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Katy Red at Prospect.4 Artist Party at the Music Box |
Some visitors recently asked if there were any local art shows they should see. I mentioned Prospect.4, with 73 international artists at various venues -- and the PhotoNOLA international photography expo featuring over 60 exhibitions about town. Others include big institutional shows like the Ogden Museum of Southern Art's Solidary & Solitary expo of black abstract art from the Joyner/Giuffrida collection, and the pioneering Unfamiliar Again exhibit of contemporary women abstractionists at the Newcomb Art Museum, and of course the New Orleans Museum of Art's vast East of the Mississippi: Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Photography exhibit featuring over 150 vintage images including some of the oldest ever made in America – enough to keep anyone busy for weeks.
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Shinique Smith, Ogden Museum |
The big story of 2017 is not simply that Nola has emerged as an increasingly high profile global art center, but has done so in a way characterized by widespread community involvement – a trend that dates to the wave of activism that arose in response to the challenges posed by hurricane Katrina over a decade ago. Not only did artists create a new arts district along St. Claude Ave., but many organizations including the The Music Box, the Community Print Shop, and the newer Art Klub, have all pointedly engaged under-served segments of society. More established institutions like the NOMA, the Ogden Museum and the CAC have all developed extensive community programming. This often involves a special kind of focus. As PhotoNOLA director Amy Dailey Williams put it, “The national photography community got involved early on, but we place a high priority on local communities, so we expanded our outreach into schools and institutions like Kingsley House.” One highly influential institution that, under the direction of Nola native Gia Hamilton, has had enviable success balancing mainstream visual arts and local community concerns is the Joan Mitchell Center, where accessible programs and a major artist residency center have enabled a new wave of artists from a variety of backgrounds make their presence felt locally and nationally. A longtime advocate for art as a tool for social healing and personal growth, Hamilton acts on her belief that, “all humans deserve the right to be creative, and need time, space and resources to help solve our society’s issues. What would happen if humans had more time to be creative -- imagine what problems we could solve together.” ~Bookhardt