Blanton WorkSpace
In Katrina’s Wake
February 16 – May 25, 2008
The Blanton Museum of Art is pleased to present In Katrina’s Wake, the newest installation in the museum’s WorkSpace series. WorkSpace is a laboratory space for artists and curators that offers room within the Blanton’s spacious and elegant collections galleries to explore the latest developments in contemporary art from around the world.
Curated by Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, the Blanton’s Curator of American and Contemporary Art and Director of Curatorial Affairs, the exhibition serves as a report on the visual arts community in New Orleans post-Katrina and marks the first occasion that WorkSpace has been curated as a journalistic group show, in lieu of an individual artist commission.
In Katrina’s Wake examines responses of thirteen artists or collectives to the devastation of the storm and subsequent levee breaks in New Orleans and explores the role that artists currently play in rebuilding the community. Many resident artists and a number of those observing from outside have been moved by the urgent need for individual and community relief and recuperation and have directed their work to address these immediate social and spiritual concerns. Whether through the commissioning of new cultural experiences that provide public forums for discussion and reflection, the inauguration of creativity workshops to provide encouragement for young people, or simply the creation of works that attempt to chronicle and interpret the experience of catastrophe, artists have been valiant forces in the nascent recovery of community-wide health and the forging of a future vision.
In Katrina’s Wake features film and video, drawings, photographs, and mixed media works as well as artist-initiated community projects by artists and creative entrepreneurs Luis Cruz Azaceta, Carol Bebelle & Douglas Redd, Ron Bechet, Willie Birch, Jacqueline Bishop, Paul Chan, Dawn Dedeaux, Jan Gilbert, Jana Napoli & Rondell Crier, Kalamu ya Salaam, Cauleen Smith, and the Transforma New Orleans Resource Team (Rick Lowe, Jessica Cusick, Sam Durant, Robert Ruello, and MK Wegmann). In addition to works of art, documentary videos, and descriptive texts, a resource table offers links to relevant websites and binders of related readings and materials.
WorkSpace: In Katrina’s Wake is generously supported by members of the Blanton Contemporary Salon.
