New Orleans Museum of Art

Public Tours in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden Every Sunday
2025-08-24 10:30, 2025-08-31 10:30, 2025-09-07 10:30, 2025-09-14 10:30, 2025-09-21 10:30, 2025-09-28 10:30, 2025-10-05 10:30 (America/Chicago) | Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans , LA, 70124
NOMA provides guided tours of the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden every Saturday. During these tours, you’ll learn about a selection of the 100 large-scale works installed in the garden.
No registration is required. NOMA’s Besthoff Sculpture Garden is free and open to all, seven days a week. Tours start at the main entrance gate to the Besthoff Sculpture Garden on Dueling Oaks Drive.

Elders Sacred Talk Series: Chief Howard Miller and Kamau Wesley Phillips
2025-09-03 17:30 - 18:45
NOMA and the Congo Square Preservation Society present the Elders Sacred Talk Series with prolific elder New Orleanians, celebrating the lives they lead while providing the opportunity for visitors to learn firsthand about the impact they’ve had on our city. This conversation between Chief Howard Miller and Kamau Wesley Phillips will be moderated by Malik Bartholemew.

This program is included with museum admission, which is free for Louisiana residents every Wednesday courtesy of The Helis Foundation’s Art for All initiative.

About the Speakers
Chief Howard Miller is chief of the Creole Wild West which is the oldest Mardi Gras Indian tribe in New Orleans whose origins date back to the late 1700s. Chief Miller has been masking as a Mardi Gras Indian since 1969 and first became Chief of the tribe in 1976. He currently serves as president of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian Council which was formed in 1983 in order to unify tribes across the city and to support the culture. As a culture bearer of this sacred tradition, Chief Miller is the leader of The Creole Wild West Youth Program teaching children the art of sewing, chanting, dancing, suit preparation and the meaning of the culture in general. Chief Miller has spoken as a guest lecturer at universities around the nation, some of which include New York University, Georgetown, Harvard, Ohio State University, Louisiana State University, Xavier University and Tulane University as well as numerous public schools and organizations locally in New Orleans. With over his 47 years of involvement in the culture, Chief Miller has grown into a masterful Storyteller and true historian of Mardi Gras Indian tradition.

Kamau Wesley Phillips is New Orleans born and raised. He began playing drums with the Desire Poets after hearing the Last Poets records during the Black Panther movement in the Ninth Ward. Kamau has studied and performed with Kidd Jordan, Sun Ra, Energy Funk Band, Desire Community Choir, Casa Samba, African Dance Groups; Free Spirit, Culu, Nkafu, and Sacred Dance Ministry, and Fiyiyi and the Mandingo Warriors. Kamau is a poet, author, drum maker, teacher, and designer with 50 years as The Ultimate Sideman. In 2013, he wrote and produced The Spirit of the Drum in Senegal, West Africa. In 2017, this production marked his Jazz Fest debut as a band leader.

About Elders Sacred Talks and Art Thrives
NOMA’s Art Thrives initiative presents creative aging programs designed to support visitors ages 55 and up. In addition to art-making workshops, courses, and opportunities for hands-on art-making, the Elders Sacred Talk Series provides a platform for older adults in New Orleans to share their experiences with audiences of all ages.
The Elders Sacred Talk Series is presented in partnership between NOMA and the Congo Square Preservation Society. Art Thrives is supported by E.A. Michelson Philanthropy.

Gallery Talk with Dawn DeDeaux
2025-09-03 18:00 - 18:30 | New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, LA, 70119
Every week, NOMA hosts gallery talks in the museum and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden led by curators, artists, and other special guests. These lively, participatory conversations provide a moment to take a close look at one work—or a selection of works—currently on view.
This week, join artist Dawn DeDeaux for gallery talks on her work Rushed in Near Ten (2015), now on view in the Great Hall. DeDeaux’s talks will take place at 12:30 and 6:00.
Included with museum admission, which is free for Louisiana residents every Wednesday courtesy of The Helis Foundation’s Art for All initiative. When you arrive at NOMA, check in at the admissions desk for directions to the appropriate location.

Culture Collision 15
2025-09-10 17:00 - 20:00
WWNO’s annual Culture Collision event is returning to the New Orleans Museum of Art! Join us at the museum on Wednesday, September 10, from 5 to 8 pm for an evening of learning about and connecting with local arts and culture organizations. More information about this event can be found at culturenola.org.
Culture Collision is free and open to the public. Admission to NOMA is free every Wednesday for Louisiana residents, courtesy of The Helis Foundation’s Art for All initiative.
About Culture Collision
Culture Collision is an organization dedicated to fostering all of the nonprofit performing and visual arts organizations in the New Orleans metro-area. For 15 years, we have kicked off the cultural season with a unique happy hour, including the city’s most entertaining organizations. It is our goal to introduce potential audience members, volunteers, patrons and artists to the diverse mix of arts organizations the city has to offer.
More Information

Butterfly Music Series: David Torkanowsky
2025-09-14 14:00 - 15:00 | NOMA’s Lapis Center for the Arts
Experience part of Super Bowl LIX history and enjoy music played on Suleika Jaouad and Jon Batiste’s custom Yamaha piano on view at NOMA. Batiste performed his moving rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner on this instrument in the Caesars Superdome during the Super Bowl pregame show.
This series celebrates the piano’s residency at NOMA and pays homage to the musical history of New Orleans by inviting New Orleans–based musicians to offer intimate sets in NOMA’s Lapis Center for the Arts, which also features bas-relief murals by Enrique Alférez.
Join us for this installment of the Butterfly Music Series featuring New Orleanian jazz pianist and composer David Torkanowsky.
Attendance is included with museum admission. Preregistration for this event is recommended. Seating is limited and not guaranteed with registration.
Register Now

