Now On View

Through February 14, 2010
CROSS-CURRENTS OF DESIGN:
East to West and West to East in Ceramic Design
(organized by NOMA) (Cameo Gallery)

According to his memoir, the Venetian explorer Marco Polo (ca. 1254-1324) traveled through Persia and thence overland to China, arriving at the court of the Kublai Khan in 1275. For the next twenty years he worked for the Great Khan, earning favor and fortune in the process. Polo's writings were the first to mention the splendour of the Khan's court as well as the first to reveal the astonishing extent of China's riches. Among the extraordinary things he described was porcelain, a seemingly magical translucent vitreous substance which was capable of taking mesmerizing colour and yet was different from glass. Remarkably, the Chinese had been crafting objects of this mysterious substance since about 850 A.D. In the years following Polo's death in 1324, minute quantities of Chinese porcelain made their way to the royal palaces and aristocratic residences of Europe. The privileged classes were amazed by such porcelains and initiated projects for making them in the West. Inevitably, the forms and motifs of the exotic East deeply influenced such projects, finally culminating in the discovery of the secret of true, or hard-paste, porcelain at Meissen in the winter of 1709-1710. That discovery touched off an enduring Western mania for porcelain, although it must be recalled that by the eighteenth century, the Chinese had been making true porcelain for approximately 850 years.

During the past fifty years, several New Orleans collectors developed a serious interest in aspects of Asian porcelain manufacture. Among these were Robert C. and Dorothy Fleury Hills, Hewitt S. Law, Jr., Lillian Pulitzer, and Robin and R. Randolph Richmond, Jr. All of these collectors made bequests of their collections, placed them on long-term loan, or presented them as gifts to the Museum during their lifetimes. Although all were interested in different areas of Asian ceramics, their collections reflect either the fact that Western design had been influenced by that of Asia or that the reverse had occurred. An examination of the Hills' collection of blue-and-white Chinese porcelain reveals how the West borrowed and copied Chinese motifs for its own perennially popular blue-and-white porcelain. A review of the Law and Pulitzer collections of Chinese Export porcelain reveals how Chinese manufacturers had adapted their wares to suit Western taste and usage. The Richmond collection, rich in monochromes from the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1279-1368) kilns, illuminates the lasting debt Western potters owe these early glaze masters. Utilizing the aforementioned collections as a fulcrum, this interdepartmental exhibition illustrates these crosscurrents of design and traces their influence upon the history of ceramic production.

Ceramics were a staple trade commodity for the Chinese, and blue-and-white porcelains were the dominant ceramic "currency" from the time of their appearance in the first quarter of the fourteenth century until the beginning of the eighteenth century. The Chinese conducted trade in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and of course, Europe; wherever blue-and-white was traded, its composition, form and decoration exerted a tremendous impact on local ceramic production. In the Netherlands, De Grieksche A (Greek A) Factory was one of the leading producers of Dutch pottery inspired by blue-and-white Chinese porcelains. In an interesting variation, some of the French faienciers forsook the frank imitation of Asian prototypes in favor of employing Asian themes for designs which were then interpreted in an original, very French fashion. The trade in Chinese Export porcelain gradually increased until such porcelains were thoroughly adapted to European taste by the last quarter of the eighteenth century.



During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, fashionable European taste had embraced chinoiserie, or Western evocations of Chinese art which were executed with "some reference to the European stylistic tenets of the time." Chinoiserie motifs were fanciful interpretations of genuine Chinese prototypes. An offshoot of this was singerie, or decoration in which the primary figures were monkeys. The monkeys were frequently clad in human clothes and engaged in human activities such as card playing, smoking, or hunting. Yet another, related offshoot was turquerie, in which Middle Eastern or Turkish motifs were adapted to the reigning rococo style and painted on European faience or porcelain. Removed as chinoiserie, singerie, and turquerie were from any true Asian prototypes, they were nonetheless inspired by an association with the East. Indeed, some scholars feel that traditional Chinese design may have influenced the development of the rococo style in Europe.

