Exhibition Dates: June 2 – July 14, 2012
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 2 from 6 – 8 pm
Gallery Location: 432 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10am – 5pm
Contact Info: 504.522.1999; www.arthurrogergallery.com

The Arthur Roger Gallery is pleased to present “Rings of Granite,” an exhibition of sculpture by Jesús Moroles. The exhibition will be on view at Arthur Roger Gallery, located at 432 Julia Street, from June 2 – July 14, 2012. The gallery will host an opening reception with the artist in attendance, Saturday, June 2 from 6-8 pm.

Concave, 2012. Black granite, 42 x 19.75 x 9.75 inches.

Jesús Moroles considers granite “the core and heart of the universe.” His new sculptures exemplify his recognizable and revered technique, presented in small- to large-scale and utilizing a range of granite including Texas Pink, Dakota, Black and Fredericksburg. The abstract works continue to resound with suggestions of nature and man and explore the coexistence of the two. Trained formally in the United States and having spent a year in the quarries in Pietrasanta, Italy, Moroles is recognized internationally as one of the greatest sculptors working with granite today.

Each of Moroles’ works has roughly equal proportions of raw and smooth surfaces. The sculptor employs a “tearing” process, whereby wedges are inserted into small holes that have been drilled in the granite. When pressure is applied, the stone tears into a line or curve, exposing the untouched interior. The remaining surface is then smoothed and polished. Moroles encourages his audience to experience his pieces with multiple senses, to touch and explore.

Born in 1950 in the Texas coastal town of Corpus Christi, Moroles now resides in Rockport, Texas. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from North Texas State University. In 2007 the artist received the Texas Medal of Arts Award for the Visual Arts and in 2008 the prestigious National Medal of Arts. Moroles’ major commissions include an environmental installation of fountains and sculptures for the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Birmingham, Alabama; a 22-foot tall, 60-ton sculpture, “Lapstrake”, at the former E.F. Hutton Plaza, New York, located across the street from the Museum of Modem Art; and water sculptures at the Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico and the Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe. Since 1996 Moroles has been a member of the Board of Commissioners of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.

His work is included in numerous esteemed public collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas; Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; New Orleans Museum of Art; the Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina; and The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans, Louisiana.

For more information please contact the Arthur Roger Gallery at 504.522.1999 or visit our website at www.arthurrogergallery.com.

St. Agatha, 1995. Steel, hair, moulage, Plexiglas, leather, bronze, wood, brass and glass, 24 x 18 x 4 inches.

The Arthur Roger Gallery is pleased to present “Ersy: Architect of Dreams – Selections from the Ogden Museum of Southern Art Exhibition.” The exhibition will be on view at Arthur Roger@434, located at 434 Julia Street, from June 2 – July 14, 2012. The gallery will host an opening reception with the artist in attendance, Saturday, June 2 from 6-8 pm.

Ersy is revered for her work rooted in precise craftsmanship of materials including bronze, silver and wood. Scale, perspective and presentation play critical roles. The desired effect is that the viewer’s own size and relation to the piece become questioned. She recently received high critical praise for her 40-year retrospective at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, “Ersy: Architect of Dreams.” Her exhibition at the Arthur Roger Gallery is based on work included in the retrospective.

Ersy’s passion is self-evident. Her unique aesthetic is part taxidermy, part reliquary and incorporates elements of surrealism in a visual poetry that often references the pageantry and traditions of New Orleans. Based on her belief that the South has a macabre sense of humor, she anticipates that her work evokes both happiness and sadness.

Ersy was born and raised in New Orleans. She currently lives, and works out of a studio, in her childhood home – a 180-year old house on Esplanade Avenue in the Vieux Carré. Ersy received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the California Institute of Arts and studied as well at Bard College, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and Tulane University. She apprenticed with both Enrique Alférez and William Ludwig, two prominent New Orleans sculptors. As an educator she taught sculpture classes including bronze casting at Cooper Union for nearly two decades. In 2000, she returned home and joined the Visual Arts Faculty at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. As part of the Louisiana Percent for Art Program, she received and executed a commission for the New Orleans Museum of Art entrance gate in collaboration with artist George Dureau. Ersy received a Surdna Arts Teachers Fellowship in 2005 to work with Modern Art Foundry in New York. In 2008, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art acquired her sculptural installation, “Homage to the Society of St. Anne Parade,” now part of its permanent collection.

For more information please contact the Arthur Roger Gallery at 504.522.1999 or visit our website at www.arthurrogergallery.com.

Joseph Havel discusses his April 2012 exhibition at the Arthur Roger Gallery.

David Bates discusses his April 2012 exhibition “Down Highway 23″ at the Arthur Roger Gallery.

D. Eric Bookhardt on images of coastal Louisiana

Dallas artist David Bates may be the finest painter his hometown has ever produced, but when it comes to his favorite sport, he heads to Louisiana and the remote extremities of Plaquemines Parish. While the paintings in this Down Highway 23 series reflect the everyday lives of fishermen, they were inspired by a trip he made in 2010, when instead of the usual scenes of shrimpers, oystermen and boats laden with the day’s catch, he encountered a coastal dystopia defined by reporters, politicians, tar balls, oil slicks and clean up crews in hazmat suits. Evidence of the BP oil disaster was everywhere in a coastal landscape transformed into something nightmarish, but amid the chaos he began to spot the familiar faces of those who derived their living from those waters. What he saw in them was not defeat but the same resilience that had faced many hurricanes and come back for more.