About David Torkanowsky
David Torkanowsky is one of New Orleans’s premier contemporary jazz pianists, composers, and arrangers. “Tork” was born in New Orleans in 1956, the son of classical conductor Werner Torkanowsky and flamenco artist Theresa Torkanowsky. He learned to play piano early on, and was schooled in the ways of New Orleans music by legends such as Danny Barker, David Lastie and Ellis Marsalis. Read more at https://www.wwoz.org/acts/david-torkanowsky
About the Work
For a limited time, NOMA visitors have the unique opportunity to see the custom piano played by acclaimed musical artist Jon Batiste during the Super Bowl LIX pregame show. On view in the museum’s Lapis Center for the Arts, the vibrant and colorful grand piano features a design by artist and bestselling author Suleika Jaouad, who is Batiste’s wife.
LEARN MORE

Gallery Talk with Curator Orlando Hernández Ying
2025-09-17 12:30 - 13:00, 2025-09-17 18:00 - 18:30 | New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, LA, 70119
Every week, NOMA hosts gallery talks in the museum and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden led by curators, artists, and other special guests. These lively, participatory conversations provide a moment to take a close look at one work—or a selection of works—currently on view.
This week, join Orlando Hernández Ying, NOMA’s Lapis Curator of the Arts of the Americas, for a gallery talk on Our Lady of Loreto in the newly-reinstalled second floor mezzanine gallery. Learn more about the upcoming Great Hall installation of grand scale Peruvian Vice-Regal paintings, opening September 30th.
This gallery talk will be offered at 12:30 and 6:00 pm the next day. The 6:00pm gallery talk will be followed by a 7:00 pm combined performance and lecture by psalterist Marc Armitano Domingo in the Lapis Center for the Arts, as part of the National Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration.
Included with museum admission, which is free for Louisiana residents every Wednesday courtesy of The Helis Foundation’s Art for All initiative. When you arrive at NOMA, check in at the admissions desk for directions to the appropriate location.

National Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration 2025
2025-09-17 18:00 - 21:00
Celebrate National Hispanic American Heritage Month at NOMA, featuring gallery talks from Lapis Curator of the Art of the Americas Orlando Hernández Ying and a live performance and lecture from Marc Armitano Domingo.
This program is included with museum admission, which is free for Louisiana residents every Wednesday courtesy of The Helis Foundation’s Art for All initiative. Advanced registration is recommended.
Register Now

Program Details
6:00 pm | Gallery Talk with Curator Orlando Hernández Ying
Join Orlando Hernández Ying, NOMA’s Lapis Curator of the Art of the Americas, for a Gallery Talk on Our Lady of Loreto in the newly reinstalled second floor mezzanine gallery. Learn more about the upcoming Great Hall installation of grand scale Peruvian Vice-Regal paintings, opening September 30th.
Learn More
7:00 pm | Live Salterio (Psaltery) Performance and Lecture with Marc Armitano Domingo
Musician and researcher Marc Armitano Domingo will perform on the salterio (psaltery), a historical dulcimer instrument. The performance will be interspersed and connected with his lecture titled “The Hispanic Psaltery in the Americas.”
Beverages and Light Bites from Café NOMA
Enjoy specialty cocktails, mocktails and a light bites menu from Café NOMA leading up to Armitano Domingo’s lecture.

Additional Information
About Marc Armitano Domingo

Marc Armitano Domingo (b. 1996) is a multidisciplinary artist based in New York City, working across oil painting, porcelain, and historical music performance. His visual work delves into sacred and natural themes, rendered through shadowy, atmospheric, and whimsical compositions on copper, linen, and porcelain.
As a leading performer and researcher of the salterio—a historical dulcimer popular in 17th- and 18th-century Spain, Italy, and colonial Latin America—Armitano Domingo focuses on reconstructing both the repertoire and authentic playing techniques. He performs on a replica 18th-century salterio, using special finger rings to pluck the strings rather than hammers.
Across media, his work engages with history and memory whether through nostalgic, tenebrous landscapes, delicate porcelain forms, or the vibrant, resonant sound of the salterio. His practice confronts the cultural amnesia that allows once-important traditions to fade, reclaiming forgotten forms and questioning why they were so readily lost to history.

Book Club: The Underground Railroad
2025-09-18 12:00 - 13:00 | New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, LA, 70119
NOMA’s book club meets monthly to discuss fiction and non-fiction books related to art in the museum’s collection and exhibitions.
It is an informal group open to anyone on a month-to-month basis. You do not have to attend every meeting or read every book to participate. In addition to monthly book discussions, the book club meets periodically for curatorial programs related to the book selections.
Books are selected in advance and planned according to the museum’s exhibition schedule. Participants are expected to procure their own copy of the titles. Selections are also available at the NOMA Museum Shop, where museum members receive a 10% discount.
Register Now
Meetings are held in person or via Zoom. All meetings begin at 12 pm. For more information or questions, please email programs@noma.org.

About the Book
The Underground Railroad
by Colson Whitehead

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.
In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.

