FindArtNola

<div><div><div><div><a href=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SxQpZqlogzI/AAAAAAAAAYE/gxh-fBdwTMY/s1600/Dureau+October+2009+072.jpg”><img id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5409994573284410162” style=“WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px” alt=”“ src=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SxQpZqlogzI/AAAAAAAAAYE/gxh-fBdwTMY/s320/Dureau+October+2009+072.jpg” border=“0” /></a><br /><span><em>Tony</em> 2009 by Jonathan <span>Traviesa</span></span><br /><br /></div><div>In the first part of the 20<span>th</span> century, August Sander stated:<span><br /></div><div align=“center”><blockquote><div align=“center”><span>I am not concerned with providing commonplace<br />photographs like those made in the finer large-scale studios of the city, but<br />simple, natural portraits that show the subjects in an environment corresponding<br />to their own individuality, portraits that claim the right to be evaluated as<br />works of art and to be used as wall ornaments … It is not my intention either to<br />criticize or to describe these people, but to create a piece of history with my<br />pictures.</span></div></blockquote></span><span></span></div><div><br /><a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SxQpaOqECQI/AAAAAAAAAYM/8-MsbMdCyP8/s1600/Dureau+October+2009+004.jpg”><img id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5409994582966667522” style=“WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px” alt=”“ src=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SxQpaOqECQI/AAAAAAAAAYM/8-MsbMdCyP8/s320/Dureau+October+2009+004.jpg” border=“0” /></a><br /><span><em>Sharon</em> 2004 by Jonathan <span>Traviesa</span></span><br /><br /></div><div align=“left”>With this goal, he began his most significant body of work, <em>Citizens of the Twentieth Century</em>, a groundbreaking series of black-and-white photographs that paved the way for such works as Irving Penn’s <em>Worlds in a Small Room </em>and Richard <span>Avedon’s</span> <em>Portraits of the American West. </em>His influence can be seen down the line from Walker Evans to Diane <span>Arbus</span>. </div><div><br /><a href=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SxQpaby08UI/AAAAAAAAAYU/IaJ5oxjBYv4/s1600/Dureau+October+2009+064.jpg”><img id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5409994586493088066” style=“WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px” alt=”“ src=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SxQpaby08UI/AAAAAAAAAYU/IaJ5oxjBYv4/s320/Dureau+October+2009+064.jpg” border=“0” /></a><br /><span><em>Heather</em> 2003 by Jonathan <span>Traviesa</span></span><br /><br /></div><div align=“left”>The Sander influence can be clearly seen in the cool, spare style of Jonathan <span>Traviesa’s</span> series, <em>Portraits</em>, currently hanging on the fourth floor of the Ogden Museum. His simple approach to the subjects allows a deeply psychological reading of the image, not just a caricature of a character, but a living personality. In the <span>foreword</span> to <span>Traviesa’s</span> book, I believe New Orleans photographer, Richard Sexton, provided an eloquent and succinct critique of the series:</div><div align=“center”><span><blockquote><br /><br /><div align=“center”><span>Jonathan’s methodology is about as simple and<br />straightforward as it gets. Using a <span>Rolleiflex</span> twin-lens camera passed on to him<br />from his father, loaded with black and white film, he solicits appointments to<br />photograph his subjects at their home or studio. The settings are outdoors,<br />keeping the lighting simple and allowing the context of New Orleans to creep<br />into the frame. His subjects are almost always photographed full figure, and,<br />around them, filling in the composition, we get a glimpse of where and how they<br />live. And it is this context that offers familiar fragments of New Orleans: the<br />decrepit shutter, a lush drape of tropical foliage, a porch swing, a backdrop of<br />weatherboards, or a beer can either left over from the night before or perhaps<br />currently in use. The remarkable thing is how natural and comfortable these<br />individuals fit into their landscape. Whether by fortune or birthplace or the<br />culmination of a long and circuitous migratory path, they all seem to be where<br />they belong.</span></div></blockquote></span><span></div><div><br /><br /><a href=“http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SxQpaqBlAGI/AAAAAAAAAYc/yv1r09cnSZM/s1600/Dureau+October+2009+063.jpg”><img id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5409994590313054306” style=“WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px” alt=”“ src=“http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SxQpaqBlAGI/AAAAAAAAAYc/yv1r09cnSZM/s320/Dureau+October+2009+063.jpg” border=“0” /></a><br /><span><em>Benjamin </em>1998 by Jonathan <span>Traviesa</span></span><br /><br /></div><div align=“left”><span>On December 10<span>th</span> during Ogden After Hours, Jonathan <span>Traviesa</span> will be signing his new book<em>, Portraits: Photographs in New Orleans 1998 – 2009</em>. Thirty-seven photographs featured in the publication are currently <span>exhibited</span> on the fourth floor of the Ogden’s <span>Goldring</span> Hall.