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Transcript of Arts Quarterly Fall 2015
Fall 2015Arts Quarterly New Orleans Museum of Art
Susan M. Taylor
DIRECTOR’S LETTER
This fall, NOMA is producing an ambitious exhibition schedule opening with five exhibitions, an almost unprecedented feat. They include a survey of work by a nineteenth-century self-taught sculptor, prints by one of the masters of modern art, Japanese masks by a contemporary artist who has radicalized a traditional form, and more. Each of these compelling exhibitions also serves as inspiration for a robust schedule of programs that will engage every member of the family. NOMA will take a wide examination of American art in the November exhibition Visions of US: American Art at NOMA. Organized by Katie Pfohl, Visions of US is the first exhibition at NOMA to highlight the full breadth of this impressive area of NOMA’s collection. In 2011, a smaller selection of NOMA’s American art traveled the state in the exhibition Copley to Warhol: 200 Years of American Art Celebrating the Centennial of the New Orleans Museum of Art. Visions of US displays these works and more for New Orleans audiences, and places the work of celebrated artists from the Northeast like Georgia O’Keeffe and Jackson Pollock alongside that of talented artists from the South, like Josephine Crawford and John T. Scott. NOMA continues to collaborate with other institutions to bring new scholarship to light in the exhibition Pierre Joseph Landry: Patriot, Planter, Sculptor. NOMA and the Louisiana State Museum have co-organized this exhibition, which is the first major presentation of Landry’s work in decades. Landry emigrated from Acadia to Louisiana right before the French Revolution, and subsequently built a successful life as a sugar planter and military officer who fought during the Battle of New Orleans. He is also Louisiana’s earliest known self-taught sculptor of note. Although only a small number exist, Landry’s wood carvings exhibit the techniques of a highly skilled craftsman. This exhibition will bring contemporary discussion to this fascinating individual and his works. This exhibition and its accompanying publication are the culmination of months of research and scholarship uncovered by curators at these two museums. The museum is also hosting a presentation of mixed media works by Jasper Johns, one of the most influential American artists of the twentieth century. Jasper Johns: Reversals, a selection of works from the collection of Donna and Benjamin Rosen, reveals how the artist’s printmaking informs all aspects of his art. In conjunction with the exhibition, NOMA’s annual Donna Perret Rosen Lecture Series will feature two scholars who will discuss Johns and his work: Carter Foster, Steven and Ann Ames Curator of Drawings at the Whitney Museum of American Art and Kevin Salatino, Hannah and Russel Kully Director of Art Collections at the The Huntington Library and Art Collection. Over the next few months, be on the lookout for lectures and discussions led by visiting artists who will explore all of NOMA’s exhibitions through their own unique perspectives. These Artist Perspective programs will reveal just how contemporary artists are inspired by art on view in NOMA’s galleries. This November marks the 49th annual Odyssey Ball at NOMA, chaired by Robin Burgess and Terence Blanchard. I encourage you to join us for what is sure to be an atmospheric, elegant night of cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, a splendid seated dinner, a performance by Grammy winner Patti Austin, an after party with DJ Soul Sister, and much more, all in support of the museum and its exhibitions and programs.
Susan M. TaylorThe Montine McDaniel Freeman Director
Cover Stuart Davis, Rocks, Gloucester, 1915 (detail), Gift of Muriel Bultman Francis, 68.23
Inside Cover Pierre Joseph Landry, The Artist Observing an Indian Maiden at Her Bath, Magnolia wood, 15 x 18 ¾ x 5 inches, New Orleans Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Emilie Kuntz and family of Emile N. Kuntz, 82.243
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FEATURE
10 Visions of US American Art at NOMA
MUSEUM
INSPIREDBYNOMA
4 Thomas Beller
EXHIBITIONS
5 Pierre Joseph Landry: Patriot, Planter, Sculptor
6 Tim Youd: 100 Novels
7 Jasper Johns: Reversals
COLLECTIONS
8 New Acquisition: Two Earthworks by Dennis Oppenheim
Page 10 VISIONS OF US: AMERICAN ART AT NOMA Page 5 PIERRE JOSEPH LANDRY:
PATRIOT, PLANTER, SCULPTOR
CONTENTS Fall 2015
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COMMUNITY
VISIT
14 New Program at NOMA for Visitors with Dementia
LEARN
15 Transformative Gift Supports Early Education
15 The Winter’s Tale at NOMA
SUPPORT
16 NOMA Donors
17 Experience Digital NOMA
18 Friends of NOMA Celebrate at LOVE in the Garden
19 Patti Austin to Perform at the 49th Annual Odyssey Ball
Page 22 ODYSSEY 2015: AN INTERVIEW WITH PATTI AUSTINPage 14 LOVE IN THE GARDEN
Arts Quarterly New Orleans Museum of Art
Opposite left Alfred Boisseau, Louisiana Indians Walking Along a Bayou, 1847, Gift of William E. Groves, 56.34
Opposite right Pierre Joseph Landry, Self Portrait, 1833, Wood, 12 1⁄8 x 6 ¾ x 8 ¼ inches, Louisiana State Museum, Gift of the Heirs of Pierre Joseph Landry, 02685.1
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I NS PI R E D B Y NOM A : T HOM A S B E L L E R
topical, or at least coherent or logical, as though writing should be making a point. I would describe this as different than, and at times antithetical to developing or exploring an idea or feeling. I find the impish, whimsical, art for art’s sake, beauty for beauty’s sake, aura of visual art to be restorative.
The possibilities of experimentation and the moods of certain works of art affect me. But a lot of what affects me most directly in my work are the rituals around art at galleries or museums. The anxiety and provocations around visual art influences me most of all; the subtexts, issues of beauty, money, sanctification and deification, inheritance, patronage. I have been around art all my life, both in my family and in New York City, where art was part of the landscape of the apartments I spent time in. Sometimes an actual artist was part of the landscape. The Metropolitan Museum was an extension of Central Park for me, the stairs were a place to hang out—the world’s most elaborate stoop. From a young age I was aware of the notion of avant-garde, and therefore my rebellions were in many ways pitched against those ideas and moods. For example, I wanted to be in finance when I was in high school, and then in college I decided, as a kind of compromise, that I wanted to be an art dealer. I had summer jobs at Leo Castelli Gallery and Paula Cooper Gallery. Working as a kind of gopher/janitor at two these influential galleries in the mid-80’s was my education in contemporary art, or at least the start of it. I also worked for some artists directly, had a series of art world odd jobs—a museum guard at the Dia Art Foundation, for example—which led to some interesting and not totally pleasant scenes, some of which I have written about.
Is there a particular exhibition, work of art, or genre of art at NOMA that inspires you?
