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:
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.
March 17 - September 12 Women Artists in Louisiana, 1965-2010 (organized by NOMA and HNOC) (Louisiana Galleries)
Through May 16, 2010 CROSS-CURRENTS OF DESIGN: East to West and West to East in Ceramic Design (organized by NOMA) (Cameo Gallery)
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.
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 June 20, 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 traditions—Shinto
and Buddhism—nature 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.
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.
Coming Soon
2010
March 31 - June 27 Joan Mitchell in New Orleans (organized by NOMA and HNOC) (Louisiana Galleries)
Information on attending the Joan Mitchell Symposium can be found online at www.joanmitchellinneworleans.org,
or by email: symposiuminfo@joanmitchellfoundation.org, or by contacting Christa Blatchford at the Joan Mitchell Foundation (212) 524-0100.
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)
The Amistad Research Center, located on the Tulane University campus, is the nation's largest independent archive specializing
in the history of African Americans and other minority ethnic groups. A lesser known aspect of the Center is its extraordinary collection
of fine art dating from the nineteenth century to the present day.
Beyond the Blues: Reflections of African America in the Fine Arts Collection of the Amistad Research Center, presented by the New Orleans Museum of Art and
the Amistad Research Center, marks a long overdue public access to these remarkable works of art. The exhibition will feature nearly 150 works including
paintings, prints, and sculpture, as well as archival materials such as letters and sketchbooks, providing a fascinating glimpse of the artistic process.
Like the Collection itself, the exhibition is a map that charts change in American visual arts while highlighting African American connections passed,
like a baton, over the course of a century from one generation to the next.
April 10 - July 11 William Greiner Photographs: Fallen Paradise & Land's End (organized by NOMA) (Templeman Galleries)
The ordinary becomes extraordinary in two series of works by photographer William
Greiner. Both series—exposés of details that frequently pass beneath our notice—are
illuminated by Greiner's wry sense of humor and technical mastery. He shot the first
series, Fallen Paradise, in and around New Orleans from 1995 until just prior to
Hurricane Katrina. Instead of focusing on the devastation of his beloved city, Greiner
moved to Baton Rouge and continued his long-term practice of working close to home.
He shot Land's End in the Baton Rouge area between 2007 and 2010.
In Fallen Paradise, the images of pre-Katrina New Orleans are not intended as memorials. Yet time has altered the perspective
with which we view these suburban landscapes—a rusty playground on River Road, the now-famous drainpipe at the 17th Street Canal—
and a sense of foreboding pervades them. The absence of human presence, customary in Greiner's work, lends a crisp stillness,
making the ordinary scenes uncanny. For Greiner, the series is a testament to "the patina that veiled New Orleans prior to
Hurricane Katrina ... [and] reveals a paradise which had already fallen."
In many of the Land's End images, nature seems to be gaining ground. A bicycle lies submerged in mud. Empty shopping carts,
one bright red, sit abandoned in the middle of a once-bustling Target shopping center lot. In another, vegetation overtakes
a mound of dirt in a now-grassy construction site. The ordinary no longer seems so friendly—here the construction mound is
curiously angular as if it were the site for some strange ritual. However, because Greiner's images are of places and things
familiar to us, the effect is poignant. These photographs with their strange beauty remind us how tenuous life can be and how
the world according to William Greiner is a most mysterious place.
April 10 - July 11 SWEET Suite Louisiana: Intaglio Prints by Warrington Colescott (organized by NOMA) (Templeman Galleries)
Warrington Colescott's prints are riddled with complexities and contradictions, stinging satirical barbs and playful jokes,
and exuberant color and subtle tonal variations of black and white. At age eighty-nine, Colescott is one of the elder statesmen
of American printmaking and, perhaps, the reigning dean of color intaglio.
At the heart of Colescott's enterprise is a deep love of satire, farce, and the burlesque. Viewed in retrospect, his artistic career has unfolded as a hectic,
surprising cabaret, teeming with a cast of standard charactersÑfat-cat businessmen and their mistresses, bureaucrats, politicians, rubes, and knavesÑand unexpected
visitors to the scene, whether they be Benjamin Franklin, Sigmund Freud, or Dick Cheney. One can almost hear the music as these actors play their parts, complete
with pratfalls, scandal, and a heaping dose of good-natured satire. In Suite Louisiana, Colescott has explored his Creole heritage and created a series of eleven
masterful intaglio prints, to be seen this spring at the New Orleans Museum of Art.
Today, sixty years into his artistic career, Colescott shows no signs of slowing down or softening his approach. Instead, he carefully observes our world, finds the
ironic, humorous, or absurd edges to it, and reaches for his etching needle to prepare another signature Colescottian view of the world.