</span></div><div align=“left”><span></span> </div><div align=“left”><span><a href=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SxQpa-FGLgI/AAAAAAAAAYk/4rrBmytthnc/s1600/Dureau+October+2009+101.jpg”><img id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5409994595696520706” style=“WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px” alt=”“ src=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SxQpa-FGLgI/AAAAAAAAAYk/4rrBmytthnc/s320/Dureau+October+2009+101.jpg” border=“0” /></a></span></div><div align=“left”><span><em>Jonathan</em> by Jonathan <span>Traviesa</span></span></div></span></div></div></div><div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3601211757000210971-4494096150035963287?l=omsablog.blogspot.com” alt=”“ /></div>

<div><a href=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/SxIfTEO3YpI/AAAAAAAABFw/XeG8VLRaaJU/s1600/Haring.AndyMouse.s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” src=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/SxIfTEO3YpI/AAAAAAAABFw/XeG8VLRaaJU/s320/Haring.AndyMouse.s.jpg” /></a></div>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; He was a human Roman candle, a frenetic elfin graffiti artist who burst upon the New York scene in 1980 and quickly became one of the city’s most celebrated talents.&nbsp;&nbsp; Serious about art since he was a kid in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, Keith Haring insisted on making art accessible to all, and to that end he employed the walls along city streets and subway stations as his gallery. His deceptively simple visual language used bouncy stick figures to convey a wide array of situations and emotions, and the city and the world responded. In 1986 alone, his work appeared in over 40 solo and group exhibitions. Yet, even as he became an acclaimed painter and sculptor, his style still retained its original character, a breezy yet punchy lightness of line that is especially evident in these colorful silkscreen prints at Loyola. A representative survey of his brilliant but brief career, they were loaned by local collectors and Loyola alums, Stuart H. Smith and Barry J. Cooper. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Perhaps because they really do convey something of the ephemeral immediacy that we associate with graffiti art, a trait he shares with acclaimed contemporary street artists such as Banksy and Katharina Grosse, his work still seems surprisingly current. His ANDY MOUSE portrait of his friend, Andy Warhol, as Mickey Mouse wearing sunglasses and standing on a pile of greenbacks, above, makes a point about contemporary art commercialism that could just as easily be applied to Jeff Koons and Richard Prince, our prevailing geniuses du jour. A few are more topical and dated, but much of his work touches on themes that are universal or ongoing, like his fascination with flying saucers, an obsession shared by many Americans today. His incandescent career abruptly ended with his 1990 death from AIDS-related complications, but his spirit lives on in fans like Smith and Cooper and a new wave of artists who continue to blur the boundaries between art and life as it is experienced on city streets.&nbsp; ~Eric Bookhardt<br /><div><a href=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/SxIgB0u4QOI/AAAAAAAABGA/En6F6ia99us/s1600/haring-retrospect.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” src=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/SxIgB0u4QOI/AAAAAAAABGA/En6F6ia99us/s400/haring-retrospect.jpg” /></a></div><span><b>KEITH HARING: A PRINT RETROSPECTIVE 1982—1990<br />Through Jan. 29<br />Collins Diboll Gallery, Loyola Univerity, 6363 St. Charles Ave, 861-5456; <a href=“http://www.loyno.edu/dibollgallery”>www.loyno.edu/dibollgallery</a></b></span><br /><b><span><a href=“http://bestofneworleans.com/gyrobase/Section?oid=oid%3A4307”></a></span></b><span><b><a href=“http://blogofneworleans.com/”><b>As seen in Gambit</b></a></b></span><div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2692635212517024217-4924276100066602346?l=www.insidenola.org” alt=”“ /></div>