I liked the Ten Years Gone exhibition. I liked the combination of cleverness and soulfulness, the provocation of the whole conceit—a genuine bit of post-Katrina provocation, addressing the concerns of New Orleans at an unexpected angle that seemed to be aware it might antagonize some people. But my pleasure in the show was also because Russell Lord, the curator, gave me a walkthrough after hours. I love being in a museum after hours. Museums have always inspired a kind of covetous response in me. Some people look at art in museums and fantasize of having that work at home, all to themselves. I do that too, sometimes, but I also have this secret wish to just move in, unnoticed by the staff.
What role do you o think art can serve in our lives?
All the obvious answers—beauty, entertainment, education, a kind of super-sensitive thermometer of the cultural temperature—seem suspect because, except for the last one, they sound like something you would put on a grant application. How about art as an interesting thermometer that makes you think? And then sometimes it’s just gorgeous to look at and sort of consoling, especially if it’s been in your life for a long time.
What do you envision for the Arts & Letters program at NOMA?
That drive up to the museum is so dramatic and grand. I love it. I want to have conversations that involve finding connections between the world at one end of that driveway, in the museum, with the world at the other end, out in the city and beyond.
Thomas Beller is an associate professor in the English Department at Tulane University. His most recent book is J.D. Salinger: The Escape Artist, which won the New York City Book Award for biography/memoir from The New York Society Library. His other books are a collection of stories, Seduction Theory, a collection of essays, How To Be a Man, and a novel, The Sleep-Over Artist, which was a New York Times Notable Book and an LA Times Best Book of 2000. He co-founded and edited the literary magazine and press, Open City, from 1990 to 2010, and has worked as a staff writer at The New Yorker and the Cambodia Daily. His work appears regularly in The New Yorker’s Culture Desk Blog and in The New York Times and is taught in high schools and colleges around the country.
Does visual art influence you at all as a writer?
Sometimes visual art is helpful to me as an escape route from the subtle pull of practicality that can creep into prose. In writing there is often a temptation to be
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by Landry and his descendants, Landry owned several slaves, and purchased his first when he was only seventeen. In the 1820s, Landry contracted a debilitating ailment known at the time as “white swelling” or tuberculosis of the knee, and was confined to a wheelchair on his large plantation in the rural countryside. To pass the time he began using a common penknife to carve sculptures out of local woods such as magnolia, beech, and elm. These sculptures, to be given to relatives and friends, exhibit biblical, parabolic, autobiographical, and historic subjects. Landry’s largest and most ambitious work is the Wheel of Life, 1834, an allegorical representation of the stages of life of man in ten figural vignettes from birth to death, arranged in a circular composition.
Overcoming the challenges of immigrating to a new homeland, Landry built a successful life as a sugar planter and military officer in Louisiana. In his later years, rather than whiling away his days suffering relative immobility and isolation, Landry chose to spend his hours creating the evocative wood carvings for which he is knows today. While the output of Pierre Joseph Landry’s sculptures is small in number, that yield is sufficient to establish him as one of the self-taught artistic masters of early nineteenth-century America.
Pierre Joseph Landry: Patriot, Planter, Sculptor will be on view in the Templeman Galleries from October 16, 2015 to March 20, 2016. A publication of the same title will be available for purchase in the Museum Shop. This article adapts text from two essays published in that catalog.
This fall, NOMA and the Louisiana State Museum are presenting the first solo exhibition of work by Pierre Joseph Landry, Louisiana’s earliest known self-taught sculptor of note. Pierre Joseph Landry: Painter, Planter, Sculptor highlights newly uncovered scholarship on the artist’s life in eighteenth and nineteenth century Iberville Parish. The exhibition features eleven wood carvings attributed to the artist, along with a journal from the Louisiana State Museum’s collection, possibly written by Landry and relatives, that reveals details about military practices of Landry’s time. Pierre Joseph Landry was born in the French village of Saint-Servan-sur-Mer on the Brittany coast on January 9, 1770. In 1784, King Carlos III of Spain offered Acadians living in France free passage to Spanish Louisiana as well as “good land, new houses and free farm implements.” With the unrest in France preceding its impending revolution, fifteen year old Pierre, along with his widowed mother and her own father, Charles Hebert, departed France May 12, 1785 aboard the ship La Bergère and arrived in the Louisiana colony on August 15, 1785. Young Pierre first settled in Saint Gabriel and received a land grant on the west bank of the Mississippi. He married twice and had a total of seventeen children. In 1815, Captain Landry fought for his new homeland under the command of Major General Andrew Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans. Following his military service Landry returned to Iberville Parish to develop his land, which became known as Home Plantation. He prospered greatly in the production of sugar both as a planter and pioneering refiner. According to another notebook in the Louisiana State Museum’s collection, also likely written
PI E R R E JO S E P H L A N DRY: PAT R IO T, P L A N T E R , S C U L P T OR
EXHIBITIONS
Pierre Joseph Landry, Wheel of Life, 1834, Elmwood, wallpaper, 48 x 43 ½ x 6 ½ inches, Louisiana State Museum, Gift of the Heirs of Pierre Joseph Landry, 02685.5
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T I M YOU D : 10 0 NOV E L S
already involved text and literature for about a decade before that. This project began, he explained, when, “I looked at a book and realized on a formal level that I was looking at a rectangle of black text sitting inside a larger rectangle of the white page, and the mirror image of that on the other page. Then I asked, how can I heighten that formal quality? It was almost a palpable thing, where I wanted to kind of squash the book and put all the words onto one page, like if you were speed rolling it or smashing it between your hands.” During his multi-week performances, Youd retypes each novel onto a single sheet of paper, backed by a second sheet. He runs the doubled paper through the typewriter repeatedly, until every word of the novel has been retyped. Upon completion, the two pages—a positive and a negative image—
are mounted as a diptych, representing two pages of a book. These resulting frayed and tattered pages, which will be displayed at NOMA after their completion, reflect on our relationship to history, memory and creativity, and ask what the practice of novel writing—and reading—might teach us today. Youd also described a trip taken to Ernest Hemingway’s former home in Key West, Florida. That trip, where Youd felt like more attention was given to Hemingway’s polydactyl cats than his writings, also inspired
this project. “I think we get so far away from the author and the work in some of these literary pilgrimage scenarios,” Youd said. “We fetishize them, we turn them into these things that stand for something that may have nothing to do or little to do with what the author was really writing about, and that was interesting to me.” With his 100 Novels Project, Youd aims to engage deeply with each work of literature through a very close reading. “My re-typing of these works is a devotional exercise taken to an absurd place – an active reading so active that it’s actually a re-writing of it, or a re-typing of it. I gravitated towards 100 novels because again, there’s this fetishization in our society and lists are part of that—everyone’s got their list of 100 greatest whatevers, best novels, greatest rock songs… it goes on and on.”
