“TEN YEARS GONE,” was curated by NOMA’s Russell Lord and slated to signal the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. It takes on a capacious, four-part theme: “time, memory, loss and transformation.” And the exhibition, as Lord puts it, sought “to situate the significance of the past decade within a larger context of human endeavor and life experience.”
How well do you remember the last days of August 10 years ago? …The three major visual arts venues in the city — the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and the Contemporary Arts Center — have all timed exhibitions of living artists to coincide with the anniversary. Each show is distinct in its approach, its tone, and its way of visualizing the role of art and the idea of memorialization itself.
While it may be best known for its vibrant music scene, New Orleans’ history of visual artists—painters, photographers, sculptors, video artists, and beyond—rivals that of any other city packed with sleek galleries and slick collectors. Though the local art community has lost some of its greatest inspirations in recent months—including George Dureau and George Rodrigue—the fierce passion of the city’s established and emerging artists continues to evolve and make NOLA a hotbed of creative activity. Here are 20 New Orleans Artists You Should Know.
New Orleans conceptual artist Dawn DeDeaux’s captivating and challenging new exhibition, “MotherShip”, opened Saturday in the Acadiana Center for the Arts’ main gallery.
DeDeaux is a conceptual artist who works in a wide array of media and is one of the first Louisiana artists to utilize electronic technology. “When we invited Dawn, we knew she had different components of different kinds of works,” said Brian Guidry, AcA curator. “Each show is different. Each show develops differently,” Guidry said. “The show previous to this was ‘Face Time.’ That show was composed of about 18 artists and Mary Beyt (curation assistant, AcA) and I worked together and that show came about much differently than Dawn’s.”
Decisive Moments is drawn from the extensive, rich collection of 20th-century and contemporary photographs assembled over 40 years by Jim and Cherye Pierce, including works by Luis Cruz Azaceta, Dawn DeDeaux and Deborah Luster.
Open only at night, DeDeaux’s installation riffs on Toole’s evocation of fate and furies. The artist uses the three-story mansion to great effect. Off each story is a balcony, behind which are French doors and windows. Using various staging setups, including mannequins costumed with dunce hats that look weirdly like figures from the Inquisition, and a room full of masks and odd artifacts, she sets up a fun-house tableau on each floor. There are rooms you can enter and rooms that you view from the center of the courtyard, which boasts a wagon with a fountain that has distinct masturbatory connotations, consistent with the Reilly character. The rooms have video projections or staged lighting, which makes a dramatic impact. Looking up from the grounds of the courtyard, you can see ethereal, spinning videos. In a large downstairs room is a dance video, if one can call it that. DeDeaux cast the contemporary diva of New Orleans bounce music, Katey Red, to play the role of Goddess Fortuna, accompanied by two backup dancers as “the Wheelettes”—to spin the wheels of our fate. The energetic figures in the video have an uncanny optical effect of appearing disembodied in the outdoor courtyard through a device of reflection. I watched entranced through the windows of the room at the courtyard; it was truly disturbing, and inspiring. Worked from its literary source, DeDeaux’s zany, smart and wildly imaginative installation goes far beyond illustration to become an atmosphere that is indeed inhabited by the Goddess Fortuna.
The moment the sky turns dark is transformative. In the Brulatour Courtyard, it’s the time when Dawn DeDeaux’s perverted portrait of Ignatius Reilly comes to life, converting the romanticism of the historic courtyard into the dark imaginings of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. Those familiar with the iconic New Orleans novel will recognize central elements from the narrative in this installation. The Levy Pants revolution, the Lucky Dog cart, and Reilly’s hunting cap all make appearances; while Reilly’s slovenly bed occupies center stage of the courtyard, fountain spewing from its center.
“DeDeaux, a New Orleans native and one of America’s pioneering new media artists, employs her visionary sense of space, light and media to transform the Brulatour Courtyard into “Goddess Fortuna and Her Dunces In An Effort To Make Sense Of It All.” Inspired by John Kenney Toole’s classic New Orleans novel, “A Confederacy of Dunces,” the exhibition celebrates the 30th anniversary of the novel’s Pulitzer Prize, exploring its underlying philosophical themes.”
If a Giant Golden Lucky Dog; Glass Ladders to Nowhere; Revolt in the Factory of Pants; and the Goddess Fortuna played by Bounce Diva Katey Red is up your alley, then The Goddess Fortuna and Her Dunces, in an Attempt to Make Sense of It All by artist Dawn DeDeaux is the New Orleans art installation to see.