Film Screening and Discussion: The Nita & Zita Project
2024-04-24 17:00 - 20:00 (America/Chicago)
The documentary The Nita & Zita Project tells the story of two legendary New Orleans dancers. The film shows their rise to stardom in the 1920s, their eventual retirement in New Orleans, and the thousands of costumes they created.
Following a screening in NOMA’s Lapis Center for the Arts, Marci Darling (writer, director, and producer) and Sharon Gillen (producer) will speak about the film. Guests are also invited to view the costumes of Nita & Zita from 5–5:30 pm.
This event is free and open to the public.

About the Film
The Nita & Zita Project tells the story of legendary 1920s New Orleans dancers Nita and Zita, two Jewish Hungarian sisters who immigrated to the United States to blaze their own trail as contortionist acrobatic performers. They rose to international stardom and danced around the world as glittering globetrotters, through multiple wars, before retiring to New Orleans, where they became recluses and painted their Creole cottage top-to-bottom with flowers, dots, and vibrant patterns.
After their passing, their neighbor found thousands of costumes in their home, which she then sold in a yard sale that lasted five years. Their story of resilience and ecstatic creativity as artists has inspired countless artists, who have created award-winning plays, dance tributes, paintings, and poetry based on the extraordinary story of these sisters.

About the Speakers

Marci Darling
Marci Darling has been a storyteller for decades. Darling has written five bestselling books and her writing has appeared in such esteemed publications as the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and Louisiana Homes and Gardens. She worked as a professional belly dancer, circus acrobat, contortionist–illusionist, and burlesque dancer for ten years, dancing on tour with The Go-Go’s, the B-52’s, Paul McCartney, and many others. She is Adjunct Faculty at Endicott College, where she instructs educators on integrating the arts into teaching strategies. Darling also holds a Master’s of Education from Harvard University, a bachelor’s degree in English and Creative Writing from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a certificate in writing from Stanford Univerisity. The Nita & Zita Project is her first film and serves as a tribute to her dance partner and soulmate Kim Murphy, who passed away in 2018.

Sharon Gillen
Dr. Sharon Gillen is a self-described “perfectly imperfect human who finds great joy in approaching life as an opportunity for learning.” Gillen is a medical doctor and was drawn to the profession as a way to help heal people. More recently, she has realized the power of healing through storytelling and feels called to honor her ancestors by connecting more deeply to the divine feminine and her Jewish heritage. She is a descendant of persecuted Jews from the Baia Mare area in Romania, the same area as Nita & Zita. She is a lover of all things film and has served on the board of the New Orleans Film Society.

Trixie Minx
Burlesque performer, producer, and educator Trixie Minx is a leader in the preservation and innovation of the Art of Tease. Known for her classic yet playful style of dance, she is also recognized as a premiere burlesque producer with multiple New Orleans-based shows in addition to several custom-created productions for special events through her company Trixie Minx Productions. Recently Minx opened Trixie’s Burlesque Boutique & Studio, which offers custom products by performing artists and dance classes to the public. Beyond the stage, Minx also volunteers her time as an advocate for affordable performer healthcare with the New Orleans Musicians Clinic.

Gallery Talk with Rory O’Neill Schmitt and Rosary O’Neill
2024-04-24 18:00
Join us in the galleries each Wednesday for weekly talks with artists, curators, and other special guests. During these casual conversations, we’ll take a close look at different works currently on view at NOMA.
This week, Rory O’Neill Schmitt, Ph.D., and Rosary O’Neill, Ph.D., authors of Edgar Degas in New Orleans and Kate Chopin in New Orleans, give gallery talks and book signings in the second-floor Impressionist galleries.

Free with museum admission. Louisiana residents receive free admission to NOMA on Wednesdays courtesy of The Helis Foundation. When you arrive at NOMA, check in at the front desk for directions to the appropriate gallery.

Intimate Moments of Louisiana Artists: Edgar Degas and Kate Chopin
Afternoon Gallery Talk at 12:30 pm
In this talk, meet Edgar Degas and Kate Chopin, whose enormous talents blossomed in Louisiana. One was the son of a Louisiana woman, and one the wife of a Louisiana man. This talk explores the mysterious time Degas and Chopin spent in Louisiana that catapulted their dazzling careers.
Bewitched by Beauty: Edgar Degas and Kate Chopin
Evening Gallery Talk at 6:00 pm
Learn how New Orleans bewitched two monumental artists: Edgar Degas and Kate Chopin. Who was Edgar Degas and why was he painting masterpieces in the darkened rooms of New Orleans? Why did Kate Chopin write folk tales of volcanic Louisiana heroes? Why did these extraordinary people come to Louisiana in a time of peril, and why did they leave?

