It’s hot. It’s humid. It’s summer; which means the time has yet again come for droves of art patrons and revelers alike to garb themselves in linens woven of white and gather in the streets to party like an artist. Julia Street to be precise. The annual art-meets-wine extravaganza known as Whitney White Linen Night is once again upon us.
You don’t need to be an art buff to appreciate the New Orleans Museum of Art’s most recent exhibition: “Pride of Place: The Making of Contemporary Art in New Orleans.” Pride of Place celebrates art collector and gallery owner Arthur Roger’s personal collection that he gifted to the museum.
The New Orleans Museum of Art is about to begin a John Waters film festival to celebrate a gift of photographs and a sculpture by the movie maker – part of a much larger gift from gallery owner Arthur Roger.
“Pride of Place: The Making of Contemporary Art in New Orleans” an exhibition of works is on view at New Orleans Museum of Art. The exhibition is a narrative about space, identity, and a sense of belonging in New Orleans’ contemporary art scene over the course of the last four decades. The selection of works on display showcases renowned art collector and gallery owner Arthur Roger’s entire personal art collection which he has gifted to the Museum.
Arthur Roger likes people who live on the fringes, the areas that orbit dominant society. “It is where I’ve discovered the most, and it’s the place I’ve found most interesting,” he says. The pull of the unconventional led him to purchase an unusual home in New Orleans’s French Quarter and amass a stunning collection of provocative art. And once he’d filled the walls with remarkable pieces, he gave them all away, leaving the white walls empty. This story looks at the moment just before that happened, capturing a snapshot from a lifetime of collecting.
WYES Steppin’ Out host Peggy Scott Laborde speaks with Louisiana Life art columnist John Kemp about the NOMA exhibition Pride of Place: The Making of Contemporary Art in New Orleans, currently on view through September 3, 2017. Pride of Place showcases a selection of 20th-century paintings, drawings, photographs and sculptures recently donated to NOMA by prominent New Orleans gallerist and art collector Arthur Roger.
Over the years, Arthur Roger nurtured artists through his art gallery opened in 1978 and in doing so, helped shape and promote the art scene of his native city. Joining the list of benefactors, he recently gifted his sizable art collection accumulated over four decades to the New Orleans Museum of Art. The eighty-seven objects, including paintings, sculptures, videos, photographs, are on display this Summer for the exhibition Pride of Place: The Making of Contemporary Art in New Orleans, curated by Katie Pfohl, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at NOMA.
When Arthur Roger launched his gallery in 1978, there were only a handful of others focused on new art. The scene has expanded greatly since then, but Roger has more than kept abreast of the ever-changing art world through the years, as we see in this sprawling new exhibition of works from his personal collection, which he donated recently to the New Orleans Museum of Art.
It’s a safe bet to say that the contemporary art scene in New Orleans would be a lot less interesting without Arthur Roger. For nearly 40 years, his gallery has been a focal point for introducing the city to major currents in the national and international art scene, as well as for launching and nurturing the careers of some of the most prominent New Orleans-based artists working today.