<div><a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/SwiwrLOgx8I/AAAAAAAABE4/fpYBEkvu-FE/s1600/~Waterworks.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” src=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/SwiwrLOgx8I/AAAAAAAABE4/fpYBEkvu-FE/s400/~Waterworks.jpg” /></a></div><div><a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/Swixh-0Rz8I/AAAAAAAABFI/YKAaYRVVcVk/s1600/Sandusky.s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><br /></a></div>Long a local favorite for his diffusely atmospheric <a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/Swixh-0Rz8I/AAAAAAAABFI/YKAaYRVVcVk/s1600/Sandusky.s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” src=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/Swixh-0Rz8I/AAAAAAAABFI/YKAaYRVVcVk/s320/Sandusky.s.jpg” /></a>vistas of leafy old New Orleans neighborhoods, Phil Sandusky has of late taken us along a road less traveled—at least, for him. In this city it is not surprising to see a plein air painter working at an easel in front of a French Quarter or Uptown landmark, but to find one daubing away across from a CBD Walgreen’s or chain hotel is another matter. Yet this show encompasses all of the above, and there is even a canvas featuring the WATERWORKS, above, on Claiborne Ave., which appears as a bucolic vista recalling the early days of industrialization in the South. While his pre-Katrina work mostly rendered genteel Uptown byways in a gauzily impressionistic style that was often lovely if almost predictably sweet, his work right after the storm rendered its ravages with the unflinching candor of a social realist. Here his flair for wreckage appears in DEMOLITION ON HILLARY ST., a site of mechanized <br />destruction rendered as if by a modern day Monet. But other intrusions of modernity into otherwise timeless vistas appear in works like FIG AND CARROLLTON, a view of urban desolation redeemed by balmy pastel light. MUSTANG ON PEARL STREET, above right, contrasts the pop contours of a car with the ancient cottage behind it as impressionistic brushwork evokes the humidity on a balmy day when the sun-baked pavement transforms the air into a dense presence with a shape-shifting life of its own. Here Sandusky reveals his flair as a poet of this city’s ambient phenomena that most of us take for granted.<br /><br /><div><a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/Swi2Nk4uGHI/AAAAAAAABFo/hhdi2NiAjOE/s1600/Blackwhite7.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” src=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/Swi2Nk4uGHI/AAAAAAAABFo/hhdi2NiAjOE/s320/Blackwhite7.jpg” /></a></div><div><a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/Swi2Nk4uGHI/AAAAAAAABFo/hhdi2NiAjOE/s1600/Blackwhite7.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><br /></a></div>Stylistic evolution appears as well in George Dunbar’s collages at Heriard- Cimino. Less lush but more playful than what we ordinarily expect from Nola’s dean of decorous minimalism, these artfully repetitious forms recall the hypnotic sequencing in some of Philip Glass’s electronic music compositions and reveal a lightness of touch unexpected in this most rigorous of local artists who, at 80-something, is still growing and going strong. ~Eric Bookhardt<br /><div><a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/Swi1vj9-SgI/AAAAAAAABFg/_YNLdDuI0qs/s1600/Redyellow.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” src=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/Swi1vj9-SgI/AAAAAAAABFg/_YNLdDuI0qs/s400/Redyellow.jpg” /></a></div>&nbsp;<b><span>PLEIN AIR PORTRAITS OF NEW ORLEANS: New Work by Phil Sandusky<br />Through November<br />Cole Pratt Gallery, 3800 Magazine St., 891-6789; <a href=“http://www.coleprattgallery.com/”>www.coleprattgallery.com</a></span></b><br /><b><span>&nbsp;MULTIPLES: New Work by George Dunbar Heriard-Cimino Gallery <br />Through Dec. 2<br />Heriard-Cimino Gallery, 440 Julia St., 525-7300; <a href=“http://www.heriardcimino.com/”>www.heriardcimino.com</a></span></b><br /><span><b><a href=“http://bestofneworleans.com/gyrobase/Section?oid=oid%3A4307”></a></b></span><b><a href=“http://blogofneworleans.com/”><b><span>As seen in Gambit</span></b></a></b><div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2692635212517024217-3985423621975855461?l=www.insidenola.org” alt=”“ /></div>

<a href=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/Sv9Yxs3lI6I/AAAAAAAABD4/GnXS6GpESxg/s1600-h/~Soth.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” src=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/Sv9Yxs3lI6I/AAAAAAAABD4/GnXS6GpESxg/s400/~Soth.jpg” /></a><br /><div>&nbsp;<b><i><span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Adelyn, Ash Wednesday, </span></i><span>by Alec Soth</span><span> </span></b></div>Robert Colescott died last June at his home in Tucson. He was 83, and highly respected in the art world. The first black American to represent the U.S. in a solo show at the Venice Biennale, his work was in many major collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He had close ties to New Orleans, where his parents were born and raised. After serving in World War II, he made zany paintings that dealt with racial or social issues in a highly satirical manner. His remake of the famous painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware replaced him with the black agricultural chemist, George Washington Carver, at the helm of a boat loaded with minstrels, cooks and maids. Painted in a zany, California Imagist style, the works on view continue in a similar vein.