O What a Night!, Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s most important annual fundraiser, is online this year! Support Ogden Museum’s educational mission to share the art and culture of the American South by bidding on art in our live and silent auctions! The silent auction features work by over 100 talented artists, and our live auction presents an exciting line-up of well known artists, including John Alexander, Walter Anderson, John Barnes, Aron Belka, Thornton Dial, William Goodman, Simon Gunning, Sally Heller, Mallory Page, Ayo Scott, Amanda Stone Talley, John Isiah Walton and Carl Joe Williams.

Live Art Auction: Saturday, October 17, 8-9 p.m.
Silent Art Auction: Monday, October 12, 12 a.m. – Sunday, October 18, 5 p.m.

LIVE AUCTION SNEAK PEEK

Walter Anderson, Untitled II, Watercolor and graphite on paper, 8.75 x 10.5, Courtesy of Michael Wilkinson

John Barnes, Urban Studies II, 2016, 48 x 36, Red oak and screws, Courtesy of the artist

John Barnes was born in the community of Bogalusa, Louisiana in the month of December, 1971. When he turned four, his family moved to Baton Rouge, where the public school system provided him with his earliest introduction to art making. Throughout Barnes’ education as a youth, he was drawing or attempting to construct things.  

Art remained a curiosity for John until he attended Southern A&M University as an art major, he completed his studies with a B.S. in art in 1997. Barnes also attended Memphis College of Art for graduate study, where he was awarded a M.F.A. degree in sculpture in 1999.  

Barnes began his academic career in New Orleans at Dillard University, where he currently directs the visual arts program. John is married with two children. Barnes’ work has been featured in major publications such as Art Forum magazine, as well as in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, and in juried international biennials such as Prospect.1.  John recently participated in the Joan Mitchell Center’s studio artist residency. His work is primarily wood, which he constructs into assemblages.  

John Barnes was featured in Ogden Museum’s 2020 exhibition, What Music is Within: Black Abstraction from the Permanent Collection.

Sally Heller, Caught in a Maelstrom, From the Calamitrees series, 2007, 50 x 40, Chromogenic print, Courtesy of the artist

Sally Heller’s art encompasses multi-material installations and the permanent works she fashions from those hand-built constructions. Her materials range from low-end craft components to stainless steel. Permanent sculptures include a public sculpture installed in downtown New Orleans, funded by a 2008 Joan Mitchell grant, and a stainless steel sculpture commissioned by a private collector.

Heller’s work has been exhibited at the Lawndale Art Center, Houston; the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; Depauw University, Indiana; Whitespace Gallery, Atlanta; Montserrat College of Art, Massachusetts; Miami University; Ohio State University, Athens, Ohio; Kemper Fine Art, New York City; Louisiana Museum of Science and Art, Baton Rouge; and Scope, Miami. Recently, she had a solo show at Moore College of Art in Philadelphia.

Heller has been awarded residencies at the Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Civitella Ranieri, Umbria, Italy; the Vermont Studio School, Johnson, Vermont; and Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY. She holds a B.S. from University of Wisconsin and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University.

SILENT AUCTION SNEAK PEEK

Leslie Addison, Twisted Time, 22.5 x 22.5, Film and archival pigment print, Courtesy of the artist and Cole Pratt Gallery

Leslie Addison is a photographer living in New Orleans. She is currently represented by Cole Pratt Gallery in New Orleans. Her work is included in the permanent collections of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston; The Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS; Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans; The Louisiana Arts and Science Museum, Baton Rouge; The High Museum of Art in Atlanta and The New Orleans Museum of Art.

Her work has been featured at the Contemporary Art Center, Mississippi Museum of Art, University of Southern Mississippi Museum of Art, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, The Louisiana Arts and Science Museum, among others.

Awards include a Fellowship from the Pollock/Krasner Foundation 2007, the Louisiana State Division of the Arts, Artist Fellowship 2008 and two Louisiana Cultural Economy Foundation grants.

A lifelong resident of the Southern United States, she has completed several art documentary projects about her own unique Southern culture, as well as a longstanding project of reinterpreting modern and ancient graffiti into personal abstractions.

Leslie attended the Art Institute of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, but her influences started practically at birth. Her grandmother was the fine art photographer, Dina Woelffer. As a student of and then fellow teacher with Aaron Siskind and Lazlo Moholy-Nagy at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Institute of Design, she formed life long friendships with them as well as other mid-century photographers and painters.

Christa Blackwood, Boy Play: Morgan with Gerbers, 2019, 16 x. 20, Photograph made from large format film, Courtesy of the artist

Christa Blackwood is a photo, text and installation artist working with themes related to identity, history and popular culture. Her works employ multiple techniques and methods, fusing traditional, historical and alternative photographic processes with contemporary concepts.

Her visual voice was developed while a student at New York University in the 1990’s, when she began producing street installation art such as Butcherknives (1991), a work that addressed issues of sexual violence. A chilling juxtaposition of billboard-like close-ups and text from poet, Michelle Kotler, Butcherknives, was plastered all over the streets of lower Manhattan on the evening the William Kennedy Smith verdict was announced. The poster’s timely and provocative appearance resulted in heightened critical attention for Blackwood, including an invitation to join the Women’s Action Coalition (WAC) from renowned artists and scholars, Kiki Smith and Lucy Lippard.

Blackwood received her M.A. in Studio Art from New York University and B.A. in Classics from The University of Oklahoma. Her work has been featured in several publications including The New York Times, ArtDesk Magazine, New York Newsday, The Village Voice and The Chicago Sun Times and has been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the U.S. and abroad.

Christa Blackwood was featured in the 2018-2019 Ogden Museum exhibition, New Southern Photography.

D-Tag, United We Stand, Edition 1 of 10, 2020, 16 x 16, Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle fine art paper, Courtesy of the artist

D-TAG is an artist based in New Orleans.  He is well known for thoughtful and often political portraits of folded paper currency creating visual riddles and social commentary. His photographs have been exhibited internationally and can be found in prestigious collections, including Whitney Museum of Art and Ogden Museum of Southern Art.  His work has been featured in commissions for the the New York Times, Talib Kweli and the Wall Street Journal.