In the art world, some people wonder if this is the worst or the best of times. Neither of the leading art capitals, New York and London, have produced any truly exciting new art or artists in ages, but the silver lining is that tedious trends like postmodernism no longer rule, and vital regional art scenes like New Orleans and Los Angeles have never been more highly regarded. This quiet revolution that transcends the prevailing “isms” is exemplified in Acadiana-based Troy Dugas’ large cut-paper collages.

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Stephanie Patton’s Private Practice show continues her exploration of psychic and physical healing in padded white vinyl wall hangings, fanciful soft sculptures that evoke the convolutions of the brain or even padded cells — or maybe what might have happened had a bedding company hired Salvador Dali as a designer.

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Meant to instruct in the art of attentiveness, a mandala is a visual aid used in Hindu and Buddhist meditation. In classical form, the design contains four “gates” that guard a central circle. An honest rhetorical question then: do make-your-own-mandala websites and Urban Outfitters’ mandala bedspreads undermine the significance of this mystical emblem? This isn’t to scoff at the mandala’s new pop-Zen identity, but to witness the mandala moment while trends, and the technologies that are their silent backdrop, become increasingly antithetical to its symbolism and utility is bizarre.

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“Jesús Moroles: 30 Years of Sculpture” Exhibit at the Nave Museum in Victoria, Texas – March 21st – May 5th.

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“Standing Vase with Five Flowers” by James Surls on Poydras Street near St. Charles Avenue. The Texas sculpture star’s surrealistic still-life design fits beautifully on the narrow Poydras Street median. Notice that Surls has provided each copper-green flower petal with an eye to watch the traffic crawl by. “Standing Vase with Five Flowers” is a whimsical companion for Surls’ somewhat more sinister sculpture “Me Life, Diamond and Flower,” a few blocks uptown on Camp Street outside of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

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Ida Kohlmeyer’s love for her native New Orleans and in some instances her Jewishness comes out in her abstract expressionist art. The New Orleans Museum of Art is honoring her memory with “Ida Kohlmeyer: 100th Anniversary Highlights.” The exhibit features significant pieces of hers from NOMA’s permanent collection in an exhibition running through April 14.

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