<br /><br /><a href=“http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/Sv9ZS8XxqQI/AAAAAAAABEA/e4kYpXpk0Zg/s1600-h/~Colescott.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” src=“http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/Sv9ZS8XxqQI/AAAAAAAABEA/e4kYpXpk0Zg/s320/~Colescott.jpg” /></a><br />In SUMMERTIME, right, a white blonde in a sagging bikini reclines under a sky filled with black crows circling an Afro Minnie Mouse with big boobs as a black guy approaches her with his tongue hanging out. Presumably a satire on racial preconceptions, its meaning is up to the viewer. As with much Colescott, we’re not always sure what we’re looking at, but always we know we’re looking at SOMETHING. <br /><br />The adjacent gallery contains some large color photos by Alec Soth, a 40 year-old Minneapolis photographer who has been making waves with works such as this subtly atmospheric series exploring life along the Mississippi. ADELYN, ASH WEDNESDAY, NEW ORLEANS, above, depicts a tired, tattooed redhead with an ashen cross on her forehead. Asked what she was giving up for Lent, she hit Soth up for a beer, explaining that she wasn’t really Catholic and her cross was made from cigarette ash. JOSHUA, ANGOLA PRISON, depicts an angelic looking inmate who turned out to be serving a sentence for murder. Like a postmodern O. Henry, Soth provides many ironic insights in a highly evocative series where every picture really does tell a story. (Although both shows officially came down on Nov. 14, the work remains available for viewing during the following week.) ~Eric Bookhardt<br /><br /><span>Robert Colescott: TROUBLED GOODS<br />Alec Soth: SLEEPING BY THE MISSISSIPPI<br />Through Nov. 14<br />Arthur Roger Gallery, 432 Julia St., 522-1999; </span><span><a href=“http://www.arthurrogergallery.com/” target=”_blank”>www.arthurrogergallery.com</a></span><div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2692635212517024217-1131948556344414144?l=www.insidenola.org” alt=”“ /></div>

<br />For More Environmental Light Sculptures Click: <a href=“http://insideinsideart.blogspot.com/2009/11/life-is-art-foundation-sculpture.html”>Life Is Art Foundation Sculpture Exhibition at New Orleans Botanical Garden in City Park</a><div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2692635212517024217-3078990821844111870?l=www.insidenola.org” alt=”“ /></div>

<a href=“http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SvyiS3u8v2I/AAAAAAAAAX8/KvMspf9G9Zg/s1600-h/Road+Trip.jpg”><img id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403372098019966818” style=“WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 206px” alt=”“ src=“http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SvyiS3u8v2I/AAAAAAAAAX8/KvMspf9G9Zg/s320/Road+Trip.jpg” border=“0” /></a><br /><div> <span>Justin Forbes’ <em>Road Trip </em>1996</span></div><div><span>Gift of The Michael Brown and Linda Green Collection.</span><br /></div><div>Stanley Staniski’s exhibition currently at the Ogden, <em>On the Road with Benny Andrews, </em>is devoted partly to Route 66 and the fading remnants of roadside Americana, leftover ephemera from the rise of American car culture. The themes of migration, Americana and the Route 66 road trip bring to mind another body of work in the Ogden’s collection, the work of Justin Forbes. </div><div><br /><a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SvyeRUqrw2I/AAAAAAAAAX0/NEIx8oXbuEM/s1600-h/2000113-2.jpg”><img id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403367673380455266” style=“WIDTH: 299px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px” alt=”“ src=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SvyeRUqrw2I/AAAAAAAAAX0/NEIx8oXbuEM/s320/2000113-2.jpg” border=“0” /></a><br /></div><div></div><div><span>Justin Forbes’ <em>Neo- American Gothic</em> 1996</span></div><div><span>Gift of the Michael Brown and Linda Green Collection.</span><br /></div><div>Justin’s highly narrative paintings tell the story of his journey from LA to New Orleans, of his life in the underground of the South and the Southwest. They attempt brutally honest portraits and iconic images of time and place. They often succeed.</div><div> </div><div>For nearly twenty-five years, Justin has been working as a freelance artist. His clients and collectors include Larry Flynt, Epitaph Records, Tabasco, Santa Cruz Skateboards, Walt Disney, ESPN, Lallapalooza, Dragon Stout, actress Sela Ward and Better Than Ezra’s Kevin Griffin. He has several paintings in the Ogden Museum’s Permanent Collection.</div><div> </div><div>In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Justin Forbes boarded a bus from the Superdome that dropped him off in Denton, Texas, where he remains today.</div><div> </div><div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3601211757000210971-7489152380904315394?l=omsablog.blogspot.com” alt=”“ /></div>