This fall, Los Angeles-based contemporary artist Tim Youd will visit NOMA to perform the latest installment of his 100 Novels Project. At the heart of this endeavor is an extended and idiosyncratic literary pilgrimage. Youd journeys across the world to retype 100 works of literature—some canonical, others obscure—in locations germane to each novel. In these charged locations, he uses the original make and model of typewriter employed by the book’s the author to retype each novel in its entirety. While in Louisiana, Youd will be performing live in NOMA’s galleries and in locations throughout the state, retyping a series of novels set in Louisiana that will include Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer and John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. Although Youd began this project over three years ago, his work had
Youd’sPerformanceScheduleatNOMA: Friday: 11 am – 3 pm and 6 – 8 pm | Saturday: 11 am – 4 pm | Sunday: 11 am – 4 pm
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
October 2 – 4
October 16 – 18
The Autobiography of Ms. Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
November 13 – 15
November 21 – 22
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
December 4 – 6
Modern Baptists by James Wilcox
December 11 – 13
All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
January 8 – 10
January 29 – 30
(Check noma.org for Youd’s full performance schedule)
Tim Youd, William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, (detail) 326 pages typed on an Underwood Universal Performed at Rowan Oak in Oxford, Mississippi, June 2014, Collection of the Artist
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Jasper Johns: Reversals showcases an exceptional group of prints by Jasper Johns, one of most influential artists of our time. Known for his representations of icons of American culture like flags, targets and maps, Johns is a master printmaker whose work in print influences all aspects of his art. Opening this fall, this exhibition of prints is generously loaned from the collection of Donna Perret Rosen and Benjamin M. Rosen. Reversals brings together a choice selection of the artist’s mixed media works from the 1970s through today to show how the logic of printmaking—its multiple plates, mirror images, repetitions and reversals—informs Johns’ art across media, from painting and drawing to relief sculpture and collage. In prints like Flags I, 1973, Johns reimagined the medium of printmaking as a means not just of
making prints, but also generating new approaches to art making. As Johns remarked in 1979, “Just the process of printmaking allows you to do—not allows you to do things but makes your mind work in a different way than, say, painting with a brush does…you find things which are necessary to [the process of ] printmaking that become interesting in themselves [and] become like ideas.” His multifaceted investigations into the methods and materials of printmaking inspired him to reimagine familiar media and forms, and reinvent and reinterpret customary markers of American cultural identity. His crosshatched stripes, compounded numbers and fragments of newsprint and typeface revolutionized twentieth century art, and continue to place printmaking at the center of an evolving conversation about contemporary art.
Jasper Johns, Flags I, 1973, Silkscreen on paper, Collection of Donna Perret Rosen and Benjamin M. Rosen Art © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
JA S P E R JOH NS : R E V E R S A L S
Jasper Johns: Reversals will be on view in the Frederick R. Weisman Contemporary Galleries from October 23, 2015 – January 31, 2016. On October 23 at 6 p.m., join us for a conversation on Jasper Johns with Carter Foster from the Whitney Museum of American Art and Kevin Salatino from the Huntington Library and Art Collection. This program is part of the annual Donna Perret Rosen Lecture series at NOMA.
W I L L I A M
WO ODWA R D :
E A R LY V I E W S OF
T H E V I E U X CA R R É
An artist, architect, educator, and avid preservationist, William Woodward (American, 1859–1939) was concerned that the renowned architecture and daily life of New Orleans’ Vieux Carré (old quarter) was under threat of deterioration and destruction. In response, he chose to highlight historic buildings, architectural details, and vignettes from the multi-cultural district. His focus influenced the 1921 city ordinance declaring the French Quarter an historic district and the founding of the Vieux Carré Commission in 1937, which continues to preserve and maintain the Quarter’s architecture. Woodward, born in Massachusetts, trained at the Rhode Island School of Design and Massachusetts Normal Art School before studying at the Académie Julian in Paris, where he became familiar with impressionist ideals and techniques. He began teaching art and architecture at Tulane University in 1884, and went on to help found and instruct at Newcomb College and the Tulane School of Architecture. His concentration on preservation combined with his impressionist impulse led to these realistic yet romantic scenes of New Orleans.
A selection of Woodward’s paintings from NOMA’s permanent collection are currently on view in the second floor Davis Gallery.
William Woodward, American, 1859–1939, Presbytere, Jackson Square, 1904, Oil crayon drawing on cardboard, Gift of Edgar Stern Family Fund, 61.36
8 Arts Quarterly New Orleans Museum of Art
COLLECTIONS
In February of 1970, NOMA (then known as the Delgado Museum of Art) became the first art museum in the country to publicly display a rock from the moon. Moon Rock and Earthworks, an exhibition jointly organized by NOMA and NASA, was one of the most popular exhibitions in NOMA’s history, with crowds stretched up and down Lelong Avenue to catch a glimpse of a real moon rock. The exhibition featured the moon rock alongside photographs of a series of experimental “earthworks” by a group of artists then using land itself as a medium for art-making. The exhibition was among the first of its kind anywhere in the country to display vanguard works like Walter de Maria’s Mile Long Drawing (1968) and Claus Oldenburg’s Placid Civil Monument (1967) inside the walls of an art museum. Artists like de Maria and Oldenburg, instead of bringing pencil to paper or paint to canvas, were creating mile-long drawings in chalk across expanses of the Mojave Desert and digging large grave-
size holes in the fields then surrounding The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Projected on NOMA’s walls alongside newly revealed color photographs of the moon’s surface provided by NASA, the images of these large-scale earthworks blurred the lines between museum gallery and surrounding landscape, and asked New Orleans audiences to expand their thinking about the appropriate spaces, contexts and materials for making art. As part of this exhibition, NOMA commissioned earthworks artist Dennis Oppenheim to visit New Orleans and create a series of site-specific projects on the museum’s grounds in City Park. Arriving in New Orleans from the air, Oppenheim was immediately captivated by the dense, tangled swamplands surrounding the old New Orleans Airport’s landing strip on all sides. Oppenheim arrived in New Orleans just days before Moon Rock and Earthworks opened to the public, but promptly disappeared, heading to the swamps to
create Concentration Pit, 1970, a 100 by 100 foot pit dug deep in the swamp and fully visible only from the sky. Returning to NOMA the following day, Oppenheim also devised a piece of performance art entitled Guarded Land, 1970 to be performed at the exhibition’s grand opening. For Guarded Land, Oppenheim asked a NOMA security guard to patrol the meadow in front of the museum, guarding the surrounding landscape in the same manner as the museum’s galleries. To Oppenheim, such landscape interventions spoke not only to questions of ecology and environmentalism—of how we value land—but also to how we create cultural values: in museums, on land, and between people. A 1970 article about Oppenheim in Time magazine, which noted with great astonishment that the artist had recently “made a clearing in a Louisiana cypress swamp,” characterized Oppenheim as an artist preoccupied not just with earth and land per se, but with “interrupting the matrix
N E W AC QU ISI T ION: T WO E A RT H WOR K S B Y DE N N IS OP P E N H E I M
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that he sees as shaping both natural and human activities.” Earthworks and performance pieces like Concentration Pit and Guarded Land are notoriously difficult for art museums to manage, much less claim as part of their collection. In the 1960s and 1970s, earthworks artists often took pride in producing work that could not be preserved, collected or sold, and, as art critic Dale Ashton observed in 1969, “only photographed, reproduced, talked about, [and] documented ad absurdum.” Today, such projects often exist only through period photographs, newspaper and magazine interviews and local lore, which makes them difficult for museums to research, reconstruct and document. In anticipation of its fall exhibition Visions of US: American Art at NOMA, the museum has collaborated with the Dennis Oppenheim Estate to unearth new research and documentation for both Concentration Pit and Guarded Land. Through a generous donation
from the Estate, the museum will formally acquire new photographic documentation for both projects that will make documentation for both of these pieces that were commissioned by NOMA almost forty years ago, finally and formally part of the museum’s collection, and allow Guarded Land to be re-enacted this fall.
