Three Decades of Contemporary Art in “Art of the City”

The Crescent City’s endurance and resilience have given rise to a thriving contemporary art scene. The “Louisiana ‘Major Works 1984’” exhibition at the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition provides a rough starting point for a renewed cultural consciousness that gained further impetus after Hurricane Katrina and continues to this day.

In Art of the City, New Orleans interdisciplinary artist, curator and educator Jan Gilbert—along with HNOC President and Chief Executive Officer Priscilla Lawrence as assisting curator—assembles the diverse perspectives of artists reacting during three decades of strife and progress in the layered city that fueled their inspiration.

“The fecund and tumultuous climate of this period in the life of this city steeps artists and their visions,” said Gilbert. “For HNOC to showcase this recent explosion of the New Orleans contemporary art culture, here at this tricentennial moment, is to recognize its importance as history in the making and is a significant commitment to the future of art in this city.”

The exhibition, made possible by a significant gift to HNOC from The Helis Foundation, will include a robust programming schedule and components that live outside the gallery walls, some of which were introduced early in 2018. Admission to the exhibition and all programming will be free.

“The Helis Foundation is proud to support this important exhibition celebrating New Orleans’s finest contemporary artists responding to our rich cultural history,” said David Kerstein, president of The Helis Foundation. “HNOC is uniquely positioned to tell this story within the context of 300 years of significant artistic achievements highlighted in its collection.”

Art of the City will feature the work of more than 75 artists, both homegrown visionaries and devoted visitors, in the newly constructed Tricentennial Wing of the campus. It includes established masters like Krista Jurisich, Douglas Bourgeois and Luis Cruz Azaceta; familiar names like Candy Chang and Gina Phillips; and rising stars like Zarouhie Abdalian, Brandan Odums and Rontherin Ratliff.

“In few cities do the historic and the modern commingle more naturally than in New Orleans—this harmony guided us as we both renovated the historic Seignouret-Brulatour Building and added to it with the new construction,” said Lawrence. “We hope Art of the City and its arresting assembly of contemporary art brings the citywide conversation about past and present to the fore.”

The exhibition will run for six months at HNOC’s new, $38 million exhibition center at 520 Royal St., set to open April 6, 2019. The center was made possible in part through generous donations from the institution’s local, national and international supporters and will be open Tuesday–Saturday, 9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. and on Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Admission to the exhibition center and Art of the City is free. See below for more information on the exhibition’s first round of programming. Additional programming to be announced at a later date.