<div><a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/SvZ8HvGoijI/AAAAAAAABDI/j6s2SG-vSGI/s1600-h/~Schleh.s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” src=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/SvZ8HvGoijI/AAAAAAAABDI/j6s2SG-vSGI/s400/~Schleh.s.jpg” /></a></div>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Organized by Contemporary Arts Center Visual Arts Director Dan Cameron, <i>Hot Up Here</i> picks up where the CAC’s <i>Louisiana Open</i> biennial series left off. Although the artists are drawn from galleries all over town, the tone is distinctly St. Claude Avenue, and while the experimental gallery scene there had been fermenting for some time, Cameron’s <i>Prospect.1</i> was the jolt that brought a lot of the new spaces up to speed at this time last year. Consequently, it’s hard to view Karoline Schleh’s poetic collages and modified stereopticon images and not feel nostalgic for the superb group show that opened at the Universal building last autumn. Schleh’s new work builds on that series. <i>This Is You</i> is a stereopticon view of a little girl whose head turns into a bird in the otherwise identical twin image, effectively transforming it into a 3-D souvenir view of a dreamlike parallel universe.<br /><div><a href=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/SvZ-rLWqGSI/AAAAAAAABDg/CcoprPTerto/s1600-h/~Benischek.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” src=“http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/SvZ-rLWqGSI/AAAAAAAABDg/CcoprPTerto/s320/~Benischek.jpg” /></a></div>Generic Art Solutions — Tony Campbell and Matt Vis—are represented by their video screen portraits of themselves as roman emperors, ghostly white marble-like heads seemingly set in stone. But look closely: they blink. (A cautionary metaphor for empire?)&nbsp; Another Good Children co-conspirator, Stephen Collier, has photo portraits of a biker and a businessman with heads covered with Silly String. Like much postmodernism, this is all about surface effects, “instantaneity” and mass media and, you know, stuff like that. Michelle Levine’s social realist paintings of McDonald’s Golden Arches ravaged by Katrina’s winds make a related point but with a more tragically meaningful twist. But Brad Benischek, of the Antenna gallery, gives us a vast, room-size installation of nasty childlike drawings with oddly Charles Bukowski-esque scrawled texts, above, all of which builds on his visceral Midwestern Expressionist rap sheet with notable verve. Like much of this, David Sullivan’s <i>Sunset Refinery </i>video had been previously shown on St. Claude, but it really does warrant multiple viewings. Not everything does, but if you’ve never seen any of it before, <i>Hot</i> might come as a revelation.&nbsp; ~Eric Bookhardt<br /><div><a href=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/SvZ8vNkjbBI/AAAAAAAABDY/k6kOc_Tg5FU/s1600-h/~Sullivan.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” src=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/SvZ8vNkjbBI/AAAAAAAABDY/k6kOc_Tg5FU/s400/~Sullivan.jpg” /></a></div><div><b><span><i>Sunset Refinery </i>(still) by David Sullivan</span></b><b><span> <br /></span></b></div><span><b>HOT UP HERE: New Work by New Orleans Artists<br />Through December<br />Contemporary Arts Center, 900 Camp St., 528.3805; <a href=“http://www.cacno.org/”>www.cacno.org</a></b></span><div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2692635212517024217-8513825623292610677?l=www.insidenola.org” alt=”“ /></div>

<a href=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SvNLSiZB2gI/AAAAAAAAAXc/5xwxbG8jHvI/s1600-h/Bonge”><img id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5400743159988869634” style=“WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 254px” alt=”“ src=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SvNLSiZB2gI/AAAAAAAAAXc/5xwxbG8jHvI/s320/Bonge%27_0001.jpg” border=“0” /></a><br /><span>Copyright 1964 Lyle <span>Bonge</span>. Untitled gelatin silver print.</span><br /><br /><br /><div><div>” If you can kill a snake with it, it <span>aint</span> art.” — Lyle <span>Bonge</span></div><br /><div></div><a href=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SvNL9jlhL3I/AAAAAAAAAXk/7vp0tbFreK0/s1600-h/Bonge”><img id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5400743899044065138” style=“WIDTH: 216px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px” alt=”“ src=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_E_DdpBVIO8E/SvNL9jlhL3I/AAAAAAAAAXk/7vp0tbFreK0/s320/Bonge%27_0002.jpg” border=“0” /></a><br /><span>Photo by David Houston.