Katie Pfohl, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art
Guarded Land Area will be re-enacted at NOMA every Friday from November 20, 2015 to January 22, 2016 from 3:30-5:30PM, excepting museum holidays on December 25, 2015 and January 1, 2016.
On November 20, Guarded Land Area will be re-enacted according to the specifications of location, duration and procedure of the original piece, which involved a single performance by one museum guard. During subsequent iterations, participating museum guards will be invited to produce reports that document their experiences performing the work. These new documentations will be displayed in NOMA’s galleries alongside Oppenheim’s original photographic documentations from the 1970 performance.
Top Poster for Moon Rock and Earthworks at the Delgado Museum of Art, February 1970, Archives of the New Orleans Museum of Art Above left Photograph of crowds lined up in front of the museum to view Moon Rock and Earthworks at the Delgado Museum of Art, February 1970, Archives of the New Orleans Museum of Art Above right Dennis Oppenheim, Guarded Land, 1970, Floor plan of the Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans, exteriorized on an adjacent meadow using gallery guard’s daily route, Dimensions variable, Color and black and white photography, 4 30 x 40 inch photographs, Gift of the Estate of Dennis Oppenheim and P. Roussel Norman Purchase Fund Facing page Dennis Oppenheim, Concentration Pit (Dedicated to Keith Sonnier), 1970, New Orleans International Airport, 100 x 100 feet, Clearing in forest of felled cyprus trees, Color photography, black and white photographic text, and stamped aerial map, 60 x 40 inches, Gift of the Estate of Dennis Oppenheim and P. Roussel Norman Purchase Fund
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American art, with a particular emphasis on artists working in Louisiana and the South, has long been one of NOMA’s key collection strengths. This November, NOMA will open Visions of US, the first exhibition in the museum’s history to highlight the full breadth of its extraordinary American Art collection. Through paintings, sculptures, photography and decorative arts, Visions of US explores evolving ideas about American cultural identity from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries to tell a rich and inclusive story about how we imagine and represent the United States. Visions of US is the first major American art exhibition in the country to place the work of acclaimed artists from the Northeast like Jonathan Singleton Copley, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock and Frank Stella alongside that of their lesser-known counterparts from the South and West like Alfred Boisseau, Josephine Crawford, Sam Francis and John T. Scott. American art is often largely defined by the work of artists from the Northeast, and this exhibition shows how American artists working elsewhere—and especially the international port city of New Orleans—significantly broadened the range and scope of what we consider American art today. Before the country’s official founding in 1776, portrait painters like Copley, François Fleischbein and Alfred Boisseau combined artistic influences from England, Germany and France in their images of America’s earliest peoples. Copley, although born in America, painted both American revolutionaries like Paul Revere and loyalist English subjects like his Portrait of General George Watson, 1768, and worked between Boston and London for much of his life. Shortly after the Louisiana Purchase, German-born artist François Fleischbein immigrated to New Orleans to paint portraits of the city’s elite citizens that showcased the city’s great cultural diversity. By the 1840s, the French-born painter Alfred Boisseau had risen to prominence in both the United States and Europe for paintings of Native American subjects like Louisiana Indians Walking Along the Bayou, 1847 (see page 2), a painting that traveled the world to be exhibited in New York, New Orleans and at the 1848 Paris Salon. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American artists amalgamated artistic influences from across the globe as they sought to craft a distinctively American style. Landscape painter Asher B. Durand traveled throughout England, France and Spain studying old master paintings to develop what is now often regarded as the particularly American nature of paintings like Forenoon, 1847. Henry Ossawa Tanner traveled even further afield, forsaking Philadelphia and Atlanta for Paris and the Middle East, where he painted The Good Shepherd, ca. 1914. Stuart Davis, known for bold, brightly colored canvases like Rocks, Gloucester, 1915 (see cover image) spent summers painting on the picturesque Maine coast, but traveled from Paris to New York to Havana to explore new techniques for capturing the many cultures comingling in major American cities like New York, Boston and New Orleans.
Asher Brown Durand, Forenoon, 1847, Gift of Fine Arts Club of New Orleans, 16.4
Visions of USEXHIBITION FROM NOMA’S COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS THE SCOPE AND MAGNITUDE OF AMERICAN ART
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By the early twentieth century, the vanguard new art coming out the United States fused ideas about modern art coming from Europe and South America with influences culled from the United States’s unique culture and scenery. For early American modernists like Georgia O’Keeffe and Josephine Crawford, America’s energetic cities and widely varied terrain offered intriguing new ground for artistic experimentation. O’Keeffe drew upon the Southwest’s distinctive landscape and influences from Native American and Mexican art to create strikingly modern paintings like My Backyard, 1937. During the same period, O’Keeffe’s contemporary Josephine Crawford incorporated the modern forms and styles she encountered in Paris into paintings of New Orleans like Her First Communion, 1935, causing The Times-Picayune to praise Crawford as “a painter not [ just] for New Orleans, but the world.” In the wake of World War II, American artists achieved international acclaim for their daring new approaches to abstract painting. To many, the boldly expressive paintings of artists like Jackson Pollock and Sam Francis seemed the apotheosis of American post-war vitality and strength. To create his famous “drip” paintings of the 1940s, Pollock flung and poured industrial house paint straight from the can onto canvases laid on the floor. After studying in Paris and Japan in the 1950s, the California-born painter Sam Francis developed a signature “open” painting style in which he painted only around the edges and left broad expanses of pure white color running down the center of his canvases. This gives his paintings an astonishing level of depth and dimensionality that makes them seem almost sculptural, as if they might open out into real space.