The influence of Asia on European ceramics was further strengthened in the 1720s through the exportation of Japanese porcelain decorated in red, blue, and gold from the port of Imari. Europeans encountering these richly decorated, showy porcelains were impelled to imitate them. Dutch potters were particularly inspired by the striking palette and opulent decoration of Imari porcelains and produced notable interpretations in delftware. Given the close ties of The Netherlands and England, it was not surprising that Imari porcelain struck a similar chord with British potters. The Derby Porcelain Works (active circa 1750-1848, 1878-present) made a specialty of wares in the Imari taste and created a taste for them which endures to this day. The commercial success of these English "Imari" porcelains instigated the copying of them by numerous Staffordshire manufacturers of earthenwares.

The current of influence was not only from East to West. Much of the earliest export blue-and-white (known as Kraak porcelain) was in itself influenced by Islamic potters in both shape and design. The wares most commonly labeled "Chinese Export" by modern collectors had been adapted, often in both form and decoration, to suit Western taste and usage from the very beginning of large-scale trading. Armorials for the aristocracy, mythological and biblical scenes, as well as popular pastimes such as fox-hunting, made their way into the decorative vocabulary. Similarly, shapes unknown in China, such as chocolate and coffee pots, soup tureens, meat platters, and forms derived from metal prototypes became common in both the European and American markets.

The Canton-based "China trade" had originated with European traders; Americans did not arrive in Canton to take part in this lucrative commerce until 1784. However, these Chinese Export porcelains became extremely fashionable and were one of the primary indicators of an advanced socio-economic position in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century America. The trade was primarily in tablewares, with some decorative pieces such as vases and garnitures. Having been an enormous success in its day, Chinese Export porcelains again became an immensely fashionable and prestigious commodity during the 1920s and 1930s in this country, with such notably affluent collectors as Henry Francis DuPont and Helena Woolworth McCann assembling major collections. Such was the strength of the Colonial Revival in the United States during these decades that Chinese Export porcelain again became a status symbol indicating the "classic good taste" of its possessor. By the late 1940s, the fashionability of Export porcelains had begun a tapering off, but today it has returned as a highly desirable and prestigious area in which to collect.

If Chinese design and its related chinoiserie held sway in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the influence of Japan became dominant in the 1870s and 1880s as a result of the reopening of Japan in 1853 by the American Commodore Perry. As a result of an enforced trade with the West, Japanese goods took England and Europe by storm, a mania which eventually spread to this country. Initially this new japonisme was restricted to artistic and/or affluent circles. However, as its popularity increased, it was embraced by an expanded consumer base, which led to the production of striking porcelain and pottery pieces in the new Japanese taste. Enterprising Staffordshire potteries commissioned japonesque designs from prominent architects and noteworthy commercial designers thus presaging the present-day popularity of architect-designed objects. Many of the best of these designs in earthenware were executed in the relatively inexpensive medium of underglaze transfer-print, thus making them available to a greatly expanded public. Nonetheless, costly porcelain objects in the Japanese taste were also produced at the same time and retailed by such luxury surveyors as Tiffany and Company, New York; Cartier, Paris, and John Wanamaker and Company, Philadelphia.

Thus, these crosscurrents of design in ceramics have created a fascinating and diverse legacy of objects showcased in the present exhibition. Paired objects from East and West highlight the rich interaction of potters, clients, designers, and traders.

Through February 21, 2010
Feathers, Fur and Flowers:
The Natural World in Edo-period Painting
(organized by NOMA) (Japanese Galleries)

Inhabited by a profusion of flowers, geese, birds, and squirrels, the nineteenth century work Birds and Flowers by artists Sessai Bunshu and Shosensai Horyu is an extraordinary example of Edo-period (1615-1868) painting. The minutely detailed and realistic renderings of various flowers, flowering trees, and animals are placed in a fantastic botanical context: the heavy laden grape vines of autumn hang over the blooming plum tree that flowers at the New Year.

