Prospect.3 curator Franklin Sirmans has put forth the exhibition’s theme in the question: how does one get to know the other? The implicit answer is: through art. Gauguin and Brazilian modernist Tarsila do Amaral are his historical touchstones for this question. The commonplace view of Gauguin has him reenacting white colonialism by moving to Tahiti … Continued
I’m a sucker for a good video. I’ve always loved both art and music, so when you put the two together in the form of a video, I’m in. I love the way Paul Thomas Anderson—director of 1997’s Boogie Nights and the new Inherent Vice—uses music in his movies. When I was a teenager, I … Continued
At first, everyone was taken aback. A woman dressed in a suit was standing at the lectern, and she was asking someone in the back of the auditorium at the New Orleans Museum of Art to quiet down. It’s true that the place was very crowded, and everyone was chatting while they waited for the … Continued
The third incarnation of the New Orleans international art biennial “Prospect.3: Notes for Now,” curated by Franklin Sirmans of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, was framed in part by the 1961 novel The Moviegoer by Louisiana author Walker Percy. In the novel, the protagonist, Binx Bolling, undergoes an existential examination of the self, … Continued
Prospect.3 opened in New Orleans last weekend with four days of events that were at times celebratory, reflective, maddening, and definitely exhausting. Thursday and Friday were preview days for the press and VIPs, while Saturday and Sunday were the first days that the exhibition was open to the public. Spread out all over the city, … Continued
It was a blue-sky day as I was driving along Bayou St. John and City Park toward the library for P.3 Reads, the Prospect Biennial’s version of a book club, one of those October days that remind us New Orleans residents just why we love the city. The surface of the water was perfectly calm, … Continued
All eyes are on New Orleans as the countdown for the international biennial Prospect.3 is under way (literally, its website has a countdown clock). Los Angeles County Museum of Art curator Franklin Sirmans has steered the third installment of the Crescent City biennial, the first to do so since founder Dan Cameron’s controversial stint as … Continued
Prospect.3, the quasi-biennial exhibition that takes place in and around New Orleans, has announced the 58 artists and collectives who will be included in this year’s survey, scheduled for October 25, 2014 through January 25, 2015. This iteration is curated by Franklin Sirmans, contemporary curator at the Los Angles County Museum of Art, who has … Continued
Carrie Mae Weem’s well-known series resurfaces near the Sea Islands in Savannah, 26 years after the photos were taken.
