FindArtNola

<div><a href=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TEuzQ8Rh9GI/AAAAAAAAB_Y/DNYD_AxP3s8/s1600/~Rajko—s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“320” src=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TEuzQ8Rh9GI/AAAAAAAAB_Y/DNYD_AxP3s8/s320/~Rajko—s.jpg” width=“254” /></a></div>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the wake of the torrent of oil spilling into the gulf, came a gusher of art shows and other artistic responses to the BP blowout. That is not surprising; art is almost always part of the collective process of working through widespread trauma. Rajko Radovanovic’s LAST LINE OF DEFENSE is a visualization of what is ordinarily a verbal concept. In his photographs, many American flags appear on marsh grasses, on sandy Grand Isle beaches, and along the water south of Venice. “America’s Wetlands” is an abstraction when it’s written, but here the flag literally appears on shifting sands and in places where delicate estuaries form the frontier between our best hopes and our worst fears. The view is stark and repetitive, but the point is well taken. Robert Hannant’s IS THE OIL HERE? is a three-panel video with an acrobatic female model enacting a kind of psychodrama performance, dancing and contorting on cars in a parking garage, or on the deck of the ferry, among other places. Oil is everywhere in the form of plastic and fuel if we look for it, but recognizing that ubiquity becomes unsettling as we realize the true price we pay for our conveniences. The rapidly shifting, quick-cut video editing lends a semi-hypnotic cohesion to imagery might otherwise seem overwrought.<br /><br /><div><a href=“http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TEuziOWbODI/AAAAAAAAB_c/zOqIw8n0XoI/s1600/~Hannant—s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“226” src=“http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TEuziOWbODI/AAAAAAAAB_c/zOqIw8n0XoI/s320/~Hannant—s.jpg” width=“320” /></a></div><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Very different are the raw folk-pop paintings by the artist named Juna at the Yellow Moon. OIL SOUP, which actually predates the spill, is a play on Warhol’s iconic soup can, but with a bowl of crude oil on the label. A visual blunt instrument, its gag-inducing message works well with her other, equally pithy images—and a recently uncovered Mike Frolich mural—amid all the other colorful exotica on view at the convivial Ninth Ward oasis that is the Yellow Moon. ~Bookhardt&nbsp; <br /><b><span>IS THE OIL HERE? A SNAPSHOT: Video and Pictures by Robert Hannant<br />LAST LINE OF DEFENSE: Documentation of Interventions by Rajko Radovanovic<br />Through August 7<br />Good Children Gallery, 4037 St. Claude Ave., 616-7427; www.goodchildrengallery.com<br />NO OIL PAINTINGS: Recent Work by Juna<br />Through August 2<br />Yellow Moon Bar, 800 France St., 944-0441; www.yellowmoonbar.com</span></b><div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2692635212517024217-4410406206523576771?l=www.insidenola.org” alt=”“ /></div>

<div><a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TEu45JtyldI/AAAAAAAAB_s/uzdrWDgiSMY/s1600/Big+Freedia+and+Katey+Red.2.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“232” src=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TEu45JtyldI/AAAAAAAAB_s/uzdrWDgiSMY/s400/Big+Freedia+and+Katey+Red.2.jpg” width=“400” /></a></div>If “gay rapper” is an oxymoron where you come from, how to get your head around the notion of a gay rapper performing in a sports bar? What in most cities might seem plausible only as some sort of Sacha Baron Cohen-style provocation is just another weeknight in the cultural Galapagos that is New Orleans… <b><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/magazine/25bounce-t.html?hp=&amp;pagewanted=all”>More&gt;&gt;</a></b><br /><b><span>Related: <i>Where They At,</i> Nola Bounce Exhibition at&nbsp; <a href=“http://www.ogdenmuseum.org/bounce/bounce_info.html”>The Ogden Museum</a></span></b><div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2692635212517024217-6306284192895274585?l=www.insidenola.org” alt=”“ /></div>

