March 20, 2023
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Cantor Curator Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander Announced as 2023 Juror for Louisiana Contemporary, Presented by The Helis Foundation at Ogden Museum of Southern Art
NEW ORLEANS — Ogden Museum of Southern Art is pleased to announce Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander, the Robert M. and Ruth L. Halperin Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford, is the 2023 juror of Louisiana Contemporary, Presented by The Helis Foundation.
“Ogden Museum is internationally recognized for its work to promote the art, history and culture of the American South,” says Executive Director William Pittman Andrews. “Each year, this exhibition provides an opportunity to explore how art contributes to the identity of a place, and the juror’s work expands the knowledge and understanding of the artists who choose to live and work here.”
As a curator, Alexander is committed to providing meaningful platforms for historically excluded artists, as well as opportunities to expand narratives in the history of art through collection building, exhibitions and community outreach. She says, “I am thrilled to be selected as the 2023 juror for Louisiana Contemporary, a vital program that showcases the thriving talent and cultural strength of the region’s visual arts. I look forward to supporting Southern art in a meaningful way through a platform that can aid emerging talent and beyond.”
With this announcement, the Museum welcomes Louisiana artists to submit their work from April 3 until May 12 at 11:59 p.m. This annual, juried exhibition will be on view at Ogden Museum from August 5, 2023 to February 18, 2024. The Museum will host an opening reception on Saturday, August 5 in conjunction with Fidelity Bank White Linen Night, an annual event hosted by Arts District New Orleans.
Artists may find submission instructions at ogdenmuseum.org
Please contact Amy Newell, Director of Exhibitions, at exhibitions@ogdenmuseum.org or 504.539.9604 with questions regarding submissions to Louisiana Contemporary, Presented by The Helis Foundation.
About Louisiana Contemporary, Presented by The Helis Foundation
Louisiana Contemporary, Presented by The Helis Foundation, is a statewide, juried exhibition organized by Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Established in 2012, this annual event promotes contemporary art practices in the state of Louisiana, provides an exhibition space for the exposition of living artists’ work and engages a contemporary audience that recognizes the vibrant visual arts culture of Louisiana and the role of New Orleans as an international art center.
Cash awards will be presented to first, second and third prize, in addition to the Best in Show recipient who will receive The Helis Foundation Art Prize of $5,000.
About Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander
Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander is the Robert M. and Ruth L. Halperin Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, where she has been since 2018. As a curator, Aleesa is committed to providing meaningful platforms for historically excluded artists and opportunities to expand narratives in the history of art through collection building, exhibitions, and community outreach. At the Cantor, she is curator of The Faces of Ruth Asawa (July 2022 – ongoing), East of the Pacific: Making Histories of Asian American Art (Sept. 28, 2022 – Feb. 12, 2023), and The Medium Is the Message: Art since 1950 (Feb. 23, 2019 – ongoing). Working with assistant professor of art history Marci Kwon, Aleesa is Co-director of the Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI), which is working to transform the Cantor into the preeminent institution for the collection, display, and study of Asian American/Asian diasporic art in the United States. Aleesa cultivates relationships with community members, donors, artist estates, and living artists to help build the Cantor’s growing collection of Asian American art, which is now one of the best nationally.
Aleesa has contributed to multiple exhibition catalogs and publications, most recently she has written about Ruth Asawa, Dominque Fung, and Lien Truong. With Marci Kwon, she co-edited a special issue of Panorama (where she also serves on the advisory board), about Asian American art in 2021. She has been invited to present her research at the Harvard Art Museums, Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Folk Art Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and her scholarship has been supported by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, the Center for Craft, Creativity, and Design, and the American Craft Council. From 2017-2018 she was a Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she completed her dissertation, Unaccountable Modernisms: The Black Arts of Post-Civil Rights Alabama, and assisted with the exhibitions History Refused to Die: Highlights from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation Gift, and Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture 1963-2018. A first-generation college graduate, Aleesa grew up between Bangkok, Thailand, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and Salem, Oregon. She received her Ph.D. in art history from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2018.
About Ogden Museum of Southern Art
Located in the vibrant Warehouse Arts District of downtown New Orleans, Louisiana since 1999 and open to the public since 2003, Ogden Museum of Southern Art invites visitors to experience and learn about the artists and culture of the American South. Ogden Museum 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.
Ogden Museum is open daily from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Admission is free to Museum Members and admission for Non-Members is $13.50 for adults, $11 for seniors 65 and older, $6.75 for children ages 5-17 and free for children under 5. Prices are subject to change when exhibitions are being rotated.