Birds and Flowers served as the inspiration for a new installation currently on view in the Japanese Galleries. Feathers, Fur and Flowers: The Natural World in Edo-period Painting includes hanging scrolls, handscrolls, screens, ceramics, lacquer-wares, and other decorative arts from NOMA's permanent collection. These works, taken together, reflect the pervasive presence of nature in all aspects of Edo-period Japanese art. Examined singly, they provide the opportunity to consider an individual artist's vision through the lens of a single subject.

Nature has served as a source of inspiration for Japanese artists since the earliest of times. In both of Japan's major religious traditionsÑShinto and BuddhismÑnature is imbued with sanctity, and early ritual objects contained numerous botanical and zoomorphic motifs. By the tenth century, artists employed motifs derived from nature in secular art, particularly decorated writing papers and the applied arts. Elements of nature emerged as a discrete painting subject by the mid-thirteenth century and over the course of the next several hundred years, secular paintings of pure landscapes or featuring birds, flowers, animals, and insects came increasingly into the mainstream.

During the Edo period, 1615-1868, artists from a broad range of stylistic traditions looked to both established conventions and new modes for depicting the natural world. The Kano school was the most influential of the established traditions, producing artists to the Shogunate from the late Muromachi era (1392-1568) until the later nineteenth century. An extraordinary, early Kano screen, Birds and a Marshy Stream, dating from the mid-sixteenth century, embodies the strength of Kano painters' composition and the lyrical approach to depicting the natural world.

Stylistic innovators during the Edo period were generally found outside of the Kano school aesthetic, however. Artists affiliated with lineages such as Rinpa drew from the deep well of classical Japanese references to create resonant images from nature that feature bold patterning and flattened forms. Others responded to new forms of naturalism made available through Western and Chinese books and Chinese monks and painters who made their way to the port city of Nagasaki during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This imported knowledge had tremendous impact on Japanese artists and scholars who lived at a time when the government restricted international travel, both to and from Japan, and severely limited foreign trade.

One facet of this influence may be seen in Birds and Flowers, illustrated here. Its creators, who are identified but whose biographies are as yet unexplored, were surely members of the so-called Nagasaki "school," a loosely affiliated group of painters who trained either directly with Chinese artists in Nagasaki or through the copying of Ming-dynasty Chinese paintings in Japanese collections. They followed the conventional format for Nagasaki-style works: realistically painted non-native birds or animals placed within a Japanese context. These works often feature large, bird-covered trees, anchored in rocks and grasses to the lower right.

Birds and Flowers is but one of the numerous interpretations of nature on view in Feathers, Fur and Flowers. All represent the varied artistic streams during the Edo period, and provide a glimpse into the remarkable diversity of style present during this period.

Through February 28, 2010
William Woodward, 1859-1939: American Impressionist in New Orleans
(organized by HNOC and NOMA) (Louisiana Galleries)

The names of Massachusetts-born William Woodward (1859-1939) and his younger brother Ellsworth (1861-1939) are irrevocably and inseparably intertwined with art in Louisiana. Both brothers were integrally involved with numerous art organizations in the state and across the South, often in the role of a founder, an officer, or a trustee. Their accomplishments, like their reputations, have merged through time. Invariably, the question arises about which of the brothers was more important. Or which brother was the better artist. In truth, the brothers were a joint force. Together, their intensity was magnified. The strength of their individual artwork is dependent upon the personal taste of the viewer, for like any artist, both brothers produced some drawings and paintings that are more successful than others. The large body of their artwork was preserved by William's son, Carl Woodward, who became caretaker of his father's work as well as that of his Uncle Ellsworth's.

The breadth in their surviving oeuvre provides an excellent opportunity for study. Additionally, the New Orleans Museum of Art (then Delgado) received 110 etchings and forty-four oil crayon paintings by William Woodward from benefactress Mrs. Edgar B. Stern. The Historic New Orleans Collection is also rich in works by the Woodward brothers, thanks in large part to the gift of Laura Simon Nelson. A selection of William Woodward's artworks from the permanent collections of NOMA and THNOC are on view in this, the sixth collaborative exhibition between the two museums.