Fall Festival
2025-09-20 10:00 - 16:00 | Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans , LA, 70124
Come out to NOMA’s Fall Festival, a free outdoor festival hosted in the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden. Enjoy live music and performances, art making activities, guided tours featuring highlights from the Besthoff Sculpture Garden, and more.
Free and open to all.

Program Line-Up
ENTERTAINMENT AND ACTIVITIES
Polo Silk Photography Station
DJ Audio Jocks
Move Ya Brass
Dow Dance Company
Da Lovebirds (Robin Barnes and Pat Casey)
Krewe des Fleurs
Party People Face Painting Station
Glitter Ladies Station
NOMA temporary tattoo station

FOOD VENDORS
Dat Dog
Imperial Woodpecker Snowballs
Crêpes à la Cart
Nori Guys
Cochon King BBQ
Café NOMA Bar (drinks only)
La Cocinita Restaurant

COMMUNITY PARTNERS
Broadmoor Improvement Association
Son of a Saint and William Jones
Congo Square Preservation Society
YAYA
New Orleans Public Library (NOPL)
The St. Charles Center for Faith + Action
Middle American Research Institute
Danny Fitzpatrick
Grow Dat Youth Farm
NOMA Creative Assembly

Schedule of Events
10:00 AM | DJ Audio Jocks, Polo Silk photography station, food vendors, and art activities begin
10:30 AM – 11:00 AM | Move Ya Brass Bounce Class (Oak Grove)
10:30 AM – 11:00 AM | Docent-led Sculpture Garden Tour
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM | Da Lovebirds performance (Oak Grove)
11:00 AM – 3:00 PM | Pixie Dust Glitter Station opens
11:00 AM – 3:30 PM | Party People Face Painting begins
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM | Radio Bird Quartet performance (Oak Grove)
1:00 PM – 4:00 PM | Krewe Des Fleurs
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM | Docent-led Sculpture Garden Tour
2:30 PM – 3:00 PM | Dow Dance Company performance (Oak Grove)
3:30 PM – 4:00 PM | DJ set

Thank You to Our Sponsors for this Event
Lead Sponsor

Entertainment and Program Sponsors
Howard Family Foundation
Cammie and Charles Mayer

Studio KIDS!: Painting Autumn (Ages 6-10)
2025-09-20 10:30 - 12:00 | New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, LA, 70119
Join us at the museum on select Saturday mornings for Studio KIDS! youth art-making workshops. We’ll take inspiration from artwork in the museum and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden and make our own creations with a teaching artist.
Studio KIDS!: Painting Autumn
Celebrate the arrival of autumn with this mixed media art lesson. Students will receive an introduction to watercolor painting, learning three foundational techniques. They will also pull inspiration from nature to create a textural artwork that showcases all they have learned. Families who register are encouraged to enjoy NOMA’s Fall Festival while their children participate in this art making activity.
Registration is $25 for members and $30 for other participants. Advance registration is required and includes the price of all art-making materials.

Register for Studio KIDS!: Painting Autumn
Please note that there will be 2 sessions of this workshop offered on September 20th:
Artists ages 6-10 will be welcomed from 10:30 am to 12:00 pm

Register for the Ages 6-10 Workshop

Artists ages 11-14 will be welcomed from 12:30 pm to 2:00 pm
Register for the Ages 11-14 Workshop

Studio KIDS!: Painting Autumn (Ages 11-14)
2025-09-20 12:30 - 14:00 | New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, LA, 70119
Join us at the museum on select Saturday mornings for Studio KIDS! youth art-making workshops. We’ll take inspiration from artwork in the museum and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden and make our own creations with a teaching artist.
Studio KIDS!: Painting Autumn
Celebrate the arrival of autumn with this mixed media art lesson. Students will receive an introduction to watercolor painting, learning three foundational techniques. They will also pull inspiration from nature to create a textural artwork that showcases all they have learned. Families who register are encouraged to enjoy NOMA’s Fall Festival while their children participate in this art making activity.
Registration is $25 for members and $30 for other participants. Advance registration is required and includes the price of all art-making materials.

Register for Studio KIDS!: Painting Autumn
Please note that there will be 2 sessions of this workshop offered on September 20th:
Artists ages 6-10 will be welcomed from 10:30 am to 12:00 pm

SOLD OUT

Artists ages 11-14 will be welcomed from 12:30 pm to 2:00 pm
Register for the Ages 11-14 Workshop

Gallery Talk with Curator Mel Buchanan
2025-09-24 12:30 - 13:00, 2025-09-24 18:00 - 18:30 | New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, LA, 70119
Every week, NOMA hosts gallery talks in the museum and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden led by curators, artists, and other special guests. These lively, participatory conversations provide a moment to take a close look at one work—or a selection of works—currently on view.
This week, join Mel Buchanan, NOMA’s RosaMary Curator of Decorative Arts & Design, for a gallery talk on New Acquisitions in Contemporary Craft in the Elise M. Besthoff Foundation Gallery on the second floor of the museum. This talk will be offered at 12:30 and 6:00 pm the same day.
Included with museum admission, which is free for Louisiana residents every Wednesday courtesy of The Helis Foundation’s Art for All initiative. When you arrive at NOMA, check in at the admissions desk for directions to the appropriate location.