About the Authors
Rory O’Neill Schmitt, Ph.D, and Rosary O’Neill, Ph.D.
Rory O’Neill Schmitt, Ph.D., is the Manager of Faculty Development at the University of Southern California’s Bovard College. A filmmaker, she produced the Duplass Brothers Productions television series with Barret O’Brien, A Long Long Night, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2023. She trained as an art therapist at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and attained her board certification in California. Dr. Schmitt specializes in visual art, education, and curriculum; her doctoral studies focused on teaching art interpretation in museums. An exhibiting fine art photographer, she has exhibited her artwork in New York City, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Paris. Dr. Schmitt has penned three additional books about the creative process with Arcadia Publishing and The History Press: Navajo and Hopi Art in Arizona (2016), New Orleans Voodoo: A Cultural History (with O’Neill, 2019), and Edgar Degas in New Orleans (with O’Neill, 2023).
Rosary O’Neill, Ph.D., is a Senior Fulbright Drama Specialist, and winner of nine Fulbright awards, including five to Paris to study Edgar Degas. She has published 19 plays with Concord Publishers (Samuel French Publishers), including Degas in New Orleans, and Marilyn/God, and has published three play anthologies and six books. She is a member of the Playwrights Division of the Actors’ Studio in New York City. A professor emerita at Loyola University New Orleans, Dr. O’Neill founded the first repertory theater in New Orleans: Southern Rep. She has been celebrated world-wide with residencies at Harvard University, Tyrone Guthrie Theatre Center, American Academy in Rose, and Irish Cultural Center in Paris.

Gallery Talk | Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined—Canceled
2024-05-01 12:30
This event has been canceled.

Expand your experience of Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined with monthly gallery talks inside the museum or in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden on select Wednesdays: January 31, February 7, March 6, April 3, May 1, June 5, and July 10.
Gallery talks are free with museum admission, no registration is required. Louisiana residents receive free admission on Wednesdays courtesy of The Helis Foundation.
Register in Advance
About the Exhibition
This major solo exhibition of work by Wangechi Mutu brings together nearly one hundred sculptures, paintings, collages, drawings, and films to present the breadth of the Kenyan-American artists’ multidisciplinary practice from the mid-1990s to today. On view January 31–July 14, 2024, Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined traces connections between recent developments in Mutu’s sculptures and her decades-long exploration of the legacies of colonialism, globalization, and African and diasporic cultural traditions. The exhibition travels to NOMA from the New Museum, New York.
Learn More

Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined is organized by the New Museum, New York. Lead support for this exhibition is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation. Generous support for this exhibition is provided by the Ed Bradley Family Foundation, Agnes Gund, Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is provided by The Robert Lehman Foundation. Support for the accompanying publication has been provided by the A4 Arts Foundation.
The presentation in New Orleans is sponsored by the Ford Foundation. Additional support is provided by Delta Airlines, Gladstone Gallery, Walda Besthoff, Victoria Miro Gallery, The Windsor Court, Keith Fox and Tom Keyes, Aimée Farnet Siegel and Mike Siegel, Robin Rankin, Elizabeth Boh, Pat Mitchell and Scott Seydel, Harvey and Marie Orth, and Jeff Childers and Onay Gutierrez

Gallery Talk | Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined
2024-05-01 18:00
Expand your experience of Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined with monthly gallery talks inside the museum or in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden on select Wednesdays: January 31, February 7, March 6, April 3, May 1, June 5, and July 10.
Gallery talks are free with museum admission, no registration is required. Louisiana residents receive free admission on Wednesdays courtesy of The Helis Foundation.
Register in Advance
About the Exhibition
This major solo exhibition of work by Wangechi Mutu brings together nearly one hundred sculptures, paintings, collages, drawings, and films to present the breadth of the Kenyan-American artists’ multidisciplinary practice from the mid-1990s to today. On view January 31–July 14, 2024, Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined traces connections between recent developments in Mutu’s sculptures and her decades-long exploration of the legacies of colonialism, globalization, and African and diasporic cultural traditions. The exhibition travels to NOMA from the New Museum, New York.
Learn More

Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined is organized by the New Museum, New York. Lead support for this exhibition is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation. Generous support for this exhibition is provided by the Ed Bradley Family Foundation, Agnes Gund, Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is provided by The Robert Lehman Foundation. Support for the accompanying publication has been provided by the A4 Arts Foundation.
The presentation in New Orleans is sponsored by the Ford Foundation. Additional support is provided by Delta Airlines, Gladstone Gallery, Walda Besthoff, Victoria Miro Gallery, The Windsor Court, Keith Fox and Tom Keyes, Aimée Farnet Siegel and Mike Siegel, Robin Rankin, Elizabeth Boh, Pat Mitchell and Scott Seydel, Harvey and Marie Orth, and Jeff Childers and Onay Gutierrez