Because of his unwavering interest in architecture, William Woodward's work shows depth in development. His focus on architecture included drawings, watercolor paintings, oil paintings, oil crayon, and etchings. After six decades of concentrated work on architectural scenes, he published his etchings of the Vieux Carré. From his earliest days, Woodward produced views of his family's homestead and other New England landscapes. Invariably, farm buildings and other structures in these early works are crisply delineated.



As a youth Woodward was accustomed to the rural landscape and the close proximity of family and relatives. His family was supportive of his interest in art, an interest he attributed to an uncle, his mother's brother, who had been killed in the Civil War when Woodward was a small child. In his biographical note, Woodward wrote of his Uncle George, "unmarried and seems to be the first in the family to develop art tendencies, producing crayon portraits of family members including one of my mother, which had much to do in causing me to turn to art for a life work." William's interest in art intensified after a visit to the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition where he and his younger brother saw art exhibitions. After this exposure to fine art, Woodward began an intense seven years of continuous art training. He undertook studies at the Rhode Island School of Design, newly established in response to the Philadelphia Exposition and based on the indivisible relationship of art to industry. This concept remained with Woodward throughout his life. In preparation for a teaching career, Woodward studied at the Massachusetts Art Normal School, where his interest in architecture began.

In 1884 William Preston Johnston recruited Woodward to teach fine art, mechanical drawing, and architectural drawing at Tulane University. Woodward, who had taught at the School of Design while still a student, was also a student-teacher at the Art Normal School, a position he resigned before departing for New Orleans. Continuing his studies by correspondence, Woodward graduated in 1886. On June 1, he married native New Orleanian Louise Amelia Giesen, who had been his student. Woodward extended their honeymoon through Scotland and England to include a three-month summer study at the Académie Julian in Paris. This sojourn provided a new direction for his artistic development, for there he saw Impressionist works, a style he soon adapted to his architectural scenes.

Without doubt, Woodward's impression of the multicultural Vieux Carré in a crescent of the Mississippi River provided life-long artistic inspiration. Unlike the wide-open spaces of his youth, the Quarter was crowded with European-style residences alongside docks, open air markets, dry goods stores, and hardware storesÑall located in the shadow of St. Louis Cathedral on the city's main square.

Woodward was the first artist to focus intensely on the Vieux Carré "before it was fashionable," documenting the city's rich cultural heritage in vignettes of daily lifeÑstreet cleaners, milkmaids driving drayage carts, women at market, and residents otherwise engaged in their daily routines. These scenes have been said to "rank as his best of the urban fabric of New Orleans." He assimilated Impressionist tenets with his own style and ultimately developed a manner of artistic rendering suitable for capturing the soft light, moisture, and romantic essence of the French Quarter. His palette lightened and the contours of figures and architecture softened. His figures, which are imbued with a sense of immediacy, enliven his architectural scenes.

Woodward was active in every facet of architecture, including planning for Tulane's new buildings and the disposition of interior rooms and studios. Upon the organization of the College of Technology, Woodward was appointed Professor of Drawing and Architecture, and worked incessantly toward the establishment of a school of architecture, "to introduce in this region an awareness of professional values in design, and especially to provide exercises in the skills of mechanical, freehand and architectural drawing." Woodward's goal was ultimately achieved in 1907 when Tulane formally established the School of Architecture.

Woodward's impressionistic views of the Vieux Carré were paramount in focusing attention on the historical structures, many of which were being recklessly destroyed. In 1895 Woodward was in the forefront of the movement against the demolition of the Cabildo, the seat of government during the Spanish Colonial period—rebuilt after the 1794 fire and one of the few surviving structures of the colonial era. This battle for historic preservation in the French Quarter ultimately led to the establishment of the Vieux Carré Commission.

