A Unique Slant of Light: The Bicentennial History of Art in Louisiana - (Page 208)

Bruce Davenport, Jr., and Robert Tannen. As Louisiana artists returned to the state, many national and international artists came as well, seeking to support the cultural recovery and to develop new projects in Louisiana. Hunt Slonem, for example, who had studied at Tulane during the 1970s, absorbing Sam Wilson’s architectural lectures, increasingly exhibited his art and long-term projects in New Orleans and across the state, including at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. He also purchased and restored two historic Louisiana plantation houses, Albania Plantation and Lakeside Plantation, and later designed and installed public sculptures in Jefferson Parish.41 Kendall Shaw returned to New Orleans regularly from New York, and was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition, Kendall Shaw: let there be light, at the Ogden Museum in 2007.42 Benny Andrews returned from New York and worked in a range of exhibitions and educational programs along the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf coasts, before his death in 2006. Wolf Kahn returned to New Orleans and created a project he titled Drastic Changes: The Trees of New Orleans, and he offered teaching workshops. With Prospect.1, the range of artists featured in exhibitions included Mark Bradford, Sanford Biggers, Tony Fitzpatrick, Julie Mehretu, Shirin Neshat, Pierre et Gilles, Fred Tomaselli, Paul Villiniski, and Nari Ward. As recovery and rebuilding efforts advanced across the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf coasts, another type of environmental disaster struck the region in 2010 when the BP oil spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. This brought an immediate, and devastating, environmental and economic impact to the larger region, closing the waters of the Gulf to the fishing industry, affecting the slowly rebounding tourist and cruise ship industries, and raising a wide range of issues regarding the short-term and long-term impact on the natural environment, marshes, swamps, wildlife, beaches, and communities in the region. Once again, artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, and other members of the creative community across the state responded to these issues in diverse and unique ways, as reflected in galleries, museums, and art centers in New Orleans, Lafayette, and across much of the affected Gulf Coast region. Much of what has evolved in the Louisiana art world since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck in 2005 (and since the BP oil spill of 2010), are part of an ongoing series of solutions, and attempted solutions, to the unprecedented tragedies and events facing the state, as well as the larger Gulf Coast region; they are, in essence, ongoing works in progress. It is too soon to accurately gauge the impact of these efforts, or even the full and lasting impact of the actual events that changed life in the state beginning in 2005. While Louisiana continues to recover, to rebuild and to move forward, it seems most appropriate that, on the occasion of the 2012 Louisiana Bicentennial, we pause, we reflect, we research, we celebrate, and we commemorate the enormity and significance of this state’s art and culture. This is evident in this publication, A Unique Slant of Light, in its related digital publication, in the KnowLA online encyclopedia, and a related series of statewide exhibitions and public programs celebrating the Louisiana Bicentennial Year. At the same time, as we reflect upon the range of Louisiana’s cultural history and legacy, we need to recognize how much has been lost (much of it recently), and consider what we need to do to preserve, to protect, and to enhance the long-term legacy and viability of Louisiana’s art and culture for future generations. Endnotes may be found on page 435. 208 ART IN CONTEMPORARY LOUISIANA 

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A Unique Slant of Light: The Bicentennial History of Art in Louisiana

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