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><div>Lyle <span>Bonge</span> started taking photographs in his hometown of <span>Biloxi</span>, Mississippi. In the late 1940s, <span>Bonge</span> studies at the short-lived but highly influential Black Mountain College, where he roomed with famed <span>essayist</span>/poet/publisher Jonathan Williams. Since 1955, <span>Bonge</span> has amassed over 40,000 negatives of <span>Mardi</span> <span>Gras</span>, some of <span>which</span> were published in Jargon Press’ 1977 publication of his photographs, <em>The Sleep of Reason: Lyle <span>Bonge’s</span> Ultimate Ash Hauling Photographs.</em> His works are contained in private and public collections, including the Mississippi Museum of Art, <span>Philadelphia</span> Museum of Art, Houston Museum of Fine Art, Pensacola Art Museum and, of course, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. He still lives in the <span>Biloxi</span> house built by his mother and father, artists <span>Dusti</span> and Archie <span>Bonge</span>. <span>Dusti</span> was Mississippi’s first true Modernist, showing at Betty Parson’s Gallery in the late 50s. Beyond his career as a photographer, Lyle has been a boat builder, bank director and tree topper.</div></div><div><img width=“1” height=“1” src=“https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3601211757000210971-42540896577027385?l=omsablog.blogspot.com” alt=”“ /></div>

<div><a href=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/SuzqSImNIeI/AAAAAAAABAA/My1Y07MXr6M/s1600-h/~Peretti1.s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” src=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/SuzqSImNIeI/AAAAAAAABAA/My1Y07MXr6M/s400/~Peretti1.s.jpg” /></a></div><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; “Intimate, beautiful, disturbing,” such are the adjectives applied to the work of Sibylle Peretti, whose visions of children convey a quietly mysterious other world. Like a parallel universe, Peretti-world is part dream and part fairy tale, but it also resonates a certain reality that we sense without knowing exactly what it is, at least not at first. A native of Germany who resides most of the year in New Orleans but keeps an apartment in Cologne, Peretti has long been inspired by children who lived with circumstances that caused them to have to establish their own unique relationships with the world, especially the natural world of the “feral children” who inspired her current body of work. While the idea of children raised by wolves and wild creatures is hardly new, having served as the basis for much traditional mythology, Peretti’s approach is more psychological, invoking perhaps the prehistory of human consciousness, those deeply subconscious dreams or memories of a more mystical union with nature that latently reside within us all. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/SuzqosNLgFI/AAAAAAAABAI/a9KS0BC9J1M/s1600-h/~Peretti4.s.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” src=“http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/SuzqosNLgFI/AAAAAAAABAI/a9KS0BC9J1M/s320/~Peretti4.s.jpg” /></a>The works on view are a mixture of freestanding porcelain sculptures, etched translucent wall panels, and glass raindrop-shaped wall sculptures, all depicting children seemingly in a state of suspended animation if not repose. Otherworldly and dreamlike, their presence is somnambulistic, charismatically quiescent as they relate to each other or to birds, vines and brambles, the flora and fauna of the natural landscape. Like her earlier series of “silent children,” inspired by the haunting expressions seen in photographs of youngsters in antique German medical texts, they explore the hidden side of childhood, a complex, contemplative world of dreams, imaginings and gestures. Of the earlier series, Peretti said “They represent innocence, but also a kind of knowing, yet they cannot really say what they know so they speak their own wordless language.” Much the same might be said of these “feral children,” whose silence hints at the delicate relationship between human civilization and the remaining wildness that lingers around us, and within us. ~Eric Bookhardt<br /><div><a href=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/Suzq9NOKbkI/AAAAAAAABAQ/e9X_VPPKfsY/s1600-h/~Peretti2.s,jpg.jpg” imageanchor=“1”><img border=“0” src=“http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4zZfvwTP028/Suzq9NOKbkI/AAAAAAAABAQ/e9X_VPPKfsY/s400/~Peretti2.s,jpg.jpg” /></a></div>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br />THE UNUSUAL KIND: Mixed Media Works by Sibylle Peretti<br />Through November<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/2692635212517024217-8813193437606727193?l=www.insidenola.org” alt=”“ /></div>