<div><a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TEKPQ3iZS8I/AAAAAAAAB-w/ef_GjNa2U_s/s1600/~NoelRockmore—s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“332” src=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TEKPQ3iZS8I/AAAAAAAAB-w/ef_GjNa2U_s/s400/~NoelRockmore—s.jpg” width=“400” /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TEKPdpwlD2I/AAAAAAAAB-0/U1gNQF09X4A/s1600/~CharlesBlank—s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“320” src=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TEKPdpwlD2I/AAAAAAAAB-0/U1gNQF09X4A/s320/~CharlesBlank—s.jpg” width=“242” /></a></div>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It’s called SWAMP TOURS, but in some ways it’s more like a big curiosity cabinet. A few months back, New Orleans Museum of Art curators William Fagaly and Miranda Lash set out to discover some of the less known works by contemporary Louisiana artists stored in the depths of Museum’s inner sanctum. The result is 27 rarely seen treasures, oddities and curiosities. Which is which is strictly up to the viewer, but there is, overall, an appealing mix of novelty and revelation that makes for an unusual summer expo. Of course, any show that features a first rank Noel Rockmore painting is an automatic must see, and here THE SORCERER, top, his 1967 vision of three darkly occult figures partaking of a psychedelic repast, leads the viewer into a realm of incomprehensible, yet coherent, cosmic craziness. A romantic reprobate bohemian malcontent, Rockmore was the French Quarter’s favorite lost genius until he finally expired at age 67, in 1995. Two years later, in 1997, the great Mike Frolich, perhaps best known as “the Saturn Bar painter,” passed away at age 75. A former deep-sea diver turned artist and Laundromat operator, Frolich is legendary for his self-taught surreal populism seen in paintings like ST. LOUIS CEMETERY, below, which looks unexpectedly rural, with an old time outhouse amid the crypts under a looming, apocalyptic Caspar Friedrich-cum-Jackson Pollock sky.&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><div><a href=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TEKP0JVXUcI/AAAAAAAAB-4/90FJXLwRO7Q/s1600/~Frolich—s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“310” src=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TEKP0JVXUcI/AAAAAAAAB-4/90FJXLwRO7Q/s400/~Frolich—s.jpg” width=“400” /></a></div>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Reclusive Charles Blank is represented by his colorful 2001 canvas, CYBERNAUT THEATRE, above right, a sci-fi Visionary Imagist account of two demonic cosmonauts blasting each other with futuristic and antique weaponry as a rogue aircraft flames out in the sky above. Sometimes seen as a response to 911, it actually dates from earlier in 2001. While the above artists are legendary underground figures, there are lots of unusual or rarely seen works by more mainstream artists such as Lynda Benglis, Keith Sonnier (below), Robert Gordy, Jeffrey Cook, Clementine Hunter, Kendall Shaw, George Dureau and Ron Bechet, to name a few. Unexpected views and cool air conditioning make this show a stimulating change of pace. ~Bookhardt<br /><b><span>Swamp Tours: Exploring the Louisiana Contemporary Collection<br />Through August 29<br />New Orleans Museum of Art, City Park, 658-4100; www.noma.org</span></b><br /><div><a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TEKQDIFRoAI/AAAAAAAAB-8/hWKADbh0ZeQ/s1600/~Sonnier—s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“343” src=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TEKQDIFRoAI/AAAAAAAAB-8/hWKADbh0ZeQ/s400/~Sonnier—s.jpg” width=“400” /></a></div><div></div><div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2692635212517024217-6083218786077717005?l=www.insidenola.org” alt=”“ /></div>

<div>&nbsp;<a href=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TEAI5Ik1bzI/AAAAAAAAB-o/gvshlEPHkd0/s1600/Art-Activists-2.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“283” src=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TEAI5Ik1bzI/AAAAAAAAB-o/gvshlEPHkd0/s400/Art-Activists-2.jpg” width=“400” /></a></div><b>LONDON—</b><span align=“top”>Like the Tate, the British Museum receives money from BP on an annual basis.</span> Five members of the art activist group Culture Beyond Oil today poured non-toxic black oil around the British Museum’s world famous Easter Island sculpture, in protest at BP’s sponsorship of the museum. The group, inspired by Liberate Tate’s intervention at Tate Britain earlier this month, said it had deliberately chosen the giant statue of a human head because it represents the way in which civilizations once considered invincible can collapse in a short period of time. The activists were careful not to pour oil on the sculpture itself, which is seated on a modern stone plinth.&nbsp; <a href=“http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&amp;int_new=39247”>More&gt;&gt;</a><div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2692635212517024217-4453939222732528037?l=www.insidenola.org” alt=”“ /></div>