The citizen most identified with architecture at that time, Woodward also chaired the Art Committee of the Artists' Association of New Orleans, and thus spoke with the authority of both positions. Allison Owen, Woodward's former student who continued architectural studies in Boston, supported passage of a city ordinance to establish the Cabildo as a museum. With this successful movement, Woodward's preservationist activities began, as did the preservationist movement in the Vieux Carré. As Woodward, who reportedly "set up on street corners or mid-street," documented the historic quarter, his awareness of historic preservation increased accordingly. His observance of the ambience of the Quarter is manifest in his earliest works, particularly an 1891 gouache and watercolor painting, French Quarter Market.

Woodward's concern for architectural preservation is also evident in the appearance of Jackson Square in his view of the Cabildo from St. Peter Street. One sees beyond the arches of the loggia into the greenery of the Square, the equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson, to the lower Pontalba Building and an outbuilding that no longer exists. Woodward printed the name of the Cabildo in block letters to underscore the historical importance of the structure, a device he used in another image of the Cabildo's gate.

Among Woodward's students were the most respected practicing architects of the day: Richard Koch, Ernest Lee Jahncke, Edgar Stone, and Emile Weil, as well as Charles Bein, Frederick Duncan "Fritz" Parham, and Alvin Callender, the latter two who assisted Woodward in documenting the features and dimensions of the St. Louis Hotel while it was being demolished in 1917. Callender, after whom Alvin A. Callender Air Field was named, was killed in World War I. Woodward painted the young aviator's portrait posthumously, using photographs and including the airplane in which Callender crashed, with its propeller serving to mark his grave.

Following surgery to remove a tumor Woodward was confined to a wheelchair in 1921. Retiring to the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 1923, he continued his preservationist activities. His discovery of a plastic plate, Fiberloid, as a matrix for printmaking suited his soft-focused street scenes. Within five years he executed 115 etchings, which were then printed by his brother, Ellsworth. In 1938 William Woodward published French Quarter Etchings, reproducing fifty-four architectural views with annotations regarding history, renovation, and destruction of the structures. Many of his paintings, drawings, and etchings record historic landmarks that were no longer standing at the time of the publication. Another of Woodward's legacies comes through the 1964 posthumous publication of a small guide book, Early Views of the Vieux Carré A Guide to the French Quarter, which illustrates thirty-three of his architectural drawings and etchings. This spiral-bound guidebook, which sold out before it was released, ultimately sold over thirty thousand copies.

William Woodward's reputation has been cyclical, but his work is appreciated for the French Quarter architecture. A dynamic force in New Orleans from 1884 to 1921, Woodward continued his activities on the Mississippi Gulf Coast until his death in 1939. Woodward, who spent his lifetime documenting street scenes at a time when many historic landmarks in the Vieux Carré were being demolished, was a pivotal figure in New Orleans art and architecture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Through February 28, 2010
2010 Cox "Our History" Art Contest
(Presented by Cox)(1st Floor Elevator Lobby)

All 20 finalists are on exhibit at the New Orleans Museum of Art through February 28, 2010.

Featured to the left: Walt Whitman: See, Hear, and Am Silent by Jeffery Nguyen, Thomas Jefferson - 9th Grade - Jefferson

Through March 14, 2010
Käthe Kollwitz:
Graphics from the Stein Collection
(organized by NOMA) (Templeman Galleries)

The New Orleans Museum of Art presents a new exhibition of prints and drawings by one of Germany's greatest 20th century artists, Käthe Kollwitz: Graphics from the Jean Stein Collection.

Organized by NOMA Director E. John Bullard, the exhibition includes over twenty- five graphics by Käthe Kollwitz from the collection of Shreveport collector Jean Stein, as well as prints, watercolors, drawings and sculptures by Kollwitz and other early 20th century German Expressionist artists, such as Ernst Barlach, Gabrielle Münter, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner from NOMA's permanent collection. Also included are two of Kollwitz's rarely seen bronze sculptures, on loan from the collection of Stephen Hansel, the current President of NOMA's Board of Trustees.

Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945), one of the greatest printmakers of the 20th century, may well be the most compassionate and empathetic artist of all time. Her entire artistic production was dedicated to championing the underprivileged: the poor, the hungry, the sick, the homeless and the economically exploited.

Academically trained, Kollwitz was fully grounded in the narrative-symbolist tradition and was a virtuoso in printmaking techniques, creating 275 etchings, woodcuts, and lithographs. She enjoyed international recognition after World War I and was the first woman elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin, where she taught as a full professor for nearly fifteen years. Kollwitz was forced by the Nazis to resign her professorship in 1933 and was prohibited from exhibiting her work after 1936. She was still able to produce new work up to her death in 1945, just weeks before the end of World War II.

Jean Stein, musician, bibliophile and art collector, acquired her first Kollwitz print in the early 1950s. Over the years she assembled a diverse collection of prints, ranging from old masters like DŸrer and Callot, to German Expressionists like Barlach and Grosz, to work by contemporary American and Inuit artists. But Kollwitz has always been Stein's great passion and she has assembled an outstanding group of her works. A long-time resident of Shreveport, Louisiana, Stein is a member of NOMA's Advisory Council and a generous support of the Museum's Prints and Drawings Department.

A fully illustrated catalogue of the Kollwitz exhibition, with essays by Jean Stein and Jane Kallir, Director of Galerie St. Etienne in New York City, for many years one of the leading dealers in Kollwitz prints, is available in NOMA's Museum Shop for $9.95.

Through March 14, 2010
Dreams Come True
Art of the Classic Fairy Tales from the Walt Disney Studio
(organized by NOMA) (EWF Galleries)

Dreams Come True showcases original artwork from legendary Disney animated films, including Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, and will feature a children's section celebrating Disney's connections with jazz music and the Crescent City. The artworks, on loan from the Walt Disney Studio Animation Research Library, will be accompanied by film clips to demonstrate how individual sketches and paintings lead to a finished celluloid masterpiece. Organized by the Walt Disney Animation Research Library and the New Orleans Museum of Art, this once-in-a-lifetime exhibition, which cannot be seen anywhere else, is set to coincide with the premier of Disney's upcoming animated feature, The Princess and the Frog, set in New Orleans during the 1920s Jazz Age.

Through March 14, 2010
Polaridad Complementaria:
Recent Works from Cuba
Co-presented with the Newcomb Art Gallery at Tulane University
(organized by International Arts and Artists) (at NOMA in the second floor contemporary galleries, and at the Newcomb Art Gallery)

Polaridad Complementaria: Recent Works from Cuba is a major exhibition developed by the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam, Havana, offering audiences the opportunity to become acquainted with the island's current artistic production. The participants are mainly young artists who have attained international acknowledgement. The majority of them have taken part in fairs and biennials abroad, all have exhibited in Europe and Latin America and several in the United States, among them René Peña, Abel Barroso, Douglas Pérez, Yoan Capote, and Roberto Fabelo. The exhibition is curated by Jorge Fernandez Torres, vice-director of the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam and curator of the Havana Biennial.

¡Sí Cuba!

" ¡Sí Cuba!," a major citywide presentation of arts, music, and culture related to Cuba, will take place in New Orleans starting in January and continue through the spring of 2010. ¡Sí Cuba! is a collaborative venture between museums, universities, galleries, and arts organizations in New Orleans, co-organized by NOMA, Newcomb Art Gallery, and the Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University.

NOMA is presenting two exhibitions as part of ¡Sí Cuba!:

Through March 28, 2010
Luiz Cruz Azaceta:
Swimming to Havana
(organized by NOMA) (Great Hall, first floor)

A solo exhibition of new paintings by Cuban-born, New Orleans-based artist Luis Cruz Azaceta.

