Prospect.3: Notes for Now

The third installment of Prospect New Orleans, the International Contemporary Art Biennial, will present the work of 58 local and international artists working in all media.

In Walker Percy’s 1961 novel The Moviegoer, the protagonist Binx Bolling is consumed by “the search” in the week leading up to his thirtieth birthday.

Pointedly, the birthday falls on Ash Wednesday – the day after the most important holiday in New Orleans, Mardi Gras. Though Binx’s attendance at the carnival is peripheral, there’s much to be learned from his vantage point at the margins of the crowd.

Top: Huguette Caland, Sunrise, 1973. Oil on linen, 39.5 x 39.5 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Lombard Freid, New York. (detail). Above: Manal AlDowayan, Nassir
, 2011. Silver gelatin fibre print, 
10 x 14 inches. Edition of 3 (+ 2 AP). 
Image courtesy of the artist and Cuadro Gallery, Dubai

Bolling, a solitary moviegoer, lives his life on the margin, slowly creeping closer to the center as he embraces “the search.” He begins the book in the isolated suburbs of New Orleans, comfortably away, and apart from other people’s lives, but finds solace in the contested city by its end. The novel, set in a time of heightened social awareness in the first half of the decade’s movement for civil rights in America, delves into the depths of existentialism in a world where people were legally segregated from each other, making it impossible to celebrate the individual. “The peculiar institution” of slavery and immigration during the 18th century created a city that, even in 1961, was a complex social arrangement, one that remains palpable today. The third Prospect biennial (P.3) is invested in and will explore ‘the search’ to find the self and the necessity of the other as part of that quest.

Pieter Hugo, Escort Kama. Enugu, Nigeria, 2008. C-print fFrom the ‘Nollywood’ series 
© Pieter Hugo. Image courtesy of Stevenson, Cape Town/Johannesburg and Yossi Milo, New York

It is New Orleans’ distinct history that makes it an illuminating source of philosophical inquiry for the present. Percy, a student of Soren Kierkegaard and acolyte of Jean‐Paul Sartre, was attempting to “explore the dislocation of man in the modern age,” and certainly the physical and psychological violence we do to each other is one of the continuing facets of our species’ ‘dislocation.’ The search in Prospect.3 (P.3) also aims to further explore a philosophical inquiry on humanity, an effort to interrogate human feelings and human relationships. Recognizing the position of P.3 as a biennial‐type exhibition for the United States—passionately committed to being international in scope and weary of geographic location as something that is increasingly interchangeable in today’s world of contemporary art—Prospect.3 is, in the mode of past Prospect projects, vitally committed to the city of New Orleans.

Zarina Bhimji, still from Jangbar (working title)- Recce Notes, 2013. Single screen installation, 35mm film, HD transfer with Dolby 5.1 sound. Image courtesy of the artist

Placed at the foot of the Mississippi River on the Gulf of Mexico, New Orleans’ influx of people has been remarkable in its diversity, and unlike any other American city. As a node for thinking through global issues, New Orleans offers an example that is revelatory, generative and frictional. Guided by several curatorial themes, P.3’s exhibitions, site‐specific installations and new works will address: The New Orleans Experience, Seeing Oneself in the Other, The South, Crime and Punishment, Movie going, The Carnivalesque, Abstraction, Visual Sound, and will seamlessly tie together the largesse of the show through commissions by several artists under the moniker, All Together Now.

Jeffrey Gibson, <i>Star Quilt</i>, 2012. Quilt made by Felicia and Jeffrey Gibson. Cotton muslin, acrylic paint, steel grommets, 71 x 83 inches. Image courtesy of Samsøñ, Boston, MA
<b>Left</b>: Keith Calhoun, <i>23 Hour Lockdown, Chess Players</i>, 1980. Archival pigment print, 24 x 30 inches. Image courtesy of the artist. <b>Right</b>: Ed Clark, <i>New Orleans Series
<b>Left</b>: Andrea Fraser, <i>Um Monumento às Fantasias Descartadas</i> (A Monument to Discarded Fantasies), 2003. Brazilian carnival costumes, 13 x 13 x 10 inches. Installation view Museum Ludwig Cologne. Photo: Rheinisches Bildarchiv Cologne, Britta Schlier. Image courtesy of the artist. <b>Right</b>: Lonnie Holley, <i>African Mask</i>, 2004
. Mixed media, 42 x 38 x 10 inches. Collection of Souls Grown Deep Foundation. Photo: Stephen Pitkin / Pitkin Studio
Carrie Mae Weems, <i>Film Still from Lincoln, Lonnie and Me- A Story in 5 Parts</i>, 2012. Site-specific video installation. Run time: 18 minutes. Image courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
David Zink-Yi, <i>Still from Horror Vacui</i>, 2009. 2-channel video installation. Image courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth, London, New York, Zurich; Johann Koenig, Berlin; 80M2 Livia Benavides, Lima


from October 25, 2014 until January 25, 2015
Prospect.3
Notes for Now

Executive Director: Brooke Davis Anderson
Artistic Director: Franklin Sirmans
Founding Benefactor: Toby Devan Lewis
Prospect New Orleans
New Orleans