Changing Course: Reflections on New Orleans Histories
Co-Curated by Brian Piper, Russell Lord, Katie Pfohl and Allison K. YoungJanuary 24 - April 19, 2019
New Orleans Museum of Art
Katrina Andry, Willie Birch, Lesley Dill, Skylar Fein, L. Kasimu Harris, The Everyday Projects, The Propeller Group
Changing Course: Reflections on New Orleans Histories marks the 2018 New Orleans Tricentennial by bringing together a group of seven contemporary art projects that focus on forgotten or marginalized histories of the city. Projects by artists Katrina Andry, Willie Birch, Lesley Dill, Skylar Fein, L. Kasimu Harris, The Everyday Projects and The Propeller Group each shed light on the past while also looking towards the future, returning to defining moments in New Orleans’ history that continue to frame art and life in the city today. Reflecting on how these histories have shaped our responses to present-day issues and concerns, the included projects also consider how returning to the past can help spur evolution and change, and make a lasting positive impact on the city. During a year of celebration and remembrance, Changing Course invites the city to consider how the act of commemoration can also be a form of forward thinking: a rejoinder to the present that might also change the course of things to come.
Two additional project components offer spaces for reflection about how these New Orleans histories impact different communities across the city, and spur conversations about how we might use art to shape the city’s future. Willie Birch’s installation will frame an evolving discussion platform at NOMA, one that also refers museum visitors to associated artwork and performances staged offsite at a community driven arts-space Birch is creating in New Orleans’ Seventh Ward. The Everyday Projects, a collective of photojournalists who use social media platforms to combat media-driven representations of communities worldwide, will bring their Pulitzer Center-sponsored curriculum to New Orleans. In collaboration with NOMA and the New Orleans Photo Alliance, this outreach program seeks to encourage participants to use photography to share their unique perspectives on life in their neighborhoods throughout Greater New Orleans.
Selected Press
Jennifer Nalewicki for Smithsonian Magazine
From June 29 through September 16, the multi-artist exhibition focuses on “forgotten or marginalized histories of the city” and recognizes the people and events that helped to weave the social fabric that makes New Orleans the city that it is today. For the exhibition, a team of curators tapped seven artists—all of whom either live in or have a connection to the city—with the intent of having them create contemporary art projects that highlight the city’s past while also looking to its future.“We started working a year ago to conceptualize and put together an exhibit that’s geared toward the city’s tricentennial, but also provides some new ways of thinking about it,” Brian Piper, the Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow for Photography at NOMA, tells Smithsonian.com. “We really leaned into this idea that New Orleans is a city of multiple histories that are in some ways discreet, but they’re all connected. We also wanted to include a number of voices and communities from the past that have either been forgotten or marginalized from the mainstream historical narrative of the city. We’re interested in getting these histories into the museum and using NOMA as an institution to boost their signal and remind ourselves that all of these histories—some of which are difficult to think about and painful to remember—need to be part of the tricentennial story too.” Read More
Shannon Sims for the New York Times
“In 1973, the UpStairs Lounge, a bar in the French Quarter here, went up in flames one hot summer night. Thirty-one men and one woman died in what was then the largest mass killing of gay people in American history. (The Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla., which killed 49 people, took that grim title in 2016.) Long considered arson, the case remains unsolved; the prime suspect, who was never charged, committed suicide a year after the fire. As time passed, little attention was paid to the victims. Now an exhibition by the artist Skylar Fein is shedding light on this macabre and overlooked episode. It is part of a new show at the New Orleans Museum of Art, “Changing Course: Reflections on New Orleans Histories,” a collection of seven projects that, through September, puts the city’s marginalized communities at the forefront of this institution.” Read More
Benjamin Morris for Pelican Bomb
“Rivers naturally change course over time, but what does it mean for a city to do the same? How long does it take, and who and what are the driving forces involved? In one respect, “Changing Course” seeks to address (if not remedy) the injustices of the past by offering an opportunity for marginalized communities to come together under one roof, and to champion the enduring aspects of their history—a hugely ambitious project whose ambition can and should be recognized. Whether a single exhibition can overturn three centuries is up for debate, but it is undeniable that within its spaces a fresh perspective emerges: a vision that foregrounds how easily communities can be overlooked by political, economic, and even mnemonic forces—and just how much the city stands to lose should this continue to be the case.” Read More
Interview with Brian Friedman for WWNO
“NOMA is celebrating the tricentennial with a new exhibit called Changing Course, which brings together seven contemporary art projects focusing on forgotten or marginalized aspects of the city’s history. NolaVie’s Brian Friedman invited NOMA’s Allison Young into the studio for a preview of the exhibit.” Listen here
Nic Brierre Aziz for Re-Picture
“After greeting visitors at the entrance of City Park for more than 100 years, the statue honoring Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard was removed from its pedestal in May 2017. It was one of four statues that were removed across the city that year, marking a momentous shift in the city and country’s relationship to white supremacy. (The other three were statues honoring Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, and a monument dedicated to a white supremacist attack on police during Reconstruction.) In July of this year the pedestal that held up the Beauregard statue was removed, truly marking the end of this New Orleans emblem. As construction workers removed the Beauregard pedestal, a fitting banner hung in the background, showing an image of four African-American children next to the words “Changing Course.” The photo of the children, taken by photographer L. Kasimu Harris in 2015, was one of 11 pieces from him featured in the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) exhibition, Changing Course: Reflections on New Orleans Histories.” Read More
Erica Rawles for Hyperallergic
Art museums have historically been tailored to the white and wealthy — determined by their location within a city, the demographics of the museum staff, the art on display and the predominately white, male artists that created it. But what about the design of the museum building itself? How can a museum’s physicality influence the way people engage with it? Read More
Erin Jane Nelson for Burnaway
“Many institutions have been reckoning with the violent and troubled colonial histories tied to their collections and the regions where they are located, but “Changing Course” at NOMA, organized as part of the city’s tricentennial year, stands out as an earnest and brave attempt at allowing artists and artworks (rather than institutional positioning) to do the work of re-shaping narratives. I am still haunted by the Propeller Group’s The Living Need Light, The Dead Need Music (2014) and Skylar Fein’s memorial to the Upstairs Lounge arson, the deadliest attack on the queer community in the U.S. until the Orlando nightclub shooting in 2016.” Read More
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