Ogden Museum is proud to loan four photographic works from its permanent collection to the Hilliard Art Museum in Lafayette for their exhibition, L. Kasimu Harris: Vanishing Black Bars & Lounges, on view through July 30, 2022. The photographs loaned to Hilliard Art Museum are the works of Chandra McCormick, Birney Imes and W. Eugene Smith.

Vanishing Black Bars & Lounges is a documentation of the black-owned bars and lounges on St. Bernard Avenue in New Orleans and a reflection on their importance to culture and community. This work is a beautiful and heartbreaking love letter to vibrant neighborhood staples which are slowly disappearing. Harris’ images beg the question, “what happens to the culture when it is displaced?”

Harris’ work is partly inspired by Birney Imes’ use of color and composition in his documentation of the American South. Two of the images headed to Hilliard Art Museum are work by Imes, Leland Juke, Leland, MS and Turk’s Place, Greenwood, MS. The photographs are part of his 20-year long documentation of the Mississippi Delta.

Chandra McCormick’s The Prayer, Phoenix, LA, River Parish and W. Eugene Smith’s Musicians of Haiti, Mardi Gras, 1958-59 will also be traveling to the Hilliard Art Museum for Harris’ exhibition. Chandra McCormick is a New Orleans photographer who has dedicated her work to documenting the lives of people in Louisiana. W. Eugene Smith was a photojournalist best known for his editorial photo essays.

L. Kasimu Harris: Vanishing Black Bars & Lounges opens at Hilliard Art Museum on February 11, 2022.