Dawoud Bey: Elegy Patron and Member Preview
2025-09-25 17:30 - 20:00 | New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, LA, 70119
Explore the exhibition Dawoud Bey: Elegy at NOMA before it opens to the public.
This is a patron- and member-only event.
Learn More about NOMA membership

About Dawoud Bey: Elegy
Dawoud Bey: Elegy is an evocatively poetic exhibition in which the acclaimed photographer considers the early presence of African Americans through visualizations of the landscapes where histories took place. Through the interweaving of three photographic series—”Stony the Road “(2023), “In This Here Place” (2019), and “Night Coming Tenderly, Black” (2017)—Bey offers a framework through which to conceptualize the landscapes of Virginia, Louisiana, and Ohio (respectively) not merely as historical sites of struggle, but also as places of perseverance and fortitude. The exhibition also includes two films: “Evergreen” (2019) and “350,000” (2023).
Learn More about the Exhibition

NOMA at Night: Dawoud Bey: Elegy Opening Celebration
2025-09-26 18:00 - 21:00 | New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, LA, 70119
Get creative and explore the museum after hours during NOMA at Night.
Celebrate the public opening of special exhibition Dawoud Bey: Elegy at NOMA with an evening of live music from the Dr. Michael White Quartet; a light bites menu from Café NOMA; a 3-Dimensional landscape art-making station; extended hours and discounts on Elegy exhibition catalogues in the NOMA Museum Shop; gallery talks by exhibition curator Valerie Cassel Oliver, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and Brian Piper, NOMA’s Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints, and Drawings; and much more.
$15 for members
$30 general admission
Free admission for attendees ages 19 and under
Purchase Tickets

Program Details
Live Music from the Dr. Michael White Quartet
Enjoy a live musical performance from the evening’s headlining performers the Dr. Michael White Quartet, featuring famed New Orleanian clarinetist and band leader Dr. Michael White.
DJ Set from Jer’Lisa Devezin
Join artist, professor, and Creative Assembly resident artist Jer’Lisa Devezin for a DJ set and dance the night away.
NOMA Museum Shop
Check out the exhibition catalogue at the NOMA Museum Shop, which will be open throughout the evening. NOMA Members receive 20% off Dawoud Bey: Elegy exhibition catalogues, and other attendees will receive 10% off.
Food and Drinks from Café NOMA
Cocktails, mocktails, and light bites will be available at Café NOMA throughout the evening.
And More!
More details about this event to be announced soon. Please check this page for updates.

About the Performers
Dr. Michael White Quartet
Dr. Michael White
Dr. Michael White is among the most visible and important New Orleans musicians today. He is one of only a few of today’s native New Orleans born artists to continue the authentic traditional jazz style. Dr. White is noted for his classic New Orleans jazz clarinet sound, for leading several popular bands, and for his many efforts to preserve and extend the early jazz tradition. Dr. White is a relative of early generation jazz musicians, including bassist Papa John Joseph, clarinetist Willie Joseph, and saxophonist and clarinetist Earl Fouche.
White is also a jazz historian, producer, lecturer, and consultant. He has developed and performed many jazz history themed programs. He has written and published numerous essays in books, journals, and other publications. For several years he served as a guest coach at the Juilliard Music School (Juilliard Jazz). He was the musical director for numerous Jazz at Lincoln Center concerts. He has been the traditional jazz consultant and coordinator for the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival since 1995. White has also had a long association of performing and recording with acclaimed trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.

About Dawoud Bey: Elegy
Dawoud Bey: Elegy draws upon the factual and imagined realities of the early African American presence in the United States. Including forty-five black-and-white photographs and two film installations, the exhibition elucidates the deeply profound historical memory still embedded in geography at historically significant sites in Virginia, Louisiana and Ohio. Through the interweaving of three photographic series—”Stony the Road “(2023), “In This Here Place” (2019), and “Night Coming Tenderly, Black” (2017)—Bey offers a framework through which to conceptualize the landscapes of Virginia, Louisiana, and Ohio (respectively) through images that convey the memories of our shared American past.
Learn More
Thank You to Our Supporters
NOMA at Night is supported in part by grant funds from Ruby K. Worner Charitable Trust through the PNC Charitable Trusts Grant Review Committee; New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Foundation; and the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council.

Dawoud Bey: Elegy Weekend Symposium
2025-09-27 13:00 - 16:30 | NOMA’s Lapis Center for the Arts
Join us for a day celebrating and engaging with the newly opened exhibition Dawoud Bey: Elegy. We are honored to feature this day of discussion in NOMA’s Lapis Center for the Arts with local and visiting artists (including American photographer Dawoud Bey), curators, historians, and activists.
The afternoon’s first panel will feature artist Dawoud Bey; Valerie Cassel Oliver, the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; and LeRonn Brooks, Associate Curator, Modern and Contemporary Collections at the Getty Research Institute, in a conversation around the exhibition and catalogue.
The second panel highlights Kathe Hambrick, Executive of the Director Amistad Research Center and Founder of The River Road African American Museum; Jo Banner and Dr Joy Banner, Co-Founders of The Descendants Project; for a discussion centering the land of Louisiana and, its history, present and future.
The day culminates in a catalogue signing.
This program is free and open to all. Advance registration is recommended.
Register Now
In order to view the exhibition Dawoud Bey: Elegy, a museum admission ticket is required. Tickets can be purchased at the admissions desk in the Great Hall or online.