<div><a href=“http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TDldjeWDMFI/AAAAAAAAB-E/1MUyVZBAcDI/s1600/~Bishop—Trespass.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“297” src=“http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TDldjeWDMFI/AAAAAAAAB-E/1MUyVZBAcDI/s400/~Bishop—Trespass.jpg” width=“400” /></a></div><br /><div><a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TDlet9odvHI/AAAAAAAAB-I/zfINmTYhgaA/s1600/~Ozols.d.s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“319” src=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TDlet9odvHI/AAAAAAAAB-I/zfINmTYhgaA/s320/~Ozols.d.s.jpg” width=“320” /></a></div>As the oil flowed into the Gulf, people coped and responded in any way they could. In some Gulf- themed art shows about town, the work tends to express either idealized views of what we risk losing, or else more biting commentaries protesting the disastrous effects of an industry run amok. THE GULF: WORKS COMPLETED BEFORE THE SPILL, at Arthur Roger, features an array of provocative pieces that can occasionally seem downright prophetic. For instance, Jacqueline Bishop’s haunting TRESPASS, top (detail), is an assemblage of bird replicas interwoven with baby shoes and other flotsam all rendered in a black, oil slick-like finish. Allison Stewart’s SILENT SIGN landscape painting strikingly resembles a marsh mired in oily muck while Simon Gunning’s idle trawlers at dusk look fraught and portentously fateful. <span>(See</span> <span><a href=“http://www.insidenola.org/2010/06/gulf-prescient-works-completed-before.html”>The Gulf: Works Completed before the Spill.)</a></span><br /><br /><br /><div><a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TDlfFTxyPgI/AAAAAAAAB-M/irRSjtjIO28/s1600/~Solitario.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“260” src=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TDlfFTxyPgI/AAAAAAAAB-M/irRSjtjIO28/s400/~Solitario.jpg” width=“400” /></a></div><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; OUR GULF COAST at LeMieux contains a slightly sunnier and sometimes more recent mix. Billy Solitario’s tranquil realist Gulf coast scenes are typical of his oeuvre, but his less familiar still life paintings include some big fat glistening oysters as well as a beautifully painted pair of fish wrapped in newspaper that, viewed closely, contains news stories about the spill. A rare work of current vintage, it’s an instant classic. More realist works appear at the Garden District Gallery including one of Auseklis Ozols’ pelican paintings, a view of our state bird looking heroic atop a piling, unsullied wings partially outstretched and bathed in the golden glow of the sun breaking between storm clouds. A patriotic vision, it’s actually dedicated to the great Ocean Springs artist Walter Anderson, but he of all people would understand: here our coast <i>is</i> our culture. Now as in ancient times, the pelican is a sacred creature, a symbol that should never be defiled. ~Bookhardt<br /><b><span>THE GULF: Works Completed Prior to the Spill<br />Through July 17<br />Arthur Roger @ 434, 434 Julia St. 522-1999; <a href=“http://www.arthurrogergallery.com/”>www.arthurrogergallery.com</a><br />OUR GULF COAST: Group Show of Gulf Coast Art<br />Through July 24<br />LeMieux Galleries, 332 Julia St., 522.5988; <a href=“http://www.lemieuxgalleries.com/”>www.lemieuxgalleries.com</a> <br />TREASURES OF THE GULF: Group Exhibition of Gulf Coast Art<br />Through July 31<br />The Garden District Gallery, 1332 Washington Ave., 891-3032, <a href=“http://www.gardendistrictgallery.com%20/”>www.gardendistrictgallery.com </a></span></b><div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2692635212517024217-1320321992004821058?l=www.insidenola.org” alt=”“ /></div>

<div><a href=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TC_rAKsl_UI/AAAAAAAAB8I/5-vgD_I5sgo/s1600/~ColePrint-detail.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“288” src=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TC_rAKsl_UI/AAAAAAAAB8I/5-vgD_I5sgo/s400/~ColePrint-detail.jpg” width=“400” /></a></div><div><a href=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TC_rQHiKLgI/AAAAAAAAB8M/WeS0Se7xCMk/s1600/~Cole-1—s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><br /></a></div><br /><div><a href=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TC_rQHiKLgI/AAAAAAAAB8M/WeS0Se7xCMk/s1600/~Cole-1—s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“320” src=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TC_rQHiKLgI/AAAAAAAAB8M/WeS0Se7xCMk/s320/~Cole-1—s.jpg” width=“209” /></a></div>&nbsp; Teresa