Georgia O’Keeffe, My Backyard, 1937, Museum purchase, City of New Orleans Capital Funds, 73.8 © 2015 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
“American artists have shown the country to be a place defined by nothing so much as its diversity”
John Singleton Copley, Portrait of Colonel George Watson (1718 – 1800), 1768, Museum purchase and gift, by exchange, of Isaac Cline, Herman E. Cooper, F. Julius Dreyfous, Durand-Ruel & Sons, and Lora Tortue, 77.37
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Josephine Marien Crawford, Her First Communion, 1935, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard B. Kaufmann in honor of E. John Bullard, 93.167
In the 1960s and 1970s, American artists like Frank Stella and John T. Scott looked towards performance, dance, and music for inspiration for new forms of contemporary art. Stella’s Scramble: Ascending Yellow Values, Descending Spectrum, 1978 takes its title from his 1967 collaboration with modern dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, for whom Stella designed sets. The painting’s rhythmic ascending and descending planes of color reflect the influence of music and dance, animating Stella’s otherwise minimal squares of color with a spirit of motion and dynamism. During this same period, New Orleans artist John T. Scott brought together influences from African, Caribbean and African-American music and culture to create vibrantly colored kinetic sculptures like Alanda’s Dream Tree, 1985 (see back inside cover). Incorporating elements of performance, music and dance into their paintings and sculptures, Stella and Scott looked ahead to increasingly experimental forms of contemporary American art. For the last two centuries, American artists have captured many different conceptions of the country and its people. Working in places as far afield as New York, New Orleans and New Mexico—and Paris, Tokyo and Havana—American artists have shown the country to be a place defined by nothing so much as its diversity, offering visions of the United States that continue to animate and inspire artists working today.
Katie Pfohl, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art
Visions of US: American Art at NOMA will be on view in the Ella West Freeman Galleries from November 14, 2015 – January 24, 2016. The 2015 Odyssey Ball will serve as the premier viewing of this exhibition. For more information on tickets to Odyssey, please visit noma.org.
Frank Stella, Scramble: Ascending Yellow Values, Descending Spectrum, 1978, Promised gift of Donna Perret Rosen and Benjamin M. Rosen, EL.2011.234© 2015 Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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VISIT
N E W P R O GR A M AT NOM A FOR V ISI T OR S W I T H DE M E N T I A
Seated in front of Gustave Doré’s The Matterhorn, 1873, docent Joanna Giorlando explored the theme of landscapes in NOMA’s nineteenth century galleries with a group of eight visitors. Joanna steered the conversation, never rushing, and carefully reiterated guests’ responses so that all could hear. The group considered how it might feel to be on the mountain, what sounds they would hear, and what they might see in the distance. Joanna’s tour was part of Artful Minds at NOMA, a pilot program offered for the first time in New Orleans this summer. Artful Minds is an art observation program that fosters communication and connections through visual art for people living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias and their caregivers. Based on successful programs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Studio Museum of Harlem in New York, Artful Minds addresses the need in New Orleans for programs for the community’s aging population. NOMA launched the program in partnership with Poydras Home, a New Orleans retirement community. Twelve residents of Poydras Home visited NOMA twice per month in June, July, and August with their caregivers. For each one hour visit, NOMA docents led small groups on themed tours, and encouraged participation by asking questions and going at a relaxed pace. Jerry Friedler attended Artful Minds with his wife Cecille and says, “It was a new, interesting way to look at art. The docents were very skilled in not lecturing but asking attendees what they were seeing and being flexible in accepting answers.” Docents employed new techniques for engaging visitors that were explored during a three-day training session in
May. Dr. Nicholas Bazan, Professor and Director of the Neuroscience Center of Excellence at LSU Health New Orleans addressed the workshop participants on the science of dementia. A leader in his field and pioneer in integrating art and medicine for memory loss patients, Dr. Bazan believes that “art is a commanding medium for stimulating connections and function within the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.” The program has proved rewarding to participants, caregivers, and docents. “I have witnessed an increase in social interaction, concentration, and vocalization in our residents participating in Artful Minds at NOMA,” explains Poydras Home Vice-President of Resident Services Erin Kolb, MSW, LCSW, NFA. “The therapeutic benefits gained in the program positively impact the overall quality of their day long after they’ve left the museum setting.” Participant Betty Lou Tranchina attended with her daughter Lynn Meade, who claims, “It has been such a delight to watch my mom respond to art. It was truly heartwarming to see her feel so proud to verbalize her opinions and have them validated by the docents.” Results of the pilot program are currently being evaluated and NOMA hopes to make Artful Minds available to the greater community in the coming months. Docent Joanna Giorlando looks forward to the tours: “Observing the residents and caretakers becoming engrossed in color, movement, form and space along with the shared story of the work of art creates a lively discussion. How can this not be enriching for everyone?”
Artful Minds at NOMA is sponsored by Tripp Friedler, Boysie Bollinger, Hermie Kohlmeyer, and Merritt Lane. Additional support is provided by Sandy Villere, Jim Pellerin, and other donors.
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LEARN
T H E W I N T E R’ S
TA L E AT NOM A
Questions of loyalty, faithfulness, redemption and more are explored in one of Shakespeare’s most beautiful and haunting plays, The Winter’s Tale, produced by NOMA and The NOLA Project and opening at NOMA this December. Directed by NOLA Project Artistic Director A.J. Allegra, this play tells the story of a king driven mad by suspicion and jealousy who loses everything and must find forgiveness in his heart in order to regain his life’s most valuable possession: the love of his family. This later play by Shakespeare is rich with powerful verse and tinged with magical elements well-associated with the Bard’s last few written works. This is a wonderful play for the holidays and a welcome story of redemption from a man not named Scrooge. The production will be presented in NOMA’s Great Hall, which will be transformed into the worlds of Sicilia and Bohemia. As seen in previous performances at NOMA like Romeo & Juliet and Twelfth Night, The NOLA Project has become masters of delighting audiences with bold and innovative staging, and this holiday production will be no different. Tickets will be available for purchase online at noma.eventbrite.com, and at NOMA’s front desk during museum hours.