Program Details
Dawoud Bey: Elegy Catalogue Contributor Panel | 1:00-2:00pm
Featuring artist Dawoud Bey; Valerie Cassel Oliver, the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; and LeRonn Brooks, Associate Curator, Modern and Contemporary Collections at the Getty Research Institute. Moderated by Brian Piper.
Intermission | 2:00-2:30pm
Panel Discussion | 2:30-3:30pm
Featuring Kathe Hambrick, Director of the Amistad Research Center and Founder of the River Road African American Museum; and Jo Banner and Dr. Joy Banner, founders and directors of the Descendants Project and Woodland Plantation. Moderated by Kristina Kay Robinson.
Dawoud Bey: Elegy exhibition catalogue signing with Bey, Cassel Oliver, and Brooks | 3:30 – 4:15 pm
Cafe NOMA, which is adjacent to the Lapis Center for the Arts, will be open for food and beverage purchases throughout the afternoon

About the Participants
About Dawoud Bey
American photographer Dawoud Bey, photo by Frank Ishman
Groundbreaking artist and MacArthur Fellow Dawoud Bey examines the Black past and present. His photographs and film installations have been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States and Europe. Bey’s work has been the subject of numerous solo museum exhibitions, including Dawoud Bey: An American Project organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art (2020-2022), and Elegy at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (2023-2024) and New Orleans Museum of Art (2025-2026); and Dawoud Bey: Street Portraits at the Denver Art Museum (2024-2025). He has been the subject of several monographs, including Elegy (Aperture/VMFA, 2023), which chronicles Bey’s history projects and landscape-based work. Bey is the recipient of numerous awards including five honorary doctorates, and in 2024, the artist was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Bey lives and works in Chicago and New York. He is currently a Critic at Yale University, where he received his Masters in Fine Arts, and is Professor Emeritus at Columbia College, Chicago.
About Valerie Cassel Oliver
Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Valerie Cassel Oliver
Valerie Cassel Oliver is the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Prior to this role, she served as a senior curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas; director of the Visiting Artist Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and program specialist at the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2000, she was one of six curators selected to organize the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Biennial. Cassel Oliver has organized several special exhibitions at VMFA, including Howardena Pindell: What Remains To Be Seen (2018), Cosmologies from the Tree of Life: Art from the African American South (2019), The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse (2021) and Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass (2022). In addition, she has produced an installation series, Lewis Focus, that has featured the work of Theaster Gates, Athena LaTocha, Annabeth Rosen and Ebony Patterson
About LeRonn Brooks
Dr. LeRonn P. Brooks, curator of modern and contemporary collections, and the African American Art History Initiative (AAAHI), at the Getty Research Institute
Dr. LeRonn P. Brooks is an art historian and curator of modern and contemporary collections, and the African American Art History Initiative (AAAHI), at the Getty Research Institute. Brooks is curator of African American collections and acquisitions at the GRI. He is responsible for building and developing collections to promote advanced research in the study of African American art history. In his capacity at the GRI, Brooks is also the curator, and co-curator, of several archives including those of the Johnson Publishing Company, architect Paul Revere Williams, sculptor Richard Hunt, interdisciplinary artist, Maren Hassinger, and scholar Dr. Robert Farris Thompson, among others. His interviews and essays on African American art, and poetry, have been featured in Callaloo Journal, The International Review of African American Art, and the Aperture Foundation, as well as numerous exhibition catalogues. Brooks earned a Doctor of Philosophy, Art History, from City University of New York, NY, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) from Hunter College, NY.
About Jo Banner
Jo Banner, Founder and Director of The Descendants Project
Jo Banner is the founder and director of The Descendants Project, a nonprofit she co-founded with her twin sister, Dr. Joy Banner, in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana. Holding bachelor’s and master’s degrees in communications, she uses her education to honor the legacy of enslaved people while defending descendant communities.Jo’s mission includes preserving the burial grounds of the enslaved and protecting the last 11 miles untouched by industrial development in Cancer Alley. Through her work, she envisions a just transition for people and land to achieve economic and environmental liberation.
About Dr. Joy Banner
Dr. Joy banner, Co-Founder and Co-Director of The Descendants Project
Dr. Joy Banner is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of The Descendants Project, a nonprofit organization founded to protect the health, land, and lives of the Black descendant community in Louisiana’s River Parishes—an area known as “Cancer Alley.”After earning her Ph.D. in communications and B.S. in marketing from Louisiana State University, Dr. Banner taught business communications, marketing and entrepreneurship at LSU, where she advanced to Chair of the Management program before returning to her hometown of Wallace, Louisiana. Joy has 20+ years in heritage and tourism, which she has leveraged to champion the preservation of Black historic sites, heritage, and communities.
About Kathe Hambrick
Kathe Hambrick, Executive Director of the Amistad Research Center
Kathe Hambrick is the Executive Director of the Amistad Research Center, where she brings over 30 years of experience in public history, curation, and interpretation to preserve and share pivotal narratives of America’s ethnic and racial history. As the founder of the River Road African American Museum in Louisiana, Hambrick has championed the preservation of African American history in the Mississippi River parishes. She holds a Master’s in Museum Studies from Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO) and has curated over 100 exhibits, including “The Rural Roots of Jazz.” A published author and consultant, she continues to shape a more inclusive historical narrative through her work.
About Kristina Kay Robinson
Kristina Kay Robinson, poet, writer, independent curator and visual artist
Kristina Kay Robinson is a poet, writer, independent curator and visual artist born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her writing in various genres has appeared in Art in America, Harper’s Bazaar, Guernica, The Baffler, The Nation, The Massachusetts Review and Elle among other outlets. Robinson is a recipient of the Rabkin Prize for Visual Arts Journalism and an Andy Warhol Arts Writing grant. Currently she serves as the New Orleans editor at large for the Atlanta based, Burnaway magazine.
About the Amistad Research Center
The Amistad Research Center is the nation’s oldest, largest, and most comprehensive independent archives specializing in the history of African Americans and other ethnic minorities. The Center is dedicated to preserving this history by providing a home to manuscripts, photographs, books, periodicals, and works of art that bear witness to a post worth sharing with the future.
About The Descendants Project
The Descendants Project is an emerging organization committed to the intergenerational healing and flourishing of the Black descendant community in the Louisiana river parishes. The lands of the river parishes hold the intersecting histories of enslavement, settler colonialism, and environmental degradation.
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We are descended from the enslaved men, women, and children who were forced to labor at one or more of the hundreds of plantations that line the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. Starting in the 1970s, large industrial petrochemical plants began purchasing the land of these plantations still surrounded by vulnerable Black descendant communities. The region is now known as “Cancer Alley” for the extreme risks of cancer and death due to pollution. The community faces many other problems such as food insecurity, high unemployment, high poverty, land dispossession, and health issues that stem from a culture of disregard for Black communities and their quality of life.
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Through programming, education, advocacy, and outreach, The Descendants Project is committed to reversing the vagrancies of slavery through healing and restorative work. We aim to eliminate the narrative violence of plantation tourism and champion the voice of the Black descendant community while demanding action that supports the total well-being of Black descendants.
About the River Road African American Museum
The mission of the River Road African American Museum (RRAAM) is to educate visitors about the history and culture of African Americans in the rural communities of south Louisiana through the collection, preservation, and interpretation of art, artifacts, and historic buildings.
About Dawoud Bey: Elegy
Dawoud Bey: Elegy draws upon the factual and imagined realities of the early African American presence in the United States. Including forty-five black-and-white photographs and two film installations, the exhibition elucidates the deeply profound historical memory still embedded in geography at historically significant sites in Virginia, Louisiana and Ohio. Through the interweaving of three photographic series—”Stony the Road “(2023), “In This Here Place” (2019), and “Night Coming Tenderly, Black” (2017)—Bey offers a framework through which to conceptualize the landscapes of Virginia, Louisiana, and Ohio (respectively) through images that convey the memories of our shared American past.
Learn More

