition is a landmark for conceptual art in New Orleans.

photographs by the author:

Keith Duncan "Body Brace"
Carl Joe Williams "Past"
Cynthia Scott "Rapunzel Moves On"
Alex Podesta "Locked"