Running December 1–20$30 | General admission$20 | NOMA and The NOLA Project members$15 | University students and children ages 7-17
T R A NS FOR M AT I V E GI F T
SU P P ORTS E A R LY E DUCAT ION
The New Orleans Museum of Art is pleased to announce a recent gift from Janice Parmelee and Bill Hammack to support the continued development and growth of Mini Masters, the museum’s noted early childhood education program. This pilot program introduces pre-K students to visual arts, while training educators to use works of art as tools for teaching, and striving to capture parents’ interest in the earliest phase of their child’s formal education. Mini Masters was launched by the museum in partnership with the Tulane University Teacher Preparation & Certification Program, the Bayou District Foundation, Educare, and Kingsley House. Free for families, Mini Masters offers developmentally appropriate experiences that link works of art in NOMA’s permanent collection to literacy, language arts, science, and math concepts. Activities take place throughout the school year, and include professional development workshops for educators; in-classroom lessons,
studio art activities, and multiple museum visits for students; and an end-of-year showcase of student artwork for parents and families at NOMA. Currently in its third year, Mini Masters is active at three partner sites in New Orleans—Educare Learning Center in Gentilly’s Columbia Parc, ReNew Cultural Arts Academy in the Irish Channel, and Wilcox Academy of Early Learning in the Seventh Ward. The initiative has shown heartening growth since its inception—from 32 students in year one to 113 students today. With this transformative gift, NOMA hopes to double the number of students served next year. “We are trying to make a difference in the lives of our community’s most vulnerable children,” said Parmelee and Hammack. “And NOMA’s Mini Masters program specifically supports early childhood education. This program will open doors and give under-resourced children an opportunity to experience art and assist them developmentally in a way we never imagined. We will be thrilled to see the program grow!”
Bill Hammack and Janice Parmelee
16 Arts Quarterly New Orleans Museum of Art
Foundation and Government Support
$500,000 and aboveCollins C. Diboll Private Foundation
$200,000 - $499,999The Azby Fund
The Elise M. Besthoff Charitable Foundation
The Gulf Seafood and Tourism Promotional Fund
The Harry T. Howard III Foundation
The Helis Foundation
$150,000 - $199,999City of New Orleans
$100,000 - $149,000Ella West Freeman Foundation
The Ford Foundation
Lois and Lloyd Hawkins Jr. Foundation
$50,000 - $99,999 American Council of Learned Societies
The RosaMary Foundation
The Selley Foundation
Zemurray Foundation
DONOR S
The New Orleans Museum of Art gratefully acknowledges our donors, who make our exhibitions, programming, and daily operations possible. We appreciate your continued support of NOMA and its mission. Thank you!
SUPPORT
$20,000 - $49,999 Eugenie and Joseph Jones Family
Foundation
The Institute of Museum and Library Sciences
Louisiana Division of the Arts
The Lupin Foundation
Samuel H. Kress Foundation
$10,000 - $19,999The Garden Study Club of New Orleans
Goldring Family Foundation
John B. Harter Charitable Foundation
Lee and Jeffrey Feil Family Foundation, Inc.
New Orleans Theater Association
Times-Picayune Classroom Enrichment Program Fund
Ruby K. Worner Charitable Trust
Corporate and Individual Support
$100,000 and aboveGayle and Tom Benson
Sydney and Walda Besthoff
IBERIABANK
Estate of Frances T. Kreihs
Estate of Françoise Billion Richardson
$50,000 - $99,999Joshua Mann Pailet
Janice Parmelee and Bill Hammack
Sheila and H. Britton Sanderford
Phyllis M. Taylor
WDSU-TV
Whitney Bank
$20,000 - $49,999Chevron
Minnie and Jimmy Coleman
Regions Bank
$10,000 - $19,000Anonymous (3)
Mary and Larry Antonini
Mr. and Mrs. John Bertuzzi
Lynne A. Burkart
Capital One
First NBC Bank
Juli Miller Hart
Coya and Frank Levy
Lexus of New Orleans
Elizabeth and Willy Monaghan
Peoples Health
Tia and Jimmy Roddy
Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen
Josephine Sacabo
Mike and Aimee Siegel
Melanee and Steve Usdin
Dawn Wheelahan
NOM A BUSINESS COUNCIL
PlatinumHyatt Regency New Orleans
GoldChevron
Jones Walker
Frank B. Stewart, Jr.
SapphireBayou Lacombe Construction
Company
SilverBellwether Technology
Corporate Realty
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
Phelps Dunbar, LLP
World Trade Center of New Orleans
BronzeCrescent Capital Consulting
Eskew + Dumez + Ripple
First NBC Bank
Kim Starr Wise Floral Events
Solomon Group
Brenda Moffitt, Chair
Wayne F. Amedee
Anne Baños
Penny Baumer Jr.
Darryl D. Berger
Valerie Besthoff
Scott Chotin Jr.
Marjorie J. Colomb
Kent Davis
George B. Dunbar
Carmen L. Duncan
Sybil Favrot
Natalie Fielding
Glendy Forster
David Francis
Linda Friedman
Ruthie Frierson
Anne Barrios Gauthier
Elizabeth Goodyear
Yvette Jones
Anila Keswani
Lee H. Ledbetter
Pam Lupin
Marion Andrus McCollam
Elizabeth Monaghan
Andrée K. Moss
Melissa Phipps
Sally E. Richards
Tia Roddy
Mark C. Romig
Pamela Reynolds Ryan
Robyn Dunn Schwarz
Elise Shelton-Daly
Holly Sharp Snodgrass
Jane B. Steiner
Anne Reily Sutherlin
Jude Swenson
Catherine Burns Tremaine
Kate Werner
Nan S. Wier
NOM A DIR ECTOR’S COUNCIL
For more information about supporting NOMA, please contact Brooke Minto at 504.658.4107 or [email protected].
GreenBasin St. Station
Boh Bros. Construction Company, LLC
Dupuy Storage & Forwarding, LLC
Ernst & Young
Gulf Coast Bank & Trust Company
Hammack, Hammack, Jones, LLC
Hotel Monteleone
Johnson Rice and Company, LLC
Laitram, LLC
Neal Auction Company
New Orleans Auction Galleries
Premium Parking Service
Reily Foods Company
Transoceanic Development, LLC
Whitney Bank
17www.noma.org
Anila Keswani
Lee H. Ledbetter
Pam Lupin
Marion Andrus McCollam
Elizabeth Monaghan
Andrée K. Moss
Melissa Phipps
Sally E. Richards
Tia Roddy
Mark C. Romig
Pamela Reynolds Ryan
Robyn Dunn Schwarz
Elise Shelton-Daly
Holly Sharp Snodgrass
Jane B. Steiner
Anne Reily Sutherlin
Jude Swenson
Catherine Burns Tremaine
Kate Werner
Nan S. Wier
NOM A CIRCLES
President’s CircleMr. and Mrs. Sydney J. Besthoff III
Mr. and Mrs. Ralph O. Brennan
Mr. and Mrs. David F. Edwards
Mrs. Lawrence D. Garvey
Ms. Adrea D. Heebe and Mr. Dominick A. Russo Jr.