Gallery Talk with Curator Brian Piper
2025-10-01 12:30 - 13:00, 2025-10-01 18:00 - 18:30 | New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, LA, 70119
Every week, NOMA hosts gallery talks in the museum and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden led by curators, artists, and other special guests. These lively, participatory conversations provide a moment to take a close look at one work—or a selection of works—currently on view.
In celebration of the opening of the special exhibition Dawoud Bey: Elegy, join Brian Piper; NOMA’s Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints, and Drawings; for a conversation about works on view in the exhibition. The gallery talk will be offered at 12:30 and 6:00 pm this day.
Included with museum admission, which is free for Louisiana residents every Wednesday courtesy of The Helis Foundation’s Art for All initiative. When you arrive at NOMA, check in at the admissions desk for directions to the appropriate location.

Gallery Talk with Curator Orlando Hernández Ying
2025-10-01 12:30 - 13:00, 2025-10-09 12:30 - 13:00 | New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, LA, 70119
Every week, NOMA hosts gallery talks in the museum and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden led by curators, artists, and other special guests. These lively, participatory conversations provide a moment to take a close look at one work—or a selection of works—currently on view.
In celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month and the opening of the new special installation of Cuzco paintings in the Great Hall, join NOMA’s Lapis Curator of the Arts of the Americas Orlando Hernández Ying for a conversation about these works on view. This talk will be offered at 12:30 pm and 6:00 pm the same day.
Included with museum admission, which is free for Louisiana residents every Wednesday courtesy of The Helis Foundation’s Art for All initiative. When you arrive at NOMA, check in at the admissions desk for directions to the appropriate location.

Elders Sacred Talk Series: Martin Payton and Eric Waters
2025-10-01 17:30 - 19:00
NOMA and the Congo Square Preservation Society present the Elders Sacred Talk Series with prolific elder New Orleanians, celebrating the lives they lead while providing the opportunity for visitors to learn firsthand about the impact they’ve had on our city. This conversation between Martin Payton and Eric Waters will be moderated by Ron Bechet.

This program is included with museum admission, which is free for Louisiana residents every Wednesday courtesy of The Helis Foundation’s Art for All initiative.

About the Speakers
Martin Payton

Martin Payton, a native of New Orleans, has sustained a distinguished career as both artist and educator for more than five decades. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Xavier University of Louisiana and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. Following his return to New Orleans, Payton embarked on an academic career that included appointments at Southern University at New Orleans, Southern University in Baton Rouge, and Xavier University, where he played a formative role in shaping successive generations of artists.

Payton’s artistic practice is most closely identified with his monumental public sculptures and monochromatic constructions, created through the welding of salvaged industrial steel. By reconfiguring discarded materials, Payton engages in a process that is simultaneously aesthetic and cultural, transforming the remnants of industrial production into abstract forms resonant with historical, spiritual, and communal associations. His collaborative work Spirit House with John Scott stands as a significant intervention in the visual and cultural landscape of New Orleans.