Cole’s TRANSFER expo recycles Victorian era trends into the globalized present. In Victorian England, the art of paper cutting became a domestic style obsession. Cutout paper silhouettes of family members and elaborate, highly stylized landscape scenes adorned fashionable parlors all over the English-speaking world. Meanwhile, fabrics stenciled with botanical patterns in the teeming, then-British colony of India found a popular following in the West, where they were re-branded with British-sounding names like “paisley.” These design elements, along with some other oddball twists, add up to a cryptically decorous lexicon of signs and symbols in this unusual Bienvenu show. This is possible because familiar decorative motifs often have a secret history of their own. For instance, the popular paisley fabric pattern is based on the sacred Tree of Life symbol of the ancient Zoroastrian religion.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br /><br /><div><a href=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TC_u8u7tAjI/AAAAAAAAB8Y/Yx13itAMvYM/s1600/~Mos—s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” src=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TC_u8u7tAjI/AAAAAAAAB8Y/Yx13itAMvYM/s320/~Mos—s.jpg” /></a></div><div><br /></div>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Cole harks to the Indian printed fabric tradition while emphasizing the fluid nature of common design motifs and their sometimes veiled meanings in works like SERPENTINE or VINE, gauzy 8 foot long hanging tapestries where hand-printed animal or botanical forms are silver-leafed and arranged in the gallery to cast sinewy shadows on the wall, above right (detail). In the East, such forms often turned up as designs on ancient temples and sacred structures, where they held deeply symbolic meanings. But are they reduced to mere decoration in the West, or do they still communicate subconscious sensibilities? Such are the questions that Cole’s compositions seem to pose, as we see in an installation of cut paper prints on the rear gallery wall. One untitled piece, pictured, looks strictly Victorian at first, with languorous figures, decorous animals and children reminiscent of Alice in wonderland, top (detail). But some figures are upside down, and closer examination reveals that some of those spiky forms in the background are really silhouettes of giant mosquitoes. Here Victorian order comes unraveled in a Rorschach-like print that is actually a symbol of the multi-layered nature of civilization, and of the cultural and ecological forces that inevitably simmer just beneath the surface. ~Bookhardt&nbsp; <br />TRANSFER: Recent Prints by Teresa Cole<br />Through July 22<br />Gallery Bienvenu 518 Julia St., 525-0518, <a href=“http://www.gallerybienvenu.com/”>www.gallerybienvenu.com</a><div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2692635212517024217-8182122168687461577?l=www.insidenola.org” alt=”“ /></div>

<div><a href=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TCa74O_YMbI/AAAAAAAAB6g/TzHsZwu0O50/s1600/~St.+Antny—s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“400” src=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TCa74O_YMbI/AAAAAAAAB6g/TzHsZwu0O50/s400/~St.+Antny—s.jpg” width=“290” /></a></div><br />Sometimes they don’t come back. Some folks moved to Middle America after Katrina, fit right in, and stayed there. But what about the hard core New Orleanians who somehow ended up in extended exile? Folks like Post-K Nashville resident Scott Guion, whose striking new paintings are so Nola-centric that they feature vintage local icons like Mr. Bingle and Morgus the Magnificent, relics of a memory bank littered with lost Carnival throws and Lucky Dog wagons. HECK FREEZES OVER alludes to the recent Saints Super Bowl win, but it’s rendered in ‘70s style imagery, including the Superdome as a boiling kettle of crawfish and Buddy D as an angel in a dress. BLACK LIGHT DISTRICT, below, suggests a wayward youth spent between uptown head shops and Lower Garden District oases like the Felliniesque Half Moon tavern. THE TEMPTATION OF ST. ANT’NY, top, depicts vintage stripper Blaze Starr pounding a bongo in her leopard skin bikini atop a giant, levitating plate of beignets, all rendered in the lurid tones of expired Kodachrome. Winged Jax and Falstaff beer cans, and a streetcar topped by the Hubig’s pie man, swarm like termites in the sky, all of which poses a frightening warning to the locals: stay away too long and the fates will relentlessly torment your brain with no end of insidious local kitch. Beware! <br /><br /><div></div><div><a href=“http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_v37ZQ-oOY_0/TEc4CTQvGfI/AAAAAAAAALE/-JyGiVovaQ8/s1600/~BlackLignt—1.s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“400” src=“http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_v37ZQ-oOY_0/TEc4CTQvGfI/AAAAAAAAALE/-JyGiVovaQ8/s400/~BlackLignt—1.s.jpg” width=“325” /></a></div><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; More vintage beer and flashbacks appear in JUNKFISH CAVIAR, Susan Gisleson’s poetic evocation of her pre-adolescent sexual awakening in the 1970s, an event provoked by her brother’s Playboy magazines and beery reveries. All that, plus the experiences of her five sisters and the pop icons of the period, inspired her symbolic manikin sculptures, archetypal figures in garments made from found objects, thorns, mirror shards, oyster shells and the like. The walls are covered with cutouts of curvy, busty babes incised from ‘70s-style interior paneling, reflecting the stereotypes that women have to work with, and around. In Gisleson’s world, the value of experiences, like found objects, depends on what you’re able to do with them.&nbsp; ~Bookhardt<br /><div><a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_v37ZQ-oOY_0/TEc7QMQV7VI/AAAAAAAAALU/_5M_hBJXIOw/s1600/~Gisleson—s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“326” src=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_v37ZQ-oOY_0/TEc7QMQV7VI/AAAAAAAAALU/_5M_hBJXIOw/s400/~Gisleson—s.jpg” width=“400” /></a></div><br /><b><span>HURRICANES, HANDGRENADES AND OTHER DELIGHTS: New Paintings by Scott Guion<br />Through July 17<br />Barrister’s Gallery, 2331 St. Claude Ave, 710-2506; <a href=“http://www.barristersgallery.com/”>www.barristersgallery.com</a><br />JUNKFISH CAVIAR: A Piece of Work by Susan Gisleson<br />Through July 4<br />Antenna Gallery, 3161 Burgundy St, 250-7975; <a href=“http://www.press-street.com/”>www.press-street.com</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></b><div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2692635212517024217-6827843775010487111?l=www.insidenola.org” alt=”“ /></div>

<div><div><br /> </div></div><br /><div><a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TB2X4a9W3hI/AAAAAAAAB5Y/—6g9dSOHD8/s1600/~EganView.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” src=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TB2X4a9W3hI/AAAAAAAAB5Y/—6g9dSOHD8/s320/~EganView.jpg” /></a></div>Botanical art has been with us since the earliest days of civilization if not earlier, turning up on ancient Egyptian tombs and Greek and Roman monuments. Plants and animals are in a continual state of evolutionary flux, so the artists of the past have been an important source of information about species no longer with us today. But art too evolves, and Courtney Egan’s FIELD RECORDINGS expo reflects a turning point, not only for botanical art but also for video, liberated at last from monitors and projection screens. All that Egan’s work requires is a room with twilight lighting, a cool aesthetic gloom of the sort closed curtains or blinds can easily provide. GUSHERS, top, is a video of stylized water lilies projected on the wall. Arising from a tidal pool of old speakers on the floor, they gyrate to the electronic rhythms that emanate from the speakers until, one by one, they explode like roman candles, evoking a sense of dystopian irony like genetic modification experiments gone weirdly awry. SIGILS, below left, is an installation comprised of a pair of sculptural replicas of tree branches from which ghostly Spanish moss seems to dangle and almost dance in the breeze. But there is no breeze and the moss is all the more ghostly for consisting mainly of light in the form of projected Spanish moss images, all of which is unexpectedly lovely.<br /><br /><div><a href=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TB2bncR4eiI/AAAAAAAAB5g/SvahKHilJsM/s1600/~Sigils.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“148” src=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TB2bncR4eiI/AAAAAAAAB5g/SvahKHilJsM/s200/~Sigils.jpg” width=“200” /></a></div>REPERCUSSION, bottom, employs similar motifs in the form of a projected time-lapse image of a blooming flower, a yellow angel’s trumpet blossom dripping nectar as an attentive bee darts in and out. This too is ethereally lovely to look at even as its flickering imagery conveys something of the shimmering mystery of early motion picture photography.&nbsp; A night-blooming Cereus in a montage of digital video picture frames is no less ethereal. In this amazing show we see a reordering of ordinary things like flowers, moss and video into a meditation on natural forms and electronic imagery, and the ever-diminishing boundaries between them.&nbsp; ~Bookhardt<br /><br /><div><br /> </div><br /><br /><div></div><b><span>FIELD RECORDINGS: Recent Video and Light Sculptures by Courtney Egan<br />Through June<br />Heriard-Cimino Gallery, 440 Julia St. 525-7300; <a href=“http://www.heriardcimino.com/”>www.heriardcimino.com</a> </span></b><div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2692635212517024217-6526360235212287546?l=www.insidenola.org” alt=”“ /></div>