Mr. and Mrs. Charles B. Mayer
Mrs. Robert Nims
Jolie and Robert Shelton
Mr. and Mrs. Stephen C. Sherrill
Mrs. Patrick F. Taylor
Director’s CircleMr. and Mrs. Herschel L. Abbott Jr.
Mr. and Mrs. John D. Bertuzzi
Mr. Daryl G. Byrd
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas B. Coleman
Dr. and Mrs. Scott S. Cowen
Ms. Deborah Augustine Elam and Mr. Cary Grant
Mrs. H. Mortimer Favrot Jr.
Ms. Tina Freeman and Mr. Philip Woollam
Mr. Jerry Heymann
Mr. Robert Hinckley
Mr. and Mrs. Michael D. Moffitt
Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Patrick
Mrs. Charles S. Reily Jr.
Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin M. Rosen
Ms. Debra B. Shriver
Mr. and Mrs. Michael J. Siegel
Mr. and Mrs. Bruce L. Soltis
Mrs. Harold H. Stream Jr.
Mr. and Mrs. Robert S. Taylor
Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Thomas
Patron’s CircleDr. Ronald G. Amedee and Dr.
Elisabeth H. Rareshide
Mr. Brent Barriere and Ms. Judy Barrasso
Mr. and Mrs. Alvin Baumer Jr.
Dr. Siddharth K. Bhansali
Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. Boh
Ms. Dorothy Brennan
Dr. and Mrs. Isidore Cohn Jr.
Mrs. Marjorie J. Colomb
Mr. Leonard A. Davis and Ms. Sharon Jacobs
Mr. and Mrs. James J. Frischhertz
Mr. and Mrs. Edward N. George
Mr. and Mrs. Charles W. Goodyear
Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Heebe
Mr. and Mrs. Pres Kabacoff
Mr. and Mrs. H. Merritt Lane III
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas B. Lemann
Dr. Edward D. Levy Jr.
Mr. and Mrs. J. Thomas Lewis
Ms. Elizabeth Livingston
Ms. Kay McArdle
Mr. and Mrs. R. King Milling
Mrs. Louise Moffett
Dr. and Mrs. Pavan Narra
Dr. Howard and Dr. Joy D. Osofsky
Mr. Joshua Pailet
Dr. and Mrs. James F. Pierce
Ms. Sally E. Richards
Mr. and Mrs. James C. Roddy
Mr. and Mrs. Brian A. Schneider
Mr. and Mrs. David P. Schulingkamp
Mr. and Mrs. Edward Shearer
Ms. E. Alexandra Stafford and Mr. Raymond M. Rathle Jr.
Mrs. Frederick M. Stafford
Dr. and Mrs. Richard L. Strub
Mr. and Mrs. Stephen F. Stumpf Jr.
Mr. and Mrs. James L. Taylor
Ms. Catherine Burns Tremaine
Mr. and Mrs. Steven W. Usdin
Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Brent Wood
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SAVE THE DATEThe annual Fellows Dinner will be held on March 5, 2016.
E X P E R I E NC E
DIGI TA L NOM A
NOMA recently introduced new technology in museum galleries, creating interactive learning experiences to engage visitors of all ages. “The NOMA Mobile Guide and ARTtab are powerful tools for interpretation and education which will allow NOMA to make the museum experience more interactive for our audiences,” said Susan M. Taylor, NOMA’s director. The NOMA Mobile Guide, accessible from a smartphone or other mobile device, features three curated tours through the museum and scuplture garden. “NOMA Highlights” includes must-see works from the permanent collection, “Global Treasures” showcases NOMA’s collections from around the world, and “Sculpture Garden” features selections from the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden. With the NOMA Mobile Guide, guests can plan their visit to NOMA, learn about upcoming events, and share their NOMA experience through social media. NOMA will add new tours and program information to the guide to coincide with new exhibitions and events. Visitors can access the guide three ways: text “noma” to 99-000, visit bit.ly/nomaguide, or scan a QR code located at the admissions desk. ARTtab kiosks are located in galleries near key works of art and allow visitors to explore multiple layers of rich interpretive content. ARTtab places visitors in control of a wealth of information, allowing individuals to customize their experience according to their interests. The simple touch screen empowers visitors to delve more deeply into the work of art and the story behind it with multimedia content. Visitors are invited to “Share Your Thoughts” on a screen that encourages reflection.
18 Arts Quarterly New Orleans Museum of Art
SUPPORT
On September 25, over 1,200 revelers came to support NOMA at LOVE in the Garden, presented by Regions Bank. Co-chairs Robyn and Andrew Schwarz and Margaret and Pierre Villere organized the most successful LOVE fundraiser to date, which featured cuisine from nearly seventy New Orleans restaurants and caterers, and entertainment by Helen Gillet, MoJeaux, and DJ Jubilee. This year’s event honored New Orleans artists Dawn DeDeaux, Susan Gisleson, Tina Freeman, Delaney Martin, and Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun. Guests also enjoyed and voted on the LOVE Cocktail Challenge, which
F R I E N D S OF NOM A
C E L E B R AT E
AT L OV E I N
T H E GA R DE NP
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BY
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1. Walda and Sydney Besthoff
2. Susan Gisleson, Dawn DeDeaux, Keith Calhoun, Chandra McCormick, Tina Freeman, Delaney Martin
3. Robyn Schwarz, Joni Diaz, Margaret Villere
4. Casi Francis, Mandie Landry, Taylor Morgan
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pitted some of the city’s best bartenders against each other as they created original cocktails that demonstrated their own interpretations of love. Special thanks to our Presenting sponsor Regions Bank, along with Silver sponsors the Kabacoff Family Foundation, Lexus of New Orleans and NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune; Bronze sponsors Sydney and Walda Besthoff, Chevron, J. Edgar Monroe Foundation, and Whitney Bank; Media sponsors Edible New Orleans, Lamar Advertising, The Scout Guide, and WWL; and all other supporters at every level. Special thanks also to our event partner Uber.