Net Fishermen (pictured) is emblematic. Painted in a style that recalls the stoic strength of Diego Rivera’s peasants, or Lynd Ward’s starkly monumental images of 1930s American workers, it’s a view of three men in a boat culling fish from a net — but the hovering gulls and stormy sea transform a prosaic scene into something far more iconic. Similar sensibilities are seen in Bait Fishing II, a view of two guys working a seine net, and Cleaning Fish, Venice Louisiana II, both timeless scenes of the sort that have been reenacted repeatedly since the Stone Age. Both also are defined by the stoic resolve seen in the faces of the figures. But his Refinery — Port Sulphur — Night is a hellish vision that might have inspired William Blake’s “dark Satanic Mills,” a line in a short poem that prefaces Milton, a Poem. All are rendered in vigorous, expressionistic slashes of pigment delivered with the bold, Zen-like economy of a karate master. Here Bates clearly defines the clash between technological depredation and the timeless nature-based lifestyle that he renders with such mythopoetic resonance.

About Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial
Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial highlights the artist’s significant contribution to the field of American art and shows how Dial’s work speaks to the most pressing issues of our time-including the war in Iraq, 9/11, and social issues like racism and homelessness. The exhibition presents over 40 of Dial’s large-scale paintings, drawings and found-object sculptures. Spanning twenty years of his work as an artist, it is the most extensive showing of his art ever mounted and is organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
(source: New Orleans Museum of Art)

I recently attended the Southern Graphics Councils’ annual conference, which was held this year in New Orleans. One of the highlights for me was an opportunity to catch up with the work of artist, Mary Jane Parker, who had a solo show at the Gallery at R&F in 2008. In her current solo show, Keepsakes, at Arthur Roger Gallery, Mary Jane presents new work inspired by the masses of foliage that blanketed the New Orleans landscape in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Struck by the natural patterns of vines and how they decorated the surfaces of the city, she began photographing, drawing and cutting stencils of them, thinking that these intricate stencils could be used for a series of encaustic paintings. But something happened in the process that made her realize she didn’t need the wax at all! The show features hand and laser cut paper, prints and photographs.

Exit Art announces its final exhibition EVERY EXIT IS AN ENTRANCE: 30 YEARS OF EXIT ART. Founded in 1982 by Executive Director Jeanette Ingberman and Artistic Director Papo Colo, Exit Art has grown from a pioneering alternative art space into an innovative cultural center. We have supported and fostered a vibrant, interdisciplinary artistic community in New York, organizing over 200 exhibitions, events, festivals and programs featuring more than 2,500 artists. Consistently challenging social, political, aesthetic and curatorial norms, Exit Art has organized historical exhibitions; presented the work of young, emerging, under-recognized and mid-career artists; produced experimental theater and performance works; and organized national and international film and video programs. Committed early on to experimenting with the intersections of film, video, performance, music, publications, design and visual art, Exit Art remained steadfast in its mission to provide new possibilities and opportunities for both artists and audiences alike.

At the heart of the institution is the relationship between Co-Founders Ingberman and Colo, who met in the late 1970s during a studio visit, fell in love, founded Exit Art, and dedicated their lives to nurturing a cultural center that responded to some of the most prescient issues of our time. EVERY EXIT IS AN ENTRANCE: 30 YEARS OF EXIT ART explores this rich history, from its founding in a loft apartment on Canal Street in 1982 to its years in SoHo at 578 Broadway (1984-1992) and 548 Broadway (1992-2002) and to its current Hell’s Kitchen location.

The retrospective exhibition will feature extensive documentation from Exit Art’s archives, including posters, promotional graphics, photographs, and elements of the innovative in-house exhibition designs employed in past exhibitions, as well as the work of a selection of artists championed over the years. In conjunction with the exhibition, Exit Art is organizing a series of events including film screenings, theater and performance programs, live performance and music, artist talks, curatorial presentations, panel discussions, and more. The exhibition will also include a reading library of materials Exit Art has published. Co-Founder Papo Colo will present a personal exhibition of photographic materials that celebrate the spirit of Exit Art, with a focus on the life of co-founder Jeanette Ingberman who passed away in August 2011.

ARTISTS (as of March 15, 2012):
John Ahearn, Vito Acconci, Candida Alvarez, Ida Applebroog, Suzanne Anker, Sonia Balassanian, Alvin Baltrop, Brandon Ballengée, Willie Birch, Nina Bovasso, Luis Camnitzer, Michael Chernishov, Sue Coe, Papo Colo, Jimmie Durham, Nicole Eisenman, Mary Ellen Strom, Ming Fay, John Fekner, Judy Fox, Rico Gatson, Chitra Ganesh, Nancy Grossman, Guerra de la Paz, Jane Hammond, Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds, Charles Juhasz-Alvarado, Brad Kahlhamer, Ed Kashi, Jerry Kearns, Shu Lea Cheang, Jason Lujan, Elaine Lustig Cohen, Carrie Mae Weems, Alfred Martinez, Maritza Molina, Marcus Morales, Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S. Davidson, Antoni Muntadas, Nancy Spero & Leon Golub, Iván Navarro, Shirin Neshat, Roxy Paine, Joyce Pensato, Adrian Piper, Juan Sanchez, Cindy Sherman, Francesco Simeti, Tim Hillis & Gale Jackson, Fred Tomaselli, Anton Van Dalen, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Cecilia Vicuña, David Wojnarowicz, Revel Woodard, Martin Wong and more

Keith Perelli talks about his March 2012 exhibition at the Arthur Roger Gallery.

Francis X. Pavy talks about his March 2012 exhibition at the Arthur Roger Gallery.