Report from New Orleans

Went down to New Orleans last week for Prospect.1, a new biennial curated by Dan Cameron. Our first stop on Thursday was the Contemporary Art Center, where art was still being hung and construction was still underway in preparation for the official opening two days later. The first person we bumped into was one of my art idols, Gajin Fujita!

Why create a biennial? From Art Fag City:

Dan Cameron expressed a few thoughts to me in response to this question, “If the art fairs become the standard for how art is presented and digested, how it is consumed lets say, whether it’s actively or passively, then I think we’re entering into some truly problematic territory,” he began, “because and any dealer will tell you or any curator or director, the one thing that happens in art fairs is that nobody looks at the work. The setting isn’t made as in a gallery or a museum for looking for just the simple act of contemplation. Maybe that’s appropriate for a short attention span society, but to me it would seem like we’re going to see a backlash pretty soon in which the thrill of the deal as far as art as concerned starts to diminish and people start asking themselves; What is the purpose of art? What is the function of art in society? Why do artists spend all this time and energy making work simply in order to have it traded like a commodity? It’s into this gap that Project 1 is really rushing.”

Why New Orleans? Dan Cameron spoke to us for a few minutes to tell us that he wanted to restore New Orleans' rich history as an art center in the U.S. The city lost much of that in the 20th century and Katrina completely wiped out what was left. I hope the biennial succeeds. New Orleans is a wonderful city with an undeserved bad rap.

Everywhere we went, New Orleanians thanked us for coming to their city.


Like other biennials, there were art exhibits and installations all over the city. I particularly enjoyed the site-specific and referential works we saw in the Lower 9th Ward, where Katrina struck hardest.

Leandro Erlich, Window and Ladder — Too Late for Help (detail), 2008

Having never been to the 9th ward, I had no point of reference for what this neighborhood once was. It was hard to imagine that these empty streets were once lined with homes and shops and families.


Mark Bradford's ark.

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Maurye from the Hirshhorn hosted us for Halloween cocktails in her apartment on Jackson Square. (Brad and Angelina have a place a few doors down!) The gang went as Andy Warhol's Factory, with Martin as Andy, of course, and me as Edie Sedgewick sort of.

Maurye arranged for us to have our own band accompany us from the apartment down Bourbon Street to dinner at Galatoire.