Gallery Talk | Poetry in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden with Daniel Fitzpatrick
2024-05-08 12:30
Join us in the galleries each Wednesday for weekly talks with artists, curators, and other special guests. During these casual conversations, we’ll take a close look at different works currently on view at NOMA.
This week, NOMA Creative Assembly member Daniel Fitzpatrick takes us on a poetic stroll through the Besthoff Sculpture Garden. Through original poems inspired by the works and their setting, Fitzpatrick will invite listeners to renewed engagement with art, nature, and the challenges both pose to the human heart. Meet at the Besthoff Sculpture Garden’s main entrance on Dueling Oaks Drive to the left of the museum’s front steps. There are wheelchairs available upon request.

No registration is required. The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden is free and open to the public seven days a week. When you arrive, please wait at the Besthoff Sculpture Garden office for directions.

About Daniel Fitzpatrick
Daniel Fitzpatrick is the author of the novel Only the Lover Sings. Born in New Orleans, he studied philosophy at the University of Dallas, and he holds an MA in philosophy from Holy Apostles College and an MPhil in creative writing from Trinity College Dublin. His translation of the Divine Comedy was published in 2021 for the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death. His poetry and essays have appeared in places like Dappled Things, New Oxford Review, and Ocean State Review. He is the editor of Joie de Vivre, a journal of art, culture, and letters for South Louisiana, and he teaches English at Jesuit High School in New Orleans.
Learn More About Creative Assembly

Gallery Talk on Double Space: Women Photographers and Surrealism
2024-05-15 12:30, 2024-05-15 18:00
Join us in the galleries each Wednesday for weekly talks with artists, curators, and other special guests. During these casual conversations, we’ll take a close look at different works currently on view at NOMA.
This week, Allison Westerfield, curator of Double Space: Women Photographers and Surrealism, will discuss the exhibition. This talk will be offered at 12:30 pm and 6:00 pm.

About Allison Westerfield
Allison Westerfield is a doctoral candidate at the University of Florida studying modern and contemporary art. Westerfield received her Bachelor of Arts in Arts Administration from the University of West Florida and a Master of Arts in Art History from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Her current research focuses on the intersection of tarot and occultism in the work of women surrealist artists, such as Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini, and Remedios Varo. She is the recipient of several awards including the Rothman Doctoral Fellowship in the Humanities, American Association of University Women (AAUW) Gainesville Branch Grant, and the Charles T. Woods Grant. Outside of academia, she works as an independent curator. Recent exhibitions include mini golf of sensual sports photographs by McKinna Anderson at Florida Mining Gallery, Waiting Room at Laundromat Art Space in Miami, Ctrl [Alt] Self at Westobou Gallery in Augusta, GA. Most recently, she curated Double Space: Women Photographers and Surrealism at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Gallery Talk on Brindaban Pink by Lynda Benglis
2024-05-22 12:30, 2024-05-22 18:00
Join us in the galleries each Wednesday for weekly talks with artists, curators, and other special guests. During these casual conversations, we’ll take a close look at different works currently on view at NOMA.
This week, join Laura Moreno, NOMA Museum Educator for a conversation on Louisiana native Lynda Benglis’ Brindaban Pink from NOMA’s permanent collection. This talk is in connection with March’s NOMA Book Club reading pick Identity Unknown: Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists by Donna Seaman.
Free with museum admission. Louisiana residents receive free admission to NOMA on Wednesdays courtesy of The Helis Foundation. When you arrive at NOMA, check in at the front desk for directions to the appropriate gallery.

Gallery Talk | Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined
2024-06-05 12:30
Expand your experience of Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined with monthly gallery talks inside the museum or in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden on select Wednesdays: January 31, February 7, March 6, April 3, May 1, June 5, and July 10.
This week, join Amanda Maples, NOMA’s Françoise Billion Richardson Curator of African Art, for a conversation about the exhibition Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined. This talk will be offered at 12:30 pm.
Gallery talks are free with museum admission, no registration is required. Louisiana residents receive free admission on Wednesdays courtesy of The Helis Foundation.
Register in Advance
About the Exhibition
This major solo exhibition of work by Wangechi Mutu brings together nearly one hundred sculptures, paintings, collages, drawings, and films to present the breadth of the Kenyan-American artists’ multidisciplinary practice from the mid-1990s to today. On view January 31–July 14, 2024, Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined traces connections between recent developments in Mutu’s sculptures and her decades-long exploration of the legacies of colonialism, globalization, and African and diasporic cultural traditions. The exhibition travels to NOMA from the New Museum, New York.
Learn More

Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined is organized by the New Museum, New York. Lead support for this exhibition is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation. Generous support for this exhibition is provided by the Ed Bradley Family Foundation, Agnes Gund, Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is provided by The Robert Lehman Foundation. Support for the accompanying publication has been provided by the A4 Arts Foundation.
The presentation in New Orleans is sponsored by the Ford Foundation. Additional support is provided by Delta Airlines, Gladstone Gallery, Walda Besthoff, Victoria Miro Gallery, The Windsor Court, Keith Fox and Tom Keyes, Aimée Farnet Siegel and Mike Siegel, Robin Rankin, Elizabeth Boh, Pat Mitchell and Scott Seydel, Harvey and Marie Orth, and Jeff Childers and Onay Gutierrez

Historians Do Booze: Exploring Prohibition’s Impact with Elizabeth Pearce and Sally Asher
2024-06-05 17:30 - 20:00
In this program, food and drink historians Elizabeth Pearce and Sally Asher discuss prohibition, booze, and temperance. This discussion will highlight objects featured in Rebellious Spirits: Prohibition and Resistance in the South, which was curated by Laura Ochoa Rincon, Decorative Arts Trust Curatorial Fellow at the New Orleans Museum of Art.
Pearce and Asher will discuss why the temperance movement was successful, how individuals and communities of different races and socioeconomic statuses enjoyed spirits, and all the inventive ways that Southerners evaded prohibition laws in the 1920s.
After the talk, enjoy a Prohibition era-inspired cocktail flight, get a signed copy of Pearce’s Drink Dat New Orleans: A Guide to the Best Cocktail Bars, Neighborhood Pubs, and All-Night Dives, and tour the exhibition.
This program is sold out.
Schedule
5:30–7 pm | Discussion and Q&A with Sally Asher and Elizabeth Pearce
7–8 pm | Cocktail hour and book signing
7:30 pm | Gallery talk with Laura Ochoa Rincon, Decorative Arts Trust Curatorial Fellow at NOMA

About the Exhibition
Rebellious Spirits: Prohibition and Resistance in the South explores the unique methods in which the South, in particular New Orleans, dealt with the passage of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which banned alcohol in the United States.
Learn More

About the Speakers
Laura Ochoa Rincon
Laura Ochoa Rincon is the Decorative Arts Trust Curatorial Fellow at the New Orleans Museum of Art. During her fellowship, Ochoa Rincon organized Rebellious Spirits: Prohibition and Resistance in the South, drawing on her interests in the history of food, politics, and class.

Sally Asher
Sally Asher is a New Orleans-based author and photographer. She has two master’s degrees from Tulane University in English and Liberal Arts (with a concentration in history). She is the author and photographer of Hope & New Orleans: A History of Crescent City Street Names and Stories from the St. Louis Cemeteries of New Orleans, photographer and co-author of 111 Places in New Orleans That You Must Not Miss, and author of the children’s books The Mermaids of New Orleans and The Mermaids’ Night Before Christmas. She also contributed chapters (and photographs) to two New Orleans tricentennial books: New Orleans: The First 300 Years and New Orleans & The World.
Her articles and fiction have appeared in over a dozen publications and she won the New Orleans Press award for best feature reporting for her article on Storyville. Asher’s photography has appeared in many local, national and international media outlets. Asher is the owner and operator of Red Sash Tours, President of Save Our Cemeteries, and is a member of the Arts Council of New Orleans and Press Club of New Orleans.

Elizabeth Pearce
Drinks historian Elizabeth Pearce is the founder of “Drink & Learn,” through which she offers cocktail tours, virtual happy hours, and classes, sharing New Orleans and American history through drinks. She is the host of the “Drink & Learn” podcast, the author of the book Drink Dat New Orleans, the co-author of the French Quarter Drinking Companion, and the monthly cocktail columnist for New Orleans Magazine. She is also an educator for the Sazerac Liquor Company, and in 2017 was named a “Person to Watch” by New Orleans Magazine. Prior to creating “Drink & Learn,” Pearce was the founding Senior Curator of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum and was responsible for creating its early exhibits including Toast of New Orleans: The Drinks of the City. Her exhibit Restaurant Restorative, commissioned by the James Beard Awards, honored the role New Orleans restaurants played in the city’s recovery following Hurricane Katrina.

Gallery Talk: Examining the Queer Gaze through 17th- and 19th-Century Mannerism
2024-06-12 12:30 | New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, LA, 70119
Join us in the galleries each Wednesday for weekly talks with artists, curators, and other special guests. During these casual conversations, we’ll take a close look at different works currently on view at NOMA.
This week, Orlando Hernández Ying, NOMA’s Lapis Curator of the Art of the Americas, leads an exploration of Jupiter with a Thunderbolt by an unknown 17th-century artist and Auguste Rodin’s Age of Bronze, 1875-1876. Hernández Ying will explore how the male body, gesture, and balance are treated in the two sculptures and discuss how these two works, crafted centuries apart, are influenced by the queer gaze. This gallery talk will begin in the Great Hall and travel to the second-floor elevator lobby.
Free with museum admission. Louisiana residents receive free admission on Wednesdays courtesy of the Helis Foundation.