<div><a href=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TBwUUCFaPSI/AAAAAAAAB5E/5QglWzK-TC0/s1600/LPA%2B.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” height=“121” src=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/TBwUUCFaPSI/AAAAAAAAB5E/5QglWzK-TC0/s200/LPA%2B.jpg” width=“200” /></a><span><span>The current executive budget directly targets State Arts Funding with a</span><b> 50% cut to both State Arts Grants and Decentralized Arts Funding.&nbsp;</b><span> </span><b><span>We urge the Senate to reinstate $1.6M, or 75% of the cuts. Click to: <a href=“http://capwiz.com/artsusa/la/issues/alert/?alertid=15154126&amp;type=ML&amp;azip=70501&amp;bzip=0&amp;show_alert=1”>Restore Arts Funding</a></span></b></span></div><div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2692635212517024217-4797882766366478417?l=www.insidenola.org” alt=”“ /></div>

<a href=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/TBk8KxfZlzI/AAAAAAAAAh4/2hGRJs38TN4/s1600/RO+575.JPG”><img style=“WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 146px; CURSOR: hand” id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483480177081685810” border=“0” alt=”“ src=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/TBk8KxfZlzI/AAAAAAAAAh4/2hGRJs38TN4/s320/RO+575.JPG” /></a><br /><span><em>The Parade, </em>1950</span><br /><span>Ogden Museum, Gift of the Roger H. Ogden Collection</span><br /><span><br /></span>John McCrady was born in the rectory of Canton, Mississippi’s Grace Episcopal Church in 1911. His father was an Episcopal priest, and McCrady’s early life followed the itinerary of his father’s appointments to rural churches in Louisiana and Mississippi. His father finally settled into the positions of Rector and Philosophy professor in Oxford, Mississippi in 1928. After a brief adventure as a crewmember on a South American steamer, McCrady attended the University of Mississippi from 1930 to 1932. During the summers of 1931 and 1932, McCrady took courses at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and visited the museums of Philadelphia.<br /><a href=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/TBk4KTEYznI/AAAAAAAAAhY/TaWDD_pOgnM/s1600/mccradyportrait.jpg”><img style=“WIDTH: 256px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand” id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483475770868813426” border=“0” alt=”“ src=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/TBk4KTEYznI/AAAAAAAAAhY/TaWDD_pOgnM/s320/mccradyportrait.jpg” /></a><br /><span><em>Portrait of a Negro, </em>1933</span><br /><span>Ogden Museum, Gift of the Roger H. Ogden Collection</span><br /><span></span><br />In 1932, he entered classes at the New Orleans Art School, sponsored by the Arts and Crafts Club, and took an apartment at 627 Toulouse Street in the Vieux Carre. It was here that he painted <em>Portrait of a Negro</em> in 1933, and at the insistence of his fellow student and future wife, Mary Basso, he submitted the work to the annual competition sponsored by the Arts Students’ League in New York. The painting was successful, winning for him a one-year scholarship. At the League, he studied briefly with Thomas Hart Benton, and longer and with greater influence, Kenneth Hayes Miller.<br /><br /><br /><a href=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/TBk4J4kNbpI/AAAAAAAAAhQ/PeVOldlVAGQ/s1600/lastjudgement.jpg”><img style=“WIDTH: 252px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand” id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483475763754528402” border=“0” alt=”“ src=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/TBk4J4kNbpI/AAAAAAAAAhQ/PeVOldlVAGQ/s320/lastjudgement.jpg” /></a><br /><span><em>Jugdement Day</em>, 1938</span><br /><span>Roger Houston Ogden Collection</span><br /><span><br /></span>During the mid-late 1930s, McCrady developed a personal style in keeping with the Regionalist movement of the depression era. Based on rural Southern life, particularly the religious and social life of