Art Openings and Shows in NOLA

Each week, NoDef brings you a comprehensive directory of visual arts
in the Crescent City from Julia to St. Claude

Feb. 19-26, 2013

Colorful Mardi Gras floats may not be rolling down the streets anymore, but there’s still much to see in the city.  Aside from ongoing exhibits like Deborah Luster’s haunting photographs or a pair of fashionable brothers taking over Longue Vue, new exhibitions are popping up all around town.  Abstract landscapes take over the Tulane art gallery, the Historic New Orleans Collection gets in touch with its Louisiana roots, and conceptualism comes to NOMA.  Now that Super Bowl and Mardi Gras festivities have ended, Ogden After Hours and Friday Nights at NOMA return with more music, shows and cocktails.  See what else is new in the budding New Orleans art scene below:      

Openings and Events:  

Carroll Gallery, Woldenberg Art Center, Tulane University
Anne Nelson’s series of abstract landscape paintings “Boundaries, Overlaps” delves into ideas of loss and connection in the outside environment.  The exhibit opens February 20 and closes March 1 with a special reception from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm.  
 
Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, 400 Julia St.
 Brian Borrello’s “Dark Matter” primarily uses charcoal to depict solitary fauna.  Opens February 20, on view until march 30. 

 

The Historic New Orleans Collection, 533 Royal St. 
“Seeking the Unknown: Natural History Observations in Louisiana, 1698-1840” revisits the natural Louisiana landscape with drawings, watercolors and folios depicting the state’s flora and fauna in the early years of exploration.  From swamplands to bayous, audiences get a glimpse into what the untouched environment looked like.  The exhibit opens February 23 and will be on view until to June 2.   

 

NOMA 
Conceptual artist Mel Chin presents his largest retrospective yet, spanning over four decades.  Using in everything from the environment to people, much of his work is motivated by politics, culture and social circumstances.  Opens February 21, and is on view until May 25.     

 

Friday Nights at NOMA 
Watch a screening of Signpost to Freedom: The 1953 Baton Rouge Bus Boycott in honor of Black History Month.  Aside from a Q & A with Signpost filmmaker Christina Melton, there will be musical performances by Patrice Fisher and Arpa Latin Jazz Ensemble and keynote address about the Tulane University Maya Symposium.  The night begins at 5 pm.  
 

 

Ogden After Hours
Peruse the Ogden, while listening to the dulcet sounds of Grammy winning blues artist, Chris Thomas King.  The night brings delicious catering by Miss Linda’s Soul Food Catering and of course the O-mazing cocktail of the night, the margarita.  Enjoy yourself from 6 pm to 8 pm.    
 

 

ONGOING
 

Octavia Art Gallery, 4532 Magazine St.
Check out Grover Mouton’s Urban Visions.  The Tulane architecture professor founded the Tulane Regional Urban Design Center. Opening reception February 2 with an appearance from the artist between 6-8 pm.

 

Scott Edwards Gallery and Studio, 2109 Decatur

“A Year and Some Change”- a solo show by photographer Ryan Hodgson-Rigsee.  Opening Saturday, February 2 and on view until Saturday, April 6.

 

Longue Vue House and Gardens, 7 Bamboo Road
Doug and Gene Meyer display their retrospective of fashion and furnishings and liven up an old plantation with their modern takes.  Gene Meyer has worked in the fashion world for years, while his brother Doug has taken the interior design world by storm with his bold use of color.  The brothers recently joined forces in 2004.  The exhibition opens January 31, and is available until March 31. 

 

Staple Goods Gallery, 1340 St. Roch
February features ceramic sculptures by William DePauw, professor of ceramics at Tulane University.  

 

Ogden Museum of Southern Art, 925 Camp St.
Deborah Luster: Tooth For an Eye: A Chorography of Violence in Orleans Parish.  Luster explores violence and place in her black and white photographs as she captures sites of murder around the city.  This powerful exhibit opens January 17, and is on view until April 7. 

 

Self-Taught, Outsider and Visionary Art from the Permanent Collection of the Ogden Museum. See all that the Ogden’s permanent collection has to offer in terms of brilliant self-taught artists.  Whether looking at the bold brush strokes of Thornton Dial or the simplistic folk painting of Nellie Mae Roe, their self-taught talents shine through in their work.  Opens January 17, on view through April 7. 

 

Andrews-Humphrey Gallery: George “The Dot Man ”Andrews (1911-1996) was a self-taught artist from Plainview, Georgia. The exhibit also includes his son, the late Benny, who was a civil rights activist and proponent for change in the art world, where he faced discrimination as a multiracial artist. Nene Humphrey is a sculpture, drawer, and printmaker whose work draws from her Roman Catholic background.

 

 
Walter Anderson Gallery: Anderson was born in New Orleans on 1903. He was a painter, potter, writer and naturalist. He spent the majority of his life working at his family’s pottery business and eventually moved to Horn Island, which became the main influence of his later works. 
 
Paintings from master realist painter Michael J. Deas. The exhibit features old works, as well as never been seen paintings from Deas’ collection. Many have no doubt encountered his depiction of Marilyn Monroe or James Dean on the corner of an envelope.  On view through February 28. 

 

George Rodrigue’s Aioli Dinner depicts members of the Creole Gourmet Society at dinner. 

 

Thornton Dial’s Struggling Tiger In Hard Times marks one of Dial’s most significant works from his tiger series. 

 

Will Henry Stevens Gallery: A pioneer of southern modernism, Stevens organizes the landscapes around him in clean shapes and colors. 

 

Ariodante Gallery, 535 Julia St.
Los Angeles artist Cheri Ben-Iesau presents her series “Shades of Solitude,” a very contemporary look into isolation.  Much of her work is done in acrylic or permanent marker.  
Exhibitions opening February 2, on view until February 28.  

 

The Big Top 3 Ring Circus, 1638 Clio St.
Lumen Tetrachotomy features works by metal sculptor Rachel David, textile sculptor Elizabeth Eckman, photgrapher Rachel Speck and mixed media artist Sarah Rose. For more information, contact the Big Top at bigtop3ring@gmail.comor call 504-569-2700.   

 

The Front, 4100 St. Claude
Nicholas des Cognets’ exhibit “Missing/ Total/ Brutal” delves into the connection between humans and their natural environment.  In rooms 3 and 4 Angela Berry’s “Left Out” explores commercial objects interacting with the environment.  On view from February 9 to March 3.  
    
M. Francis Gallery, 604 Julia St.
 
Evolution: The Spirit of an Artist, by Myesha Francis.
 
Passion to Paint: every Friday and Saturday
 

Mallory Page Studio Works, 641 Julia St.  
Recent work by Mallory Page, mixed media on canvas and wood panel.
  

 

Soren Christensen, 400 Julia St.
“Selections from the Roster” brings a variety of artists from William Dunlap to Bradley Sabin.  
 

 

New Orleans Museum of Art 

Make Yourself at Home, in NOMA’s Great Hall. Painter Jim Richard brings his colorful modernist works to NOMA again for his first solo show in the museum since 1978. On view through February 24.

 

Reinventing Nature: Art from the School of Fontainebleau:  See how this French school transformed landscape in the nineteenth century.  Open January 18, on view through May 19 in the Templeman Galleries. 

 

IMAGE: Present Absence 3. Anne Nelson. 2012. 36"x48". Oil on canvas. (Tulane University)