Assemblage in New Orleans: Artists in Conversation
2024-06-12 18:00 - 20:00 | NOMA’s Lapis Center for the Arts
In collaboration with Kolaj Fest New Orleans, NOMA will host a panel discussion highlighting the artistic practices and cultural traditions of assemblage and collage in New Orleans. In conversation with Kristina Kay Robinson, artists Soraya Jean-Louis, Ryann Sterling, and Ashley Teamer will share insights into their practices and approaches to assemblage and collage as art forms and cultural connectors.
This event is free and open to the public.

About the Panelists

Kristina Kay Robinson
Kristina Kay Robinson is an artist, writer, and scholar born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her writing in various genres has appeared in Art in America, Guernica, The Baffler, The Nation, The Massachusetts Review, and Elle among other outlets. Robinson is a 2019 recipient of the Rabkin Prize for Visual Arts Journalism. Currently, she serves as the New Orleans editor-at-large for the Atlanta-based Burnaway magazine.

Soraya Jean-Louis
Soraya Jean-Louis is a Haitian-born, Harlem- and Brooklyn-raised artist, independent visual scholar,/educator, doula, and medical anthropologist. Jean-Louis utilizes archival and modern media to honor personal and collective ancestors, reflect on present realities, and imagine expansive possibilities through collage, assemblage, abstract expressionism, surrealist paintings, installation, writing, and the natural healing arts. She explores speculative possibilities within Black Feminist Futurist frameworks, lived experiences, ancestry, culture, interiorities, identity, and more.

Ryann Sterling
Ryann Sterling is a southern Louisiana artist who takes the viewer through a sacred and sometimes secret journey through collages, mixed media, sculpture, and photography. Sterling’s experiences and the delicate intersection of art, the feminine, and southern black spirituality, connects the past to the future while reminding the viewer to remain present.

Ashley Teamer
Ashley Teamer’s collages explore the relationships between the body, nature, space, and time. Teamer uses painting, sculpture, photography, and sound to creatively intervene with indoor and outdoor architecture, revealing the malleability of our built environment. Through layering images, Teamer’s invented landscapes reveal relationships between divergent moments. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2014) and the Joan Mitchell Center (2018). Teamer received a BFA from Boston University in 2013 and an MFA from Yale University in 2022.

Featured Image Credits: Ryann Sterling, Rites Through Passage, 2021. Collage, Found objects and video still. Courtesy of the artist.

Kolaj Fest at NOMA
2024-06-13 11:00 - 17:00 | New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, LA, 70119
Kolaj Fest New Orleans, a multi-day festival and symposium about contemporary collage and its role in art, culture, and society heads to the museum for a day full of conversations, tours, and film. Museum visitors are invited to join in on the day’s programs.
LEARN MORE ABOUT KOLAJ FEST
This event is free with museum admission.

Schedule
Tour of Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined
11 am–12 pm
Immediately following the Daily Collage Congress, Jennella Young, LaVonna Varnardo Brown and Aisha Shillingford will introduce the exhibition Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined and lead a tour. Speakers will highlight “how the exhibition explores Mutu’s evolution as a collage artist, as she pursues an inquiry related to the representation of Black women’s bodies.”
Symposium | Rending, Mending, & Reusing: Art, Justice, & the Environment
12:45–2 pm in NOMA’s Lapis Center for the Arts
Art is a unique technology that can distill complexity into simple human gestures that, when experienced, facilitate a deeper understanding of our world, perhaps one that can lead to a greater sense of agency around environmental issues. In this panel, artists Phil Irish, Naomi White, Madera Rogers-Henry, and Christopher Kurts will speak about the way they use collage as a tool to think through and think with climate justice issues and how we can use art to engage viewers around shared concerns.
Symposium | 1-2-3 Bop! Collage, Jazz & Collaboration
2:15–3 pm in NOMA’s Lapis Center for the Arts
Chicago-based Paloma Trecka and Watertown, Massachusetts-based Todd Bartel will speak about the intersection of collage and jazz in light of the upcoming collage exhibition, “BOP!”.
Film Screening | Return to Sender: Women of Color in Colonial Postcards & the Politics of Representation
3:15–4:15 pm in NOMA’s Lapis Center for the Arts
Return to Sender: Women of Color in Colonial Postcards & the Politics of Representation is a short, experimental film directed and produced by Mara Ahmed. It pushes the documentary medium in unexpected ways by opening with three contemporary South Asian-American women who recreate British colonial postcards from the early 20th century.

