The spectacle of Halloween will barely be over before the international art triennial Prospect.6 begins. But there’s still a bit of witchcraft to kick-off the opening weekend’s busy schedule of performances and events.
“Magic Maids” is a performance piece by Filipino dancer and choreographer Eisa Jocson and Sri Lankan performance artist Venuri Perera. The two wear black dresses and swish brooms between their legs, almost like riding the broomsticks. But they’re brushing drifts of turmeric and other aromatic spices in the ritual.
“It brings together their research into the histories of witchcraft and women persecuted as witches and histories of labor migration,” says Prospect.6 co-artistic director Miranda Lash.
It explores the villainization and power of women from countries like the Philippines and Sri Lanka as they’ve come to Western countries as laborers. Jocson and Perera will perform the piece twice at the New Marigny Theatre on Friday, Nov. 1, and a video version of it will be on display through Prospect.6’s end at the Ford Motor Plant site in Arabi. The women also will do an opening weekend workshop for women and female-identifying participants that they have dubbed Broomology 101.
Prospect.6 is the sixth iteration of Prospect New Orleans, the multi-venue international art exhibition launched by Dan Cameron in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The expo is titled “The Future is Present, The Harbinger is Home” and runs from Saturday, Nov. 2, to Feb. 2, 2025. Some of the major themes include looking at how the effects of climate change are already here, New Orleans’ ties to the rest of the world, the notion of home as an idea people carry with them as they move and migrate, and more.
Prospect.6 features 51 artists from across the globe at venues including museums and arts centers like the New Orleans Museum of Art, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Contemporary Arts Center and Newcomb Art Museum, as well as smaller galleries and nontraditional art venues, plus outdoor installations. The roster includes Mel Chin, Christopher Cozier, Joan Jonas, Abigail DeVille, Joiri Minaya, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Tuan Mami and more. Philippines-born Stephanie Syjuco will create large-scale wheat-paste images recalling the lost fishing village or St. Malo. Danish artist Jeannette Ehlers has created sculptures using braided synthetic Black hair.
Lash was the curator of contemporary art at the New Orleans Museum of Art when Prospect was launched. She’s now a senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. Co-artistic director Ebony G. Patterson is a painter from Kingston, Jamaica, currently based in Chicago. Her work was included in Prospect.3, and both Lash and Patterson were on the curatorial advisory council of Prospect.4.
Lash and Patterson are taking a similar approach to Cameron.
“He said you have to dream big. You have to think on an international scale,” Lash says. “One of the only prompts a biennial or triennial offers is that it should be ambitious.”
The two curators have emphasized new work, which includes 42 of the 51 artists doing new commissioned pieces. There’s also a big emphasis on performances on opening and closing weekends. And there will be numerous large-scale, eye-catching exhibitions in public spaces.
One of the last pieces installed for Prospect.5 was Simone Leigh’s “Sentinel,” a statue of an African goddess enwrapped by a snake at Harmony Circle.
Prospect.6 will begin at Harmony Circle with the installation of a new sculpture by Mexican-born multimedia artist and musician Raul de Nieves. His piece is titled “The Sacred Heart of Hours and the Trees of Yesterdays, Today and Tomorrow,” which contemplates what could be memorialized on the circle. On Halloween, there will be a performance titled “Love Burst,” which will feature the drag wrestling group Chokehole, local performer and educator Antonio Garza and more.
There are several music-based performances on opening weekend. L. Kasimu Harris, who is known for his photos of Black-owned bars in New Orleans, will display work at Sweet Lorraine’s jazz club, and there is a performance by Delfeayo Marsalis’ Uptown Jazz Orchestra at 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 2. New Orleans native Ashley Teamer leads a performance and talk titled “Tambourine Cypher Part 1” about the simple percussion piece’s significance in New Orleans and its roots and ties to culture elsewhere. The event is 10 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 2, at Tulane University’s Freeman Auditorium. Quintron will lead a performance with his environmentally activated Weather Warlock near the Music Box Village at 6 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 3, and it’ll be followed by breakfast at the Music Box.
The roster of artists includes several based in New Orleans. While some visiting artists doing work may reference New Orleans, many were chosen because of the way their work resonates with the city’s history or people. There are numerous artists from Vietnam and South Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean.
Ronald Cyrille, aka B. Bird, is a painter and sculptor from Guadeloupe. He is known for paintings and hybridized painting/sculptures depicting birds, often in works questioning or dispelling the narrative of the Caribbean as floral paradise, and taking more nuanced views of the region’s culture and history. His work will be on display at Merchant House just outside the Warehouse District. That space will also house the Prospect.6 visitor center, where there will be information on triennial, a guidebook with recommendations for exploring its 22 venues and spaces, and more.
Opening weekend also features the Prospect.6 gala at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 1, at the Sugar Mill.
For more about Prospect.6, go to prospect6.org.
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Publish date : 2024-10-25 02:00:00
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