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NOMA on Instagram @neworleansmuseumofart

Since 1963, artist Larry Bell has worked primarily with glass, exploring how the material can reflect, absorb, and transmit light all at the same time.⁠

The story goes that a cracked piece of sheet glass introduced the artist to the material’s conceptual qualities: “The one break in the glass,” Bell said, “created three lines — one a reflection from the break, one the shadow of the break and the break itself.”⁠

In Bell’s sculpture "Pacific Red (VI)," on view in NOMA’s Besthoff Sculpture Garden, depth of color and varying levels of transparency alter the viewer’s perception of the artwork’s interior and exterior open red cubes.⁠

At one angle, the work is a monolithic red box but a slight shift of the sun’s light or a few steps taken down a garden path make the sculpture dissolve into a red haze framing the Louisiana landscape beyond.⁠

Click the link in our bio to read more about Bell`s work in a @nolanews article from Mel Buchanan, RosaMary Curator of Decorative Arts and Design.⁠
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🎨: Larry Bell, "Pacific Red (VI)," 2016–17. Museum purchase with funds provided by Sydney and Walda Besthoff, 2019.1. © 2024 Larry Bell / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.⁠
📷: @bytaylorhunter⁠
📍: NOMA`s Besthoff Sculpture Garden
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Last week, Mahmoud Chouki and special guests celebrated the vinyl release of “Caravan—From Marrakech to New Orleans” with a performance in NOMA’s Lapis Center for the Arts 🎶 ...

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In New Orleans photography, few images are now so well-known as the Storyville photographs attributed to Ernest J. Bellocq around 1913. 📸 But did you know that glass is an integral part of that history?⁠

The object reproduced here is one of the ninety known glass plate negatives of Storyville subjects attributed to the photographer, and one of two in NOMA’s collection.⁠

Glass has always been an important material in photography, especially as a base for the light-sensitive chemistry that makes a photographic negative—sharper and more detailed than those made using previous materials, like paper. By the time this photograph was made, Kodak film was available, but professional photographers’ preference for glass negatives persisted into the 1930s.⁠

Prints from the Storyville glass negatives that Bellocq definitively made himself have not been found. This photographic glass negative shows a mantelpiece in the interior of an unidentified brothel, and at least one of the subjects in the pictures on the mantel display also appears in the group of Bellocq’s Storyville portraits. ⁠

🔗 Click the link in our bio to read more from Brian Piper, Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints, and Drawings.⁠
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🎨 : Ernest J. Bellocq, "Mantel, Storyville, New Orleans," ca. 1911–13. Gelatin silver negative on glass. Museum purchase, 73.241.⁠
📍: 2nd floor, A. Charlotte Mann & Joshua Mann Pailet Gallery (beginning Friday, December 6)⁠
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"With more than 90 pieces exhibited, exploring among gardens, magnolias and gorgeous live oaks becomes as culturally enriching as it is soul-soothing – think of it as forest-bathing meets gallery-hopping. Spectacular sculptures like Frank Gehry’s `Bear with Us,` Frank Stella’s `Alu Truss Star,` or Sean Scully’s `Colored Stack Frames` become even more fascinating against this uniquely Louisiana backdrop, inviting you to admire them from different angles and immerse yourself in nature."⁠

Click the link in our bio to read the full "24 Hours in New Orleans" guide from @departuresint, which includes NOMA`s Besthoff Sculpture Garden.⁠
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🎨: Sean Scully, "Colored Stacked Frames," 2017. Stainless steel with automotive paint. Museum purchase with funds provided by Sydney and Walda Besthoff, 2017.192. © Sean Scully.⁠
📸: @stephaniegalt
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