The phrase "Swimming to Havana" proposes the impossible. Whimsical and irreverent, it suggests both a joke and an act of desperation. No unassisted human is capable of traversing ninety miles across the Caribbean Sea from Florida to Cuba. Nevertheless, it is a journey that has taken place countless times in the minds of Cubans wishing to reach the United States, and Cuban immigrants dreaming of returning home. In his suite of new paintings, the artist Luis Cruz Acazeta (born 1942, Havana) invites viewers to undertake their own imaginative journeys through his imagery. These paintings, all from 2009, explore the idea of "crossing over" in myriad ways: between abstraction and figuration, between geometric and organic forms, between Cuban and American culture, and between the historically linked cities of New Orleans and Havana.

A resident of New Orleans for the past seventeen years, Luis Cruz Azaceta has an extensive national and international resume. His work has been exhibited at major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum Of Modern Art, New York, and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. He is the recipient of grants from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Swimming to Havana, organized by Miranda Lash, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, is his first solo exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Through May 2, 2010
Parallel Universe:
Quintron and Miss Pussycat Live at City Park
(organized by NOMA) (Frederick R. Weisman Gallery)

This winter the New Orleans Museum of Art kicks off the 2010 contemporary exhibition schedule with a celebration of New Orleans artists Quintron and Miss Pussycat. Widely known for their performances in music clubs and alternative art spaces over the past fifteen years, Quintron and Miss Pussycat have inspired audiences around the world with their innovative approach to puppetry and organ-based music. Parallel Universe: Quintron and Miss Pussycat Live at City Park will be the artists' first museum exhibition. This multimedia presentation is designed to acquaint audiences with their work from previous years, and highlight new projects including the debut of a new video by Miss Pussycat, and an original music album by Quintron, which will be recorded entirely on-site at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Parallel Universe: Quintron and Miss Pussycat Live at City Park is organized by Miranda Lash, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. The exhibition will be on view in the second-floor Frederick R. Weisman Gallery from January 30 to May 2, 2010. The exhibition will begin with a vibrant and comprehensive display of Miss Pussycat's puppetry, a "parallel universe" the artist creates and channels within her set designs and performances. Hundreds of her puppets will take over the first gallery, spanning the length of Miss Pussycat's career. Arranged in miniature landscapes, her handmade puppets fuse the surreal and fantastical with a dose of whimsy. Her versatile working method as a puppeteer ranges from swiftly arranging puppet shows for rock concert stages, to painstakingly directing videos with large support crews and arranging prerecorded soundtracks. Miss Pussycat's presentation will include the debut of her latest puppet video.

Quintron's contribution to Parallel Universe will consist of two components: an interactive display of his patented DRUM BUDDY sound machines, and a commitment to undertake the recording of a new album in a gallery space. The artist will install himself and his entire recording studio in NOMA's contemporary galleries, surrounded by works of art culled from the Museum's collection. Offering his services as a temporary employee of NOMA, Quintron will clock in five days a week, from Wednesday to Sunday during normal business hours, to work on the album. Having visited NOMA's art storage numerous times since early 2009, the artist has carefully chosen a selection of paintings, primarily portraits from the last few centuries, to be displayed around his electric organ and recording table. Quintron will draw inspiration from these masterpieces and from the unique and unfamiliar experience of recording in front of an audience of Museum visitors. Members of the public will be invited to enter the recording studio and observe the artist at work.

A gallery located adjacent to Quintron's recording studio will focus on the development of Quintron's patented instrument the DRUM BUDDY, a light-activated analog synthesizer. Based on the principal of light-sensing circuits, the DRUM BUDDY is capable of uniquely replicating kick, snare, bass, organ and record-scratching sounds. On display will be early prototypes dating from the mid-1990s, specimens from each of Quintron's production runs, as well as several new DRUM BUDDIES with added features. The public will have the opportunity to make their own music on a DRUM BUDDY that has been specially designed for museum use.