April 22 - July 3 Patti Smith: A Donation to NOMA (organized by NOMA) (2nd floor Contemporary Art Galleries)
On Thursday, April 22nd, the night before JazzFest opens in New Orleans, artist and musician Patti Smith will
present a talk at NOMA entitled "On Photography" at 6:00 pm in the Museum's Stern Auditorium. Her talk will accompany
the opening of an exhibition of forty-five photographs by Smith, donated by the artist to the museum in 2009 and 2010.
After receiving these two major gifts to NOMA's permanent collection, Diego Cortez, Freeman Family Curator of Photography, who curates the exhibition, invited
Smith to come to NOMA to give a talk and publicly address her relationship to photography, both in terms of her own photographic work and the history of the medium itself.
"Patti Smith: A Donation to NOMA," consists of forty-five silver prints made from negatives produced by the artist's antique Polaroid Land 250 camera. These
prints will be augmented by a few original, but unique, Polaroid photographs, which are also part of Smith's generous donation to our museum.
Patti Smith is an interdisciplinary artist of the highest order. She has excelled in the diverse fields of poetry, prose, music, drawing, film and photography.
Her friendship and artistic relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe was recently documented in her best-selling memoir Just Kids. Copies of the book
will be on hand in the Museum Shop for Smith to sign following her talk.
The source of inspiration for much of Patti Smith's poetry and music has often been key figures of French culture, including Arthur Rimbaud, Nicole Stéphane,
Jean Genet, Antonin Artaud and René Daumal, so we find many of the inspirational photographs Smith has taken derive from her frequent Parisian and French sojourns.
We witness Rimbaud's utensils and grave, Picasso's Rue des Grands Augustins Atelier, Susan Sontag's tomb in Montparnasse, and Victor Hugo's bed.
Patti Smith is especially inspired by the convergence of literary and photographic histories in 19th and 20th century France. If her own identity as an American
artist of the late 20th century was that of proto-punk, it is one which parallels or pays homage to a similar defiant moment in cultural history: the underground
art and literary movements of mid-to-late-19th century Paris.
May 22 - August 1 The Therapist: Photography by Donald Woodman (organized by NOMA) (Bay Gallery)
"The Therapist series, which I started on July 17, 1997, some time after I first started therapy with Dr. Donald Fineberg,
is both an intimate portrait of 'Dr. Don' and a self-portrait of the patient 'Donald.' The relationship between therapist and
patient served as a vehicle for exploring interpersonal relationships and personal identity. The images reflect both the tenor
of the session and the emotions of the moment ranging from humor to pathos. The camera became a tool for the patient/artist as
I explored various states with my therapist, including resistance; the interpretation of statements; perceptions and dreams;
the act of transference; along with flights of fantasy. These images act as a window into myself and metaphorically as a way
to access the complexity of humanity. Thus, The Therapist series might be said to be an extension of my personal self-examination/exploration
through portraiture.
To create this series, I photographed Dr. Donald Fineberg each time we had a therapy session. I set up the following parameter: I allowed myself only one negative at
each session. Although I originally conceived for the series to last one year (an arbitrary time frame), I found the challenge of the photographic problem,
making only one negative at each session and the idea of a portrait as a series of images creating an extended portrait, very interesting. Thus,
I continued making images over a four year period. I made the last exposure on September 24, 2001, two weeks after the infamous events of 9/11/2001,
at a time when I was teaching at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, KY and commuting back to New Mexico. It seemed to both me and my therapist
that the series was at an end. The process was occupying too much of our session time and we had new work to take on, which required more focused and traditional therapeutic methods."
- Donald Woodman,
Photographer
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)
July 24 - October 24 Katrina Messages from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast: Photographs by Richard Misrach (organized by NOMA) (Bay Gallery)
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 - 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
March 17 - May 27 Super Real! Photorealist Paintings from the Besthoff Family Collection (organized by NOMA) (EWF Galleries)
TBD Mel Chin retrospective
TBD Prospect.2
TBD New Media Arts from Latin American, 1990 - 2010
TBD Contemporary Japanese Ceramics from New Orleans Collections
TBD Origins of Chinese Civilization: Treasures from Henan (organized by NOMA) (EWF Galleries)
A solo exhibition of new paintings by Cuban-born, New Orleans-based artist Luis Cruz Azaceta.
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.
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.
March 17 - September 12
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.
The Amistad Research Center, located on the Tulane University campus, is the nation's largest independent archive specializing
in the history of African Americans and other minority ethnic groups. A lesser known aspect of the Center is its extraordinary collection
of fine art dating from the nineteenth century to the present day.
April 10 - July 11
On Thursday, April 22nd, the night before JazzFest opens in New Orleans, artist and musician Patti Smith will
present a talk at NOMA entitled "On Photography" at 6:00 pm in the Museum's Stern Auditorium. Her talk will accompany
the opening of an exhibition of forty-five photographs by Smith, donated by the artist to the museum in 2009 and 2010.
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.
