NOMA | New Orleans Museum of Art

NOMA’s biggest annual fundraiser, Odyssey Ball, will be held on Saturday, November 10, 2012 this year. This forty-seventh annual Odyssey Ball will, as always, have delicious food, dancing, a silent auction, and of course, great art! This year’s ball will open the exhibition Lifelike organized by the Walker Arts Center.

Click here to view auction items.

About Lifelike

Lifelike explores the boundaries between the real and fabricated in the work of over 50 artists from around the globe. Artists featured in the exhibition include Andy Warhol, Ai Weiwei, Charles Ray, James Casebere, Thomas Demand, Susan Collins, and Vija Clemins.

The exhibition invites a close examination of artworks based on commonplace objects and situations, which are startlingly realistic, often playful, and sometimes surreal. This international group exhibition features artists variously using scale, unusual materials, and sly contextual devices to reveal the manner in which their subjects’ “authenticity” is manufactured. Avoiding the brand-name flashiness embraced by 1960s Pop and the slick urban scenes introduced at that time by the Photorealists, the artists in Lifelike investigate the quieter side of the quotidian, choosing potentially overlooked items or moments as subject matter: a paper bag, an eraser, an apple core, a waiting room, an afternoon nap. They also favor a handmade, labor-intensive practice rather than technological enhancements. The resulting works—including painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, and video—transform the ordinary into something beguiling, loaded with narrative and metaphor, and imbued with an arresting sense of humanity.

Online ticket purchasing is closed.