To assist Quintron in documenting his recording process, NOMA is pleased to be collaborating with the organization Open Sound New Orleans, a community media project led by Jacob Brancasi and Heather Booth. On a weekly basis Quintron will send audio updates (ambient and musical "snapshots" rather than finished recordings) to Open Sound, which can then be accessed online, through the free website: www.opensoundneworleans.com

Events:

Friday, January 29, 2010, 5:30-9 p.m. - Opening reception
A reception will commemorate the opening of Parallel Universe and prepare the public for Quintron's first week of recording sessions. A cash bar will be available in the Great Hall and the Museum will be open throughout the evening for viewing of Parallel Universe.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010, 6-8 p.m. - Listening Party Celebrating the completion of Quintron's latest album recorded on site, NOMA will host a listening party of his new tracks.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010, 6-8 p.m.- Film Screening Panacea Theriac (Miss Pussycat) hosts a screening of puppet films followed by Q & A.

Coming Soon

2010

April 10 - July 11
Beyond the Blues:
Reflections of African America in the Fine Arts Collection of the Amistad Research Center
(organized by NOMA and the Amistad Research Center) (EWF Galleries)

Drawn from the extraordinary but little known fine arts collection of the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans, LA, the 100 paintings, works on paper and sculpture in the exhibition will be complemented by pertinent selections from the personal papers of the artists also in the collection of the Amistad Research Center. The exhibition, which will occupy approximately 4,000 square feet, premieres at NOMA April 11- July 11, 2010 and is available to travel to selected U.S. venues during 2011-2013.

April 10 - July 11
William Greiner:
Fallen Paradise 1995-2005
(organized by NOMA) (Templeman Galleries)

July 24 - October 24
Ancestors and Descendants: Ancient Southwestern America at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century
Selections from the George Pepper Native American Archive at the Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University
(organized by NOMA) (EWF Galleries)

The exhibition consists of seventy-three antique photographs of Native American subjects, including photographs printed from antique glass lantern slides, as well as eighty-four Native American artifacts including Navaho and Pueblo textiles, pottery and jewelry. All the images and artifacts were collected by George Hubbard Pepper between 1895 and 1905. Pepper was the first anthropologist/archeologist to excavate Pueblo Bonito in New Mexico, America's most spectacular Native American ruin. The images and objects on display are representative of Pepper's large archive which until this exhibition has been mostly unknown, unpublished and rarely seen by the public.

July 24 - October 24
Every Year Something New:
Works on Paper from the Permanent Collection
(organized by NOMA) (Templeman Galleries)

November 14, 2010 - January 23, 2011
Great Collectors/Great Donors:
Building the New Orleans Museum of Art 1910-2010
(organized by NOMA) (EWF Galleries)

November 14, 2010 - January 23, 2011
Prospect.2:
International Biennial of Contemporary Art
(organized by US Biennial Inc.)

November 14, 2010 - March 13, 2011
Bernard Faucon:
The Most Beautiful Day of My Youth
(organized by NOMA) (Templemen Galleries)

2011 - NOMA's Centennial

February 12 - April 17
The Sound of One Hand
Paintings and Calligraphy by the Zen Monk Hakuin
(organized by NOMA) (EWF Galleries)

May 7 - July 17
Andy to Jim:
American Master Prints 1960-1980
(organized by NOMA) (EWF Galleries)

August 6 - October 16
The Elegant Image:
Hindu, Buddhist and Jain Bronzes from the Bhansali Collection
(organized by NOMA) (EWF Galleries)

November 13, 2011 - February 19, 2012
100 Masterworks for 100 Years - NOMA's Centennial Celebration
(organized by NOMA) (EWF Galleries)

November 13, 2011 - February 19, 2012
The Complete Sculptures of Edgar Degas
(organized by NOMA) (EWF Galleries)

2012

November 10, 2012 - March 30, 2013
Origins of Chinese Civilization:
Treasures from Henan
(organized by NOMA) (EWF Galleries)

TBD
Mel Chin retrospective

TBD
Prospect.3

TBD
New Media Arts from Latin American, 1990 - 2010

TBD
Contemporary Japanese Ceramics from New Orleans Collections

TBD
Super Real! Photorealist Paintings from the Besthoff Family Collection

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