Gallery Talk with Edward Spots
2024-06-19 12:30
Join us in the galleries each Wednesday for weekly talks with artists, curators, and other special guests. During these casual conversations, we’ll take a close look at different works currently on view at NOMA.
Ahead of his sold-out evening dance performance of the original work, Motion To Move 2024, join Edward Spots for a gallery talk as he discusses his creative process and what it means to be a Black creator in New Orleans.
Free with museum admission. Please note: this is a separate event from the evening performance, Motion to Move, which required advanced registration. Louisiana residents receive free admission on Wednesdays courtesy of The Helis Foundation.

About Edward Spots
Edward Emanuel Spots was born and raised in the city of New Orleans. Spots has led choreography showcased at the New Orleans Museum Of Art, the New Orleans Jazz Market, Tulane University, Audubon Park, and digital platforms. Spots is currently on the board of the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival. He has been featured in films, commercials, music videos, press, and television shows such as So You Think You Can Dance, Dance Moms, Bulgaria’s Dancing With The Stars, Claws, and a leading role in the movie America directed by Garrett Bradley.
Spots was featured in Gambit’s 40 under 40 and has received a Proclamation from the City of New Orleans for his work. Spots teaches at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, Loyola University, the New Orleans School of Ballet, Ashé Cultural Arts Center, and Dancing Grounds.

Gallery Talk: Deer on Alert by Rosa Bonheur
2024-06-26 12:30 | New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, LA, 70119
Join us in the galleries each Wednesday for weekly talks with artists, curators, and other special guests. During these casual conversations, we’ll take a close look at different works currently on view at NOMA.
In celebration of Pride month, this week join Laura Moreno, Museum Educator, for a conversation about realist painter Rosa Bonheur. Moreno will discuss Bonheur’s Deer on Alert and the artist’s defiance to exist within the strict social mores or gender binaries of 19th-century France.
Free with museum admission. Louisiana residents receive free admission on Wednesdays courtesy of The Helis Foundation’s Art for All initiative.

Monuments and Memorials to Queer History
2024-06-26 18:00 - 19:30
In honor of Pride Month, join us for a conversation about how artists might create monuments to queer community and history. In a discussion moderated by Charlie Tatum, Director of Marketing and Communications, historian Robert Fieseler and artists Ryan Leitner and Ryan “phlegm” Gilbert will share their own practices and reflect upon how they consider celebration, remembrance, and the past in their work.
The program will also consider other works, including Jim Hodges’s Craig’s closet, first created for the New York City AIDS Memorial Park and installed in front of NOMA in June 2024, and Skylar Fein’s Remember the UpStairs Lounge, which commemorates the arson of a popular gay bar in New Orleans on June 24, 1973.
This program is free and open to the public. Louisiana residents receive free admission every Wednesday courtesy of The Helis Foundation’s Art for All initiative.

About the Panelists

Ryan “phlegm” Gilbert
Ryan “phlegm” Gilbert, a New Orleans-born and -based multidisciplinary artist, uses mixed-media self-portraiture in works called “ritual dramas” that serve as affirmations of their personal Black universe. phlegm says, “My work aims to more firmly connect my Black spiritual concept of time, connecting the past to the present and the present to the future. It’s communally sacred, personally precious. It attempts to tie all the loose ends of Black ethos, Black influence, and Black inspiration into one braid. It is at its core, an affirmation of life: my life, the life of my ancestors, and the life of my community. My work (and by extension my life) makes a production about the necessity and value of Black spiritual presence.” They also penned the mantra “Everything You Love About New Orleans Is Because of Black People.”

Ryan Leitner
Ryan Leitner (b. 1986, South Carolina) is an artist and writer who lives and works in New Orleans. He received his M.F.A. From The Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in 2016, holds a B.F.A. From Regents College of London, and was a participant at the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture in 2023. He is currently a resident at Joan Mitchell Foundation and a collective member at Antenna Gallery.

Robert W. Fieseler
Robert W. Fieseler is a National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association “Journalist of the Year” and the author of Tinderbox—winner of the Edgar Award and the Louisiana Literary Award, shortlisted for the Saroyan International Prize for Writing. As a Tulane PhD History candidate and Mellon Fellow, Fieseler is currently working on his second queer history book, a finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award. He lives with his husband and kittens in New Orleans.

