New Orleans (February 21, 2020) – On view at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art from March 14 to September 27, 2020 is Revelations: Recent Photography Acquisitions, an exhibition of more than 70 photographic works by 39 artists, designed as a sweeping survey of documentary and fine art photographic traditions practiced in the American South from the early 20th century to the present.
Revelations presents acquisitions added to the Ogden Museum’s permanent collection since 2011, focusing attention on emerging and underrepresented photographers from the American South alongside recognized masters of the medium.
“This exhibition emphasizes the Museum’s mission to increase the awareness of the American South’s impactful contributions to photography,” says Richard McCabe, Ogden Museum Curator of Photography. “Revelations will highlight an array of intertwined themes, linking documentation of the Great Depression captured by the photographs of Walker Evans, to today’s devastating environmental catastrophes captured by Kael Alford.”
Walker Evans, recognized as one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, inspired generations of artists through his documentary style photographs of the American social landscape. Walker’s photographs taken during the Depression era captured the vernacular of rural communities and has become synonymous with the nation’s visual history of the event.
In 2018, the Museum acquired over a dozen photos from Alford, who was featured in the Museum’s major exhibition, New Southern Photography (2018-19). Alford’s series is saturated with the personality and charm of coastal Louisiana, while also exposing the recent loss and devastation that has plagued the Southern coast.
Photographers included: Keith Calhoun, William Christenberry, Lee Deigaard, Walker Evans, Debbie Fleming Caffrey, Aaron Hardin, Lewis W. Hine, Birney Imes, Dorothea Lange, Sally Mann, Andrew Moore, Chandra McCormick, RaMell Ross, Ernest Withers and others.
Opening later in the month on March 28 is the exhibition, Entwined: Ritual Wrapping and Binding in Contemporary Southern Art. This exhibition will present over 50 work by 11 artists who vary drastically in technique and process, but are connected by commonalities in their work – ritualist practices as a symbolic aesthetic device.
ABOUT THE OGDEN MUSEUM OF SOUTHERN ART
Located in the vibrant Warehouse Arts District of downtown New Orleans, Louisiana since 1999, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art welcomes 85,000 visitors annually to experience and learn about the artists and art movements of the American South. It is home to a collection of more than four thousand works, making it the largest and most comprehensive repository dedicated to Southern art in the nation, with particular strength in the genres of Self-Taught art, Regionalism, photography and contemporary art. The Museum is further recognized for its original exhibitions, public events and educational programs, which examine the development of visual art alongside Southern traditions of music, literature and local craft. Among its recent exhibitions are Piercing the Inner Wall: The Art of Dusti Bongé (2019), New Southern Photography (2018 – 2019), The Whole Drum Will Sound: Women in Southern Abstraction (2018), and Solidary & Solitary: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection, presented by The Helis Foundation (2017 – 2018).
The Ogden Museum is open daily from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. with extended hours on Thursdays from 6 – 8 p.m. for Ogden After Hours. Admission is free to Museum members and $13.50 for adults, $11 for seniors 65 and older, $6.75 for children ages 5 – 17 and free for children under 5.
The Museum is located at 925 Camp Street, New Orleans Louisiana 70130. For more information visit ogdenmuseum.org or call 504.539.9605.