Peyton’s work is represented in major institutional collections, including the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, the William King Museum of Art in Virginia, and the Rosekrans Runnymede Sculpture Garden in California. Payton’s work is recognized not only for its formal innovation but also for its critical engagement with African American cultural memory and the material legacies of labor and industry.

Eric Waters

For more than four decades, photographer Eric Waters has served as a central documentarian of Black social life and cultural traditions in New Orleans. A graduate of Dillard University, he studied photography under the late Marion J. Porter, whose mentorship shaped his early artistic development. While Waters has been widely sought after as an event photographer, his enduring reputation rests on his incisive visual record of Second Line parades and the ceremonial pageantry of the Mardi Gras Indian tradition—cultural expressions that lie at the heart of New Orleans’s African American community.

Waters’s photography captures the dynamism, movement, and layered symbolism of Black vernacular performance. His images serve as vital historical archives, preserving traditions that both affirm and continually reinvent communal identity. His work has been featured in international, national, and local media outlets and publications, including Ties That Bind and Freedom’s Dance: Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs in New Orleans (co-authored with Karen Celestan). He also co-edited SEEING BLACK: Black Photography in New Orleans, 1840 and Beyond with Kalamu ya Salaam and Shana M. Griffin, a landmark volume that situates Black photographers within a broader historical and cultural continuum.

Waters received the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities’ Documentary Photographer of the Year award in 2018 and was named a Joan Mitchell Foundation Artist-in-Residence in 2019. His body of work continues to be regarded as both an artistic achievement and a crucial intervention in the visual historiography of New Orleans’s Black cultural practices.

About Elders Sacred Talks and Art Thrives
NOMA’s Art Thrives initiative presents creative aging programs designed to support visitors ages 55 and up. In addition to art-making workshops, courses, and opportunities for hands-on art-making, the Elders Sacred Talk Series provides a platform for older adults in New Orleans to share their experiences with audiences of all ages.
The Elders Sacred Talk Series is presented in partnership between NOMA and the Congo Square Preservation Society. Art Thrives is supported by E.A. Michelson Philanthropy.

Salon Supper Club Presented by First Horizon Bank
2025-10-03 18:00 - 21:00 | New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, LA, 70119
This year, the New Orleans Museum of Art introduces a new food- and art-focused series of events inspired by works on view: the Salon Supper Club Presented by First Horizon Bank.
This Salon Supper Club will feature an elegant seated dinner with wine and cocktails in NOMA’s Great Hall. Guests will also explore featured exhibitions and installations at the museum while celebrating the ability of art to connect us with friends, family, and new acquaintances.
https://noma.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/v2-Noma-scripted-video-1.mp4
Salon Supper Club Presented by First Horizon Bank
A Feast for the Senses ♦ Una Fiesta para los Sentidos
Celebrating NOMA’s Re-Installation of American Art across South, Central, and North America from the Pre-Columbian Era to the Present Day
Event Chairs | Millie Davis Kohn and Robert Kohn, Juan and Martine Linares, Pam Ryan and Meaghan Ryan Bonavita
NOMA Volunteer Committee Chair | Taylor Pospisil
Your support of the Salon Supper Club events provides critical resources to exhibitions, educational initiatives, and programming at NOMA.
For sponsorship inquiries and questions about the Salon Supper Club, please email salonsupperclub@noma.org or call 504.658.4121.

Event Tickets
Get your tickets now for the next installation of the Salon Supper Club on Friday, October 3.
Limited tickets are available for purchase online only until Thursday, October 2, at Noon. Tickets will not be available at the doors of the event. Black tie or elegant cocktail attire is required.
$1000 | Fall Supper Club Ticket
Grants ticket holders access to the event from 6-9 pm (limited to 140 guests)
Purchase Tickets

Event Details
Guest Chef Alfredo Nogueira, Chef-Partner of Cane & Table and VALS, and Executive Chef of Cure in New Orleans
Chef Alfredo “Fredo” Nogueira, Chef-Partner of Cane & Table and VALS, andExecutive Chef of Cure in New Orleans

Live Musical Performance from the Javier Olondo Trio, Thanks to Support from the New Orleans Jazz Museum
Javier Olondo Trio

Live Musical Performance from Psalterist Marc Armitano Domingo
Marc Armitano Domingo
Live Dance Performances from Argentine Tango Duo Celina Rotundo and Hugo Patyn
Celina Rotundo and Hugo Patyn, Argentine Tango Duo

About the Reinstallation
More details about the reinstallation of the Arts of the Americas will be available soon.

Sponsorship Levels and Benefits
Take advantage of the opportunity to join as a sponsor for all three Salon Supper Club events in 2025 on Thursday, May 22; Thursday, July 17; and Friday, October 3.
$25,000 | Platinum Sponsor

12 Tickets to the Fall Salon Supper Club dinner
Recognition as a sponsor with name or logo in all press materials
Recognition as a Sponsor at the Fall NOMA Salon Supper Club
Invitations to exhibition patron preview openings during 2025–26
Sponsor recognition on printed invitations, evites, and on noma.org
Sponsor recognition on 2,500 invitations; on www.noma.org; postings to Facebook and Instagram; and all event e-blasts; mention on an Instagram post + story before the event and mention in an Instagram story at the event; 2 mentions on Facebook.
Listed in paid advertisements
1 NOMA exhibition catalog