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PAT T I AUST I N T O P E R FOR M AT T H E 4 9 T H A N N UA L ODY S S E Y B A L L
Grammy winner Patti Austin crosses all musical genres, has seventeen solo albums, and has performed on the Grammys and the Oscars. As a performer, songwriter and vocalist her star-studded career has spanned decades, making her one of the most beloved artists in the world and a mainstay on the Billboard Jazz Albums charts. On November 13, Austin will perform for guests of the 2015 Odyssey Ball fundraiser at NOMA. This annual black-tie celebration, which raises funds for NOMA’s exhibitions, initiatives, and programs, will feature a seated dinner in the Great Hall hosted by event chairs Robin Burgess and Terence Blanchard. This year’s Odyssey, presented by IBERIABANK and WDSU-TV, also serves as the premier viewing of Visions of US: American Art at NOMA, featuring works by Ansel Adams, John Singleton Copley, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, John Singer Sargent, Andy Warhol and others. The night will close with an after party presented by Chevron featuring DJ Soul Sister. Arts Quarterly spoke with Austin about her career and upcoming performance. To purchase tickets, visit noma.org or contact 504.658.4163.
You grew up surrounded by legendary musicians: your godparents, Quincy Jones and Dinah Washington, your father, jazz trombonist Gordon Austin…what was that like?
The older I get the more I realize the magnitude of the company I kept at that time, and how influential it was on me. But you know, when you’re in a painting you can’t see it. But now, I just think, “Oh my god, Dinah Washington was my godmother! What the hell does that mean?!” Sammy Davis Jr. was one of the first people to encourage me in my career other than Dinah and Quincy. There was also Ray Bolger, Rosemary Clooney, Mel Tormé… These are the kind of people I
got to work with when I was coming up in this business, so I got a grade-A education, one that never ceases. When you think you’ve learned everything you can do on stage, you have a moment like I had last year, when I had the honor of opening for Smokey Robinson in the Bay Area. I had finished my show and stayed to watch his, and I think that’s when I finally got my doctorate degree. It was just amazing. I’m blessed to have come up at a time when every innovator in this business was still alive and still doing it.
What keeps you motivated as an entertainer today?
I am extremely blessed that I get to sing all over the world. I just came back from Poland. The people there are lovely, and they love jazz. They love jazz in Germany, Italy, all over Europe, and in Asia. One reason I love performing internationally is that audiences outside of the States tend to have a wider spectrum of music appreciation than we do here. I think a lot of it is because we don’t get the same music education in the States now than we did when I was a kid. It’s usually one of the first things cut from school budgets when the economy gets funky, along with art and athletic programs. I performed for an audience in Japan, and the demographic of the audience was between 8 and 80. Same thing happens in China, Europe, and Africa, but not in the States. I can’t do a show at a jazz festival in the States and throw some pop in there because it’s not generally acceptable. I do it anyway to prove that it doesn’t matter what the genre is, if it’s great it becomes undeniable, people get it. If I’m doing it the right way, I can make you listen to heavy metal and you’ll adore it. One of the numbers I’ve started
doing is a Depeche Mode tune. I’m working with a trio and we’ll probably do that song in New Orleans. People often say, I can’t believe you would do that kind of song, and what a cool way to do it! And that’s inspiring. I’m always trying to introduce new things to myself and explore it and learn it, and then I can share it with a broader audience.
What do you think we can do to make sure that children appreciate the arts today?
In a way, parents have to come up with a curriculum at home because the reality is that it’s not going to come all from school anymore. We have to re-adjust. I grew up in a house that was perpetually filled with music. It’s really that simple; kids are like little sponges. You want them to pick up music, keep playing music around your house. Take them to a concert if you can, watch a performance on TV together. It’s a great way to communicate with your kids, too.
The 49th Odyssey Ball7 pm – 1 am
Individual Tickets$1,000 | Patron (with premier dinner seating)$750 | Patron$150 | Young Fellows (ages 21-45)$75 | After Party
20 Arts Quarterly New Orleans Museum of Art
2015 BOA R D OF TRUSTEES
Julie George President
Sydney J. Besthoff III Vice President
Mike Siegel Vice President
Brent Wood Vice President
Herschel L. Abbott Jr. Secretary
Suzanne Thomas Treasurer
Donna Perret Rosen At-Large
Tommy Coleman At-Large
David F. Edwards Immediate Past President
MEMBER S
Justin T. Augustine III
Gail Catharine Bertuzzi
Dr. Siddharth Bhansali
Robin Burgess
Daryl Byrd
Scott Cowen
Joni Diaz
Margo DuBos
Stephanie Feoli
Penny Francis
Tina Freeman
Susan G. Guidry
Robert C. Hinckley
Mayor Mitch J. Landrieu
Dennis Lauscha
Mrs. Michael Moffitt
Janice Parmalee
J. Stephen Perry
Britton Sanderford
Jolie Shelton
Kitty Duncan Sherrill
Michael Smith
Ms. Alexandra Stafford
Susu Stall
Robert M. Steeg
Frank Stewart
Robert Taylor
Melanee Gaudin Usdin
NATIONA L TRUSTEES
Joseph Baillio
Mrs. Carmel Cohen
Mrs. Mason Granger
Jerry Heymann
Herbert Kaufman, MD
Mrs. James Pierce
Debra B. Shriver
Mrs. Billie Milam Weisman
HONOR A RY LIFE MEMBER S
H. Russell Albright, MD
Mrs. Jack R. Aron
Mrs. Edgar L. Chase Jr.
Isidore Cohn Jr., MD
Prescott N. Dunbar
S. Stewart Farnet
Sandra Draughn Freeman
Kurt A. Gitter, MD
Mrs. Erik Johnsen
Richard W. Levy, MD
Mr. J. Thomas Lewis
Mrs. Paula L. Maher
Mrs. J. Frederick Muller
Mrs. Robert Nims
Mrs. Charles S. Reily Jr.
R. Randolph Richmond Jr.
Mrs. Frederick M. Stafford
Harry C. Stahel
Mrs. Harold H. Stream
Mrs. James L. Taylor
Mrs. John N. Weinstock
ACCR EDITATION
The New Orleans Museum of Art is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
Arts Quarterly New Orleans Museum of Art
E D I TO R
Taylor Murrow
A RT D I R E CTO R
Mary Degnan
Arts Quarterly (ISSN 0740-9214) is published by the New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, LA 70124
© 2015, New Orleans Museum of Art. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or reprinted without permission of the publisher.
Facing pageJohn T. Scott, Alanda’s Dream Tree, 1985, The Muriel Bultman Francis Collection, 86.292
Back cover Bidou Yamaguchi, Jeanne, 2006, Japanese cypress, seashell, natural pigment, lacquer, 9.21 x 4.92 x 2.87 in. Collection of Kelly Sutherlin McLeod and Steve McLeod
21www.noma.org
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Arts Quarterly New Orleans Museum of Art