Close Look:

Meg Turner at Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans

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Meg Turner, installation view of Here and Now, at Contemporary Arts
Center, New Orleans, 2019. All images by Jonathan Traviesa, courtsey the artist and photographer.
Meg Turner, installation view of Here and Now, at Contemporary Arts
Center, New Orleans, 2019.
Meg Turner, installation view of Here and Now, at Contemporary Arts
Center, New Orleans, 2019.

Photographing and processing every tintypes and subsequent print by hand, Turner approaches her practice as a series of deliberate actions in the service of an alternative and ever-expanding community of care. The installation includes a hand-constructed building bearing likeness to the Smith Tire building on St. Claude Avenue and Frenchmen street in New Orleans’ Seventh Ward. Echoing the architecture of early roadside service stations and the oft-mythologized American highway, the neon lights and hand dyed wooden archway advertise its offerings for both sustenance and pleasure, free of charge.

from the accompanying exhibition text
Meg Turner, installation view of Here and Now, at Contemporary Arts
Center, New Orleans, 2019.
Meg Turner, installation view of Here and Now, at Contemporary Arts
Center, New Orleans, 2019.
Meg Turner, Griffin; Silkscreen, 21 inches by 28 inches.
Meg Turner, installation view of Here and Now, at Contemporary Arts
Center, New Orleans, 2019.

The installation, including over 100 portrait tintype of artists, activists, teachers, school mates, friends, lovers, and near-strangers, documents a self-selected community who over the past five years have elected to participate in Turner’s photographic project to advance and approach utopia. Photographed with backdrops of fantastic(al) landscapes and fabricated sets, participants and collaborators are invited to embody the politics of gender, sexuality and economic autonomy they desire. The images serve to capture both histories and imaginary worlds that expand the reach of support systems commonly and traditionally provided by immediate communities linked by school, church, family, and neighborhood.

from the accompanying exhibition text
Meg Turner, Untitled, from the series Joy Needs Water; Tintype, 4 inches by 5 inches.
Meg Turner, installation view of Here and Now, at Contemporary Arts
Center, New Orleans, 2019.
Meg Turner, Sam Nyer; Silkscreen, 21 inches by 28 inches.

Meg Turner: Here and Now was originally on view November 2, 2019 – April 12, 2020, but has been extended through June 14, 2020 due to COVID-19 closures. The CAC will re-open its galleries on a limited basis, June 1-14, 2020. Patrons must reserve tickets to attend CAC galleries in advance.

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