Gallery Talk on Afropolitan: Contemporary African Arts at NOMA
2024-07-03 12:30, 2024-07-03 18:00 | New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, LA, 70119
Join us in the galleries each Wednesday for weekly talks with artists, curators, and other special guests. During these casual conversations, we’ll take a close look at different works currently on view at NOMA.
This week, join Amanda Maples, NOMA’s Françoise Billion Richardson Curator of African Art, to discuss the special exhibition Afropolitan: Contemporary African Arts at NOMA. This talk will be offered at 12:30 pm and 6:00 pm.
Free with museum admission. Louisiana residents receive free admission on Wednesdays courtesy of The Helis Foundation’s Art for All initiative.

Gallery Talk on Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined
2024-07-10 12:30, 2024-07-10 18:00
Expand your experience of Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined with monthly gallery talks inside the museum or in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden on select Wednesdays: January 31, February 7, March 6, April 3, May 1, June 5, and July 10.
Join Amanda Maples, NOMA’s Françoise Billion Richardson Curator of African Art, for a conversation on Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined. This talk will be at 12:30 pm and 6 pm in the exhibition.
Gallery talks are free with museum admission. Louisiana residents receive free admission on Wednesdays courtesy of The Helis Foundation.
Register in Advance
About the Exhibition
This major solo exhibition of work by Wangechi Mutu brings together nearly one hundred sculptures, paintings, collages, drawings, and films to present the breadth of the Kenyan-American artists’ multidisciplinary practice from the mid-1990s to today. On view January 31–July 14, 2024, Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined traces connections between recent developments in Mutu’s sculptures and her decades-long exploration of the legacies of colonialism, globalization, and African and diasporic cultural traditions. The exhibition travels to NOMA from the New Museum, New York.
Learn More

Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined is organized by the New Museum, New York. Lead support for this exhibition is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation. Generous support for this exhibition is provided by the Ed Bradley Family Foundation, Agnes Gund, Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is provided by The Robert Lehman Foundation. Support for the accompanying publication has been provided by the A4 Arts Foundation.
The presentation in New Orleans is sponsored by the Ford Foundation. Additional support is provided by Delta Airlines, Gladstone Gallery, Walda Besthoff, Victoria Miro Gallery, The Windsor Court, Keith Fox and Tom Keyes, Aimée Farnet Siegel and Mike Siegel, Robin Rankin, Elizabeth Boh, Pat Mitchell and Scott Seydel, Harvey and Marie Orth, and Jeff Childers and Onay Gutierrez

Gallery Talk on Show & Tell: A Brief History of Photography and Text
2024-07-17 12:30, 2024-07-17 18:00, 2024-08-07 12:30, 2024-08-07 18:00
Join us in the galleries each Wednesday for weekly talks with artists, curators, and other special guests. During these casual conversations, we’ll take a close look at different works currently on view at NOMA.
This week, join Brian Piper, NOMA’s Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints, and Drawings, for a discussion on the special exhibition Show & Tell: A Brief History of Photography and Text. This talk will be offered at 12:30 pm and 6:00 pm.
Free with museum admission. Louisiana residents receive free admission on Wednesdays courtesy of The Helis Foundation’s Art for All initiative.

Gallery Talk on Craig's closet by Jim Hodges
2024-07-24 12:30
Join us in the galleries each Wednesday for weekly talks with artists, curators, and other special guests. During these casual conversations, we’ll take a close look at different works currently on view at NOMA.
This week, join Charlie Tatum, Director of Marketing and Communications, as he discusses Craig’s closet by Jim Hodges, a newly installed sculpture near the front steps of NOMA. This talk will be offered at 12:30 pm.
Free with museum admission. Louisiana residents receive free admission on Wednesdays courtesy of The Helis Foundation’s Art for All initiative.

Black People Be: An Evening with Creative Assembly Cohort Artist Jourdan Barnes
2024-07-24 15:00 - 19:00
For this program, Creative Assembly Cohort member Jourdan Barnes will share a selection of photography from his Black People Be series, which aims to portray the vibrancy of Black existence.
The evening will end with a panel discussion with thought leaders exploring how artists define and celebrate Blackness through their work. The program will include topics such as the concept of celebration in Black communities, the role of art in representation, and personal experiences of joy and resilience.
In the words of Barnes, “This program is an opportunity to reflect, appreciate, and engage in meaningful conversations about Black identity and culture.”
Schedule
3–5 pm | Art Presentation with Jourdan Barnes and Mixer
5–6:30 pm | Panel Discussion
This program is free and open to the public.

