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Prospect.3: Notes for Now, the third iteration of NOLA’s international contemporary art biennial, kicks off this month in 18 sites around the city and features a bigger-than-ever commitment to local and community based artists through P.3+, the biennial’s satellite program that will feature 70 contemporary art exhibitions and over 300 emerging and long established local artists.
Among the tremendous showing, the Creative Alliance of New Orleans‘s “Below Canal: Reverberations” transforms the former St. Maurice church at 605 St. Maurice Avenue, in the Holy Cross section of the Lower 9th Ward into an interactive installation and community performance series. The site’s premier event is “Space Rites,” an installation by Airlift artists Taylor Shepherd and Delaney Martin that places dozens of old tube TVs outfitted with oscilloscopes in the eaves and on the altar of the church. The oscilloscopic televisions transform sound into sights, so reverberating footsteps, whispers, prayers, and singing will light the space with trembling, glowing, echoing displays. The beautiful church, built in 1852, offers an exceptional setting for the installation and performances to follow, including dances choreographed by Monique Moss and an improvisational operatic work produced by CANO that is set to begin workshops in January.
Another CANO site, entitled “Crevasse 22: Surge,” is a temporary outdoor sculpture exhibition staged at the sight of a devastating crevasse, or massive breach in the levee on the Mississippi River that flooded much of St. Bernard Parish, just below the city of New Orleans. Work from artists Elizabeth Shannon, Michelle Varisco, Serge Loncar, Dan xxxx, Mitchell Gaudet, Robert Tannen, and later in the fall by Willie Burch, Raine Bedsole and Lynda Benglis will recall the destruction and the misguided public policies that continue today to jeopardize the already threatened low lying lands and marshes of the region. Located at 8114 Saro Lane in St. Bernard Parish, oak trees with sweeping branches and a lake carved by flood water shape the site loaned by Attorney Sidney Torres.
Bridging Uptown and Downtown, a team from Tulane University and May Gallery and Residency presents “BAMBOULA / NOLA” on the Tulane campus with a satellite gallery in the Marigny. The exhibition is built on sound archives from Sounds of Louisiana and seeks to record and examine the structural history of New Orleans. Round table discussions and performances will accompany sound art installations in an effort to uncover the landscape of composition and cultural production underlying Louisiana’s natural environment that has yet escaped the lens of the popular and academic music industries. Featured artists include Jane Cassidy, Matthew Thompson, Justin Peake, Peter Leonard, William Thompson IV, Generic Art Solutions, Rick Snow, Lotte Geeven, Thomas Grill, Philippe Landry, Spencer Topel, Christopher Trapani.
Relying on the work of local artists, organizers, co-ops, curators, and advocacy groups, P.3+ presents an unequaled view into NOLA’s cultural economy, its bonds, its progress, and the challenges it continuously overcomes. The enormous wealth of venues will all be open to the public from October 25th, 2014 to January 25th, 2015, and information about all of the P.3+ sites, including contact info and event details may be found here.
