Some art exhibits need more than a gallery—they need a whole city. This year’s return of Prospect New Orleans, the international art biennial, is taking it a step farther by extending the art across three additional cities as well.
Baton Rouge, along with Lafayette and Hammond, will host artists, exhibitions and events as part of Prospect.3 starting this month and continuing through January.
The Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge is taking the lead on the local portion, with Elevator Projects’ Raina Wirta coordinating exhibits at more than 15 local venues.
Wirta says Prospect.3 will give visitors a chance to see how Baton Rouge artists fit into the contemporary art scene and how it affects the local community.
“I really want to make a significant impact on people’s understanding of the quality of work coming out of here,” she says. “We want to make sure that the message that’s delivered is one that embodies the collaborative spirit of the biennial itself. For Prospect, they believe that art engenders progress, and in that same spirit that’s what we do.”
For the local components, major players such as the LSU Museum of Art, the Manship Theatre and Baton Rouge Gallery are involved, as well as smaller venues like the Healthcare Gallery, Lagniappe Records and the Walls Project’s Art and Design Center.
Participating artists and collaborators include Kelli Scott Kelly, John Gray, Jennifer Carwile, LSU School of Dance, the Creative Co. and the Laptop Orchestra of Louisiana.
At the Arts Council’s Firehouse Gallery, South African artist Anja Marais will show installations, videos and more, all tied to her cultural history and personal identity.
Wirta says it’s a common thread most of the participating artists seem to be tackling. “It’s interesting, as the project has been going on, how much the themes in the artists’ works are just overlapping,” she says. “A lot of them have to do with identity, mythology, storytelling, personal narratives, ancestry, memory and childhood experiences. This is sort of crazy—all of us are going to be going down memory lane.”
A corresponding exhibit at the Louisiana Art & Science Museum features three artists known for using unique methods to create their large-scale installations. Two of the artists will demonstrate their processes for visitors during events this month and in November.
While the local exhibits will open at the same time as the biennial begins in New Orleans on Oct. 25, an opening reception will be held Nov. 15 at the Walls Project’s Art and Design Center (the local headquarters for Prospect) and within the Chase towers.
Details were being finalized at press time, but Wirta is planning a corresponding fundraising event that same night in an upstairs space of the Chase Towers to raise awareness for the arts organizations supported by the Art and Design Center, such as Elevator Projects, Build the Fire and others.
The entire Prospect.3 biennial runs Oct. 25-Jan. 25, 2015. Find out more—because there are a lot of components to this event—at prospectneworleans.org.
Back in 2008, arts curator Dan Cameron planned an art biennial in New Orleans that would encompass the entire city. From Uptown to the Lower Ninth Ward, there were art exhibits and site-specific installations in 24 venues—museums, galleries, empty lots, soon-to-be-demolished schools and even abandoned churches.
The 81 international and local artists sought to reflect the city’s history as well as its most recent struggles. Prospect.1 attracted tens of thousands to the city over three months and, according to organizers, generated $23 million in economic activity.
Because of funding issues, Prospect.2 in fall/winter 2011-2012 was paired down to 16 venues and 27 artists, but it did include its first satellite exhibition at the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette.
Prospect.3, beginning this month, will feature 58 artists at 15 venues throughout the Crescent City—in addition to concurrent exhibitions around the city (dubbed P.3+) and satellite exhibitions in Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Hammond (P.3+ Regional).