About the Speakers

Shana M. griffin is a feminist activist, researcher, sociologist, abolitionist, artist, mother, and geographer whose work engages history and memory as sites of resistance, rupture, and protest. griffin’s work attends to the lived experiences of the Black diaspora, centering the particular experiences of Black women most vulnerable to the violence of poverty, incarceration, polluted environments, reproductive legislation, economic exploitation, housing discrimination, and climate change.
griffin is the founder of PUNCTUATE, a feminist initiative integrating critical research methods with activism and art to address the intersecting forms of everyday violence and subjectivity Black women, their families, and communities experience; and the creator of DISPLACED, a multimedia feminist and public history project tracing the geographies of Black displacement, dislocation, and containment through racial slavery and the violent formation of New Orleans and the surrounding region as a carceral landscape and colonial enterprise. griffin has an adjunct position in sociology at the University of New Orleans.

Dr. David J. Wallace is a dedicated culture influencer and the creator of Dream House Lounge, a haven for mental and spiritual wellness nestled in the heart of New Orleans’s Central Business District. Dr. Wallace’s commitment to amplifying culture and fostering community drives his relentless pursuit of wellness advocacy.
As an initiated priest of the IFA tradition, specializing in Lucumi practice, Dr. Wallace serves as a conduit for intuitive healing and a channeler of the Orishas and ancestral wisdom. Additionally, he is the luminary behind Awakening Minds Consulting, where his passion for justice manifests in transformative endeavors reshaping dialogues on racial and social equity.
Dr. Wallace has a bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College, a Master’s in the Art of Teaching from Relay GSE, and an Educational Doctorate from St. Thomas University. Currently, Dr. Wallace is spearheading the development of an innovative EdTech platform called Teacharmony, bridging cultural heritage with educational institutions to enrich students’ learning experiences.

About Jourdan Barnes
Born and raised in New Orleans, Jourdan Barnes has always been influenced by art. Completing his education in art and psychology at Xavier University, Barnes is a freelance artist and also works with those affected by STIs and HIV through his work with the Louisiana Department of Health. Barnes creates art that highlights Black communities by amplifying their voices and truths. Barnes has exhibited works in well-respected museums throughout the country, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York. He has also been a part of art initiatives in New Orleans like Prospect New Orleans and White Linen Night. He mentors youth artists with YAYA, a program of which he is an alumnus. Barnes aspires to become a pediatric art therapist, where he would utilize his talents to serve his community and children who are in need of artistic expression for therapeutic purposes.
LEARN MORE ABOUT CREATIVE ASSEMBLY

Gallery Talk on Light and Museum Preservation Principles with Conservator of Objects Ingrid Seyb
2024-07-31 12:30, 2024-07-31 18:00
Join us in the galleries each Wednesday for weekly talks with artists, curators, and other special guests. During these casual conversations, we’ll take a close look at different works currently on view at NOMA.
This week, join Ingrid Seyb, NOMA’s Conservator of Objects, for a discussion on light and museum preservation principles. The talk will take place in the third-floor Kurt A. Gitter, M.D. and Alice Yelen Gitter Japanese gallery. This talk will be offered at 12:30 pm and 6:00 pm.
Free with museum admission. Louisiana residents receive free admission on Wednesdays courtesy of The Helis Foundation’s Art for All initiative.

Collaborating Across Continents: Developing a Contemporary Masquerade Exhibition for North American and African Audiences
2024-08-02 17:00 - 20:00
Join the New Orleans Museum of Art for a presentation on contemporary West African masquerade, in advance of the upcoming exhibition New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations, opening at the museum in April 2025.
The program will include a panel presentation and discussion with the exhibition’s curators; a first look at immersive documentary film clips from Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and Cameroon; a signature West African-inspired cocktail; drumming performances; an opportunity to meet Dr. Aimé Kantoussan, Research Director of the Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar; and a virtual presentation from Cameroonian artist Hervé Youmbi.
Additional members of the New African Masquerades research team will present their developing scholarship and discuss the project’s ethical methodologies and foundational artistic, community, and institutional collaborations.
This program is free with advanced registration.
Register Now

About New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations
In New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations, an international team of scholars and artists present the stories of four individual masquerade artists, their motivations, artistic choices, and the patronage and economic networks with which they engage in order to make clear that masquerade is fundamentally contemporary. The show offers fresh research models for contemporary masquerade, bringing to the fore issues relating to restitution, ownership, and research ethics. This is the first major exhibition on contemporary West African masquerade artists to focus on individual creators rather than the typical presentation of masquerades as products of entire cultures, which undermines the nuanced and layered stories that individual artists and masquerades tell.
The exhibition team is led by Amanda M. Maples, Françoise Billion Richardson Curator of African Art at NOMA. Co-curators include Jordan A. Fenton, Associate Professor of Art History at Miami University Ohio, and Lisa Homann, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Aimé Kantoussan, Research Director at the Musée des Civilisations Noires/Museum of Black Civilizations (MCN) and Hervé Youmbi, a leading contemporary artist in Cameroon, are research collaborators and contributing authors.
