Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008 - (Page 8)

Blossom, 2007, by Sanford Biggers Prospect.1 New Orleans, the largest biennial of international contemporary art ever organized in the United States, was launched in New Orleans on November 1, 2008. Produced by U.S. Biennial, Inc., Prospect.1 is directed by international curator Dan Cameron, Director of Visual Arts at the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) in New Orleans. Conceived in the tradition of the great international biennials, such as the Venice Biennale and Sao Paolo Biennial, Prospect.1 is showcasing new artistic practices through January 18, 2009, as well as an array of programs, which will benefit the local community. Over the course of its three month run, the biennial will draw attention, creative energy, and economic activity to the City of New Orleans, a historic regional artistic center, and the struggling Gulf Region. New Orleans was the first U.S city to host a recurring international art exhibition, beginning in 1887 with the Exhibition of the Art Association of New Orleans. In this tradition, Prospect.1 features art originating from New Orleans and Louisiana within an international context and provides the Louisiana public with new art conceived and developed for the city. Eighty-one local, national, and international artists, hailing from over 30 countries, have been selected to participate in the inaugural edition of the biennial. Their works are on exhibit in museums, art centers, warehouses, and public spaces Through January 18, 2009, New Orleans hosts an International Contemporary Art Biennial, the largest ever held in the United States throughout the city, for a combined total of more than 100,000 square feet of exhibition space. 8 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Winter 2008-09 Highlights of the Biennial: A number of biennial highlights respond to the destruction wrought on the city of New Orleans and the Gulf Region in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. Mark Bradford has created a wooden Ark utilizing the shell of a destroyed house and other discarded scraps of wood in the Lower Ninth Ward. Paul Villinski, a New York-based artist known for creating work from debris who has said he found “new, urgent purpose in the disaster of Hurricane Katrina,” has opened his Emergency Response Studio, a “green”-powered mobile artist’s studio, out of a discarded, now-iconic FEMA trailer. South African photographer Zwelethu Mthethwa, who first visited New Orleans in the more immediate wake of the hurricane, returned to the Lower Ninth Ward in late 2007 to create his first photographs outside of Africa, which debuted at Prospect.1. Highlights of the biennial also include works by artists who have selected unique locations in which to install work. Adam Cvijanovic painted one of his murals inside an abandoned house in the Lower Ninth Ward, and Nari Ward has converted an abandoned church in the Lower Ninth Ward into an installation. Other artists who created Campfire, 2006, new works specifically for by Srdjan Loncar Prospect.1 New Orleans are Jacqueline Humphries, who

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008 Contents Friends Editor's Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Prospect.1 New Orleans The Historic New Orleans Collection The Enduring Performance of Michael P. Smith Jazz Notes Louisiana Foodways Birds of a Feather: Windfowl Carvings in Southeast Louisiana Louisiana Association of Museums Louisiana Architecture O. Winston Link in Louisiana The Ogden Museum of Southern Art The Colfax Massacre Louisiana State Museum Unlocking the History of Greek Key Architecture Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008

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