Press & Media

“Just Folks”, Gambit Weekly Inside Art

Figurative art, a style that goes all the way back to the old cave days, seems to be making a comeback. Over the ages, the figure has symbolized everything from ancient Greek gods to R. Crumb’s Mr. Natural and the archetypal Americans now seen in Tom Tomorrow’s cartoons.

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“Yellow Wall 2 as viewed by a preservationist,” Preservation in Print

Just as the recently renovated Renaissance Arts Hotel makes a strong statement about the relevance of preservation in New Orleans so too does Luis Cruz Azaceta’s mesmerizing Yellow Wall 2 that hangs in the lobby. Composed of 565 photos taken on and around Tchoupitoulas Street, the montage reveals the fortitude that is demanded in order to preserve New Orleans’ heritage.

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“Luis Cruz Azaceta: Painter of Exile,” Preservation in Print

Luis Azaceta, a warm and rational Cuban exile, doesn’t strike you as a man who would ever hold a gun or a knife to his own head or the head of anyone else. But he has done this. He tells the very funny story of posing before a mirror in his New York apartment with a gun and then a knife held to his head to get the right image for a painting dealing with urban violence. A woman in a nearby apartment in his Italian neighborhood observed him through the window and sent someone rushing to the rescue. It’s an amusing tale, but behind the humor is the ever-present specter of loss, chaos and alienation that has defined his work for the last thirty years.

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“Glyphs, Grids and Smoke”, Gambit Weekly

It was like meeting an old friend in a new and unfamiliar place. In this case, the old friend was Ida Kohlmeyer, or, rather, her paintings and sculpture. When she died six years ago at 84, she was probably New Orleans’ best- known artist, having been shown routinely here as well as New York, London and other world culture capitals for several decades.

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“John Alexander: 35 Years of Works on Paper” —Edmund P. Pillsbury, Ph.D.

While John Alexander’s achievement as a painter continues to win accolades, his prowess as a consummate draftsmen has only recently emerged. This latent recognition should come as no surprise. Invariably, painters resort to paper to record an impression, producing works that make up in spontaneity what by intention they lack in finish.

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