Become a Platinum Sponsor
$15,000 | Gold Sponsor

10 tickets to the Fall Salon Supper Club dinner
Recognition as a sponsor with name or logo in all press materials
Recognition as a Sponsor at the Fall NOMA Salon Supper Club
Invitations to exhibition patron preview openings during 2025–26
Sponsor recognition on 2,500 invitations; on www.noma.org; postings to Facebook and Instagram; and all event e-blasts
Listed in paid advertisements
NOMA Fellows membership
1 NOMA exhibition catalog

Become a Gold Sponsor
$8,000 | Silver Sponsor

6 tickets to the Fall Salon Supper Club dinner
Recognition as a Sponsor at the Fall Salon Supper Club
Invitations to exhibition patron preview openings during 2025–26
Sponsor recognition on
Sponsor recognition on 2,500 invitations, on www.noma.org and all event e-blasts
NOMA Fellows membership
1 NOMA exhibition catalog

Become a Silver Sponsor
$5,500 | Benefactor

4 tickets to the Fall Salon Supper Club dinner
Recognition as a Sponsor at the Fall NOMA Salon Supper Club
Invitations to exhibition patron preview openings during 2025–26
Sponsor recognition on 2,500 invitations, on www.noma.org and all event e-blasts
NOMA Fellows membership

Become a Benefactor
$2,000 | Supporter Couple

2 tickets to the Fall Salon Supper Club dinner
Recognition as a Sponsor at the Fall NOMA Salon Supper Club
Invitations to exhibition patron preview openings during 2025–26
Sponsor recognition on evites, on www.noma.org, and all event e-blasts
NOMA Fellows membership

Become a Supporter
$1,000 | Supporter Single

1 ticket to the Fall Salon Supper Club dinner
Recognition as a Sponsor at the Fall NOMA Salon Supper Club
Invitations to exhibition patron preview openings during 2025–26
Sponsor recognition on evites; on www.noma.org with over 130,000 monthly hits; and e-blasts to over 31,000 subscribers

Become a Supporter
For sponsorship inquiries and questions about the Salon Supper Club, please email salonsupperclub@noma.org or call 504.658.4121.

Thank You to Our Current Sponsors
Presenting Sponsor

Gold Sponsors
Anonymous
Walda Besthoff
Silver Sponsors
Elizabeth Boh
Feil Family Foundation
Peggy and Timber Floyd
Benefactors
Mrs. Robert H. Boh
Eileen and Joey Devall
Shaun and Foster Duncan
The Helis Foundation
Kim and Thomas Henley
Jane and Rodney Steiner
Phyllis M. Taylor
Elizabeth and James Williams
Supporters
Wayne Amedee
Diego Arce
Cathy and Morris Bart
R.P. Bartee
Donna Kay Berger
Meaghan Ryan Bonavita and Joe Bonavita
Broadmoor, LLC
Caroline and Murray Calhoun
Luz and Salvador Caputto
Melanie Dees
Ann Duffy and John Skinner
Catherine and David Edwards
Pam Davis Friedler
Julie and Ted George
Ana and Juan Gershanik
Yolande and Gray Goudreau
Dr. Kelly E. Haynie
Sarah and Marshall Hevron
Millie and Robert Kohn
Kristen and Paul Leonard
Martine and Juan Linares
Blanca Rosa Maldonado, M.D.
Ellen Manshel
Renee and Paul Masinter
Cammie and Charles Mayer
Max Moreno
Red River Bank
Eduardo E. Rodriguez
Pamela and William Ryan
Mimi and Claude Schlesinger
Betty and Greg Speyrer
Susu and Andrew Stall
Suzanne and Robert Thomas
Jenny and Robb Vorhoff
Ginny Wise and Kevin Wilkins
Lele and Brent Wood
Libations
Sazerac Co.
Special Thanks
Urban Earth Studios
Café NOMA

Event Committee to be Announced Soon

About Chef Alfredo Nogueira
Chef Alfredo Nogueira, affectionately known by friends and colleagues as “Fredo,” is the Chef-Partner of acclaimed bars and restaurants Cane & Table and VALS, and Executive Chef of Cure in New Orleans. As a New Orleans native of Cuban descent, Fredo’s culinary style is shaped by his innate appreciation for Cajun cuisine coupled with his Cuban heritage and upbringing.
At Cane & Table, he married the two cuisines, resulting in vibrant, seasonally driven menus–with the restaurant featured most recently on The New York Times’ list of “The 25 Best Restaurants in New Orleans Right Now.” The recognition joins other accolades for Cane & Table, including Bon Appetit featuring it as one of the “Five Best New Cocktail Bars in America,” and heralded as one of the best bars in America by Food & Wine, Esquire, Eater, and THRILLIST, and one of the best new bars in the South by Garden & Gun and Southern Living.
At Cure, Fredo’s small-plate menu complements the craft cocktail menu, which was recognized by the James Beard Award in 2018 for “Outstanding Bar Program.” And, at VALS, as Chef-Partner, he features a menu of Mexican-inspired cuisine, from tacos and tostadas to ceviches. Prior to his return to New Orleans, Fredo spent over a decade in Chicago, notably withWilliam von Hartz on the seasonal pop-up Flipside Café, and with Paul Kahan’s One Off Hospitality group. In 2013 he partnered with Analogue Partners and Co-Bar Directors Robby Haynes and Henry Prendergast to create the menu at Analogue, which debuted in December 2013.