African-Americans, McCrady’s work was well accepted in a time when American art looked away from European abstraction, and in the midst of great economic crisis, returned to pictorial traditions of this country. A 1937 painting, <em>Swing Low, Sweet Chariot</em>, opened in New York to great critical acclaim, garnering positive reviews in <em>Time</em> magazine, <em>Life</em>, and <em>The New Republic</em>. <em>Life</em> then commissioned <em>The Shooting of Huey Long</em> in 1939, the same year that McCrady received a Guggenheim Fellowship “to paint the life and faith of the Southern Negro.” Between 1936 and 1939 McCrady was employed by the Federal Art Project, through which he executed several murals, including <em>Oxford on the Hill</em>, for Oxford, Mississippi, and <em>Amory, Mississippi, 1888</em>, installed in the post office of that town. In 1942, the Federal Arts Program becomes the Graphic Section of the War Services Office, and McCrady designed a series of propaganda posters to aid the war effort. In the same year, McCrady and his wife opened an art school on Bourbon Street, where he would continue to influence young Southern artists until his death in 1968.<br /><br /><a href=“http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/TBkfLl2IzZI/AAAAAAAAAhI/UAR9vgeGXm0/s1600/Crucifixion.jpg”><img style=“WIDTH: 242px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand” id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483448305298492818” border=“0” alt=”“ src=“http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/TBkfLl2IzZI/AAAAAAAAAhI/UAR9vgeGXm0/s320/Crucifixion.jpg” /></a><br /><span><em>Crucifixion</em>, 1951</span><br /><span>Collection of Grace Episcopal Church, New Orleans</span><br /><span></span><br />Shortly after completing <em>Steamboat ‘Round the Bend</em> in 1946 for Delmonico’s Restaurant in New Orleans, a communist paper, <em>The Daily Worker</em>, denounced a recent exhibition of his work in New York as “a flagrant example of racial chauvinism.” McCrady was crushed by the criticism. He stopped painting for a short while, and when he resumed, his work was focused less on African-American scenes, and more on rural life in Mississippi, French Quarter life and Mardi Gras.<br /><br /><a href=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/TBk6HH4c_rI/AAAAAAAAAho/UTINVxc5OKg/s1600/Grace.edit.jpg”><img style=“WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 226px; CURSOR: hand” id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483477915349614258” border=“0” alt=”“ src=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/TBk6HH4c_rI/AAAAAAAAAho/UTINVxc5OKg/s320/Grace.edit.jpg” /></a><br /><span><em>Eucharist Scene</em>, John McCrady, 1954</span><br /><span>Grace Episcopal Church, New Orleans</span><br /><span></span><br />Grace Episcopal Church commissioned McCrady to design a mural of the Eucharist to be executed above the Altar in 1954. For two years, McCrady spent most of his time executing that work. He used his painting <em>Crucifixion</em>, 1951, as a template for style and palette. Parishioners were used as models for the disciples. The finished work remains at Grace Church, New Orleans. A second study, <em>Ascension</em>, was completed around the same time, but never executed in his lifetime. One of McCrady’s students, Alan Flattmann, was commissioned by Mary, McCrady’s widow, to execute the mural of Ascension in 1972 in Grace Church. Alan Flattmann also cleaned and restored the mural after the levee failures of 2005.<br /><br /><br /><a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/TBk6HoSF30I/AAAAAAAAAhw/eXdQxtmex18/s1600/ririri+002.jpg”><img style=“WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 213px; CURSOR: hand” id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483477924047085378” border=“0” alt=”“ src=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/TBk6HoSF30I/AAAAAAAAAhw/eXdQxtmex18/s320/ririri+002.jpg” /></a><br /><span><em>Ascension, </em>1974, Alan Flattmann after John McCrady drawing</span><br /><span>Grace Episcopal Church, New Orleans</span><br /><span></span><br />Currently, the Ogden is proud to exhibit the original John McCrady drawing for <em>Ascension, </em>as well as his 1951 painting, <em>Crucifixion</em>, which inspired the Altar mural at Grace Episcopal Church. Grace Episcopal Church is located at 3700 Canal Street. Please visit their <a href=“http://www.gracecanalstreet.org/”>website</a> for a worship schedule.<div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3601211757000210971-8308307087850272895?l=omsablog.blogspot.com” alt=”“ /></div>