On the ferry across the Mississippi to the Algiers neighborhood in New Orleans, the abstract painter Odili Donald Odita has installed a colorful flag with a wavy pattern. It’s one of 18 flags planted around the city, in 16 places that have historical significance for black struggles. (Algiers was the Parish where African slaves were held before being sold.)
“The city itself is the artwork, and the flags are just markers,” said the Nigeria-born artist, who is known for his kaleidoscopic-colored paintings. “The struggle is the fight for freedom. It’s something people died for and continue to fight for. But I wanted to underscore the act of celebration of what has been accomplished.”
Celebration springing from the roots of hardship is the theme of a citywide contemporary art festival, Prospect.4, taking over New Orleans through Feb. 25. It’s the fourth installment of a tradition that began in 2008 as a response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, and should be particularly exciting this year, as it overlaps with a monthslong celebration of the 300th anniversary of the city’s founding.
The motto of Prospect.4 is “The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp,” and the featured artists examine issues of identity, displacement, ecology, and racial and economic inequity. “The greatest gift and challenge is the cultural and historical complexity of New Orleans,” said Trevor Schoonmaker, Prospect.4’s artistic director and chief curator at Duke University’s Nasher Museum of Art. “Every city is complex, but New Orleans has layers and layers. The artists don’t pretend to speak for the city. It’s more about, What a gift this city is, and how can we explore common threads?”
Seventy-three artists are featured in Prospect.4, from the U.S., Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Thirty-two works were commissioned specifically for the event, and all told they spread across 17 city venues, including museums and public spaces (although most of the art is concentrated in four venues). Prospect.4’s $3.8 million budget is mainly sourced from local and national foundations, and sponsors include Hancock Holding’s Whitney Bank. About 100,000 visitors are expected over the course of the event.
Outdoor exhibits are free, while the museums have admission fees. (Hours vary; check the websites.) To see everything, it could take up to three days. Here’s what we recommend catching—and some recommendations for where to eat and relax along the way.
Stop One: Contemporary Arts Center, Ogden Museum
If your time is limited start at the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, which sit across the street from each other in the Warehouse District. The bulk of the Prospect.4 art is on display at these two institutions.
At the Ogden, don’t miss London-based John Akomfrah’s moody, heartbreaking
multichannel video installation “Precarity” which looks at the life of Charles “Buddy” Bolden, a pioneering New Orleans jazz musician until 1907, when he was institutionalized for the rest of his life with schizophrenia. He left behind no known recordings.
Additionally, Wayne Gonzales’s acrylic paintings from photos of contemporary Louisiana landscape are cleverly positioned alongside pastoral scenes by mid-to-late 19th century Louisiana bayou school painters to evoke the passage of time.
Over at the Contemporary Arts Center, you’ll find a cacophony of materials and themes. Lavar Munroe’s towering sculpture of a rider fallen from his horse—made from fabric, tennis balls, rubber, wood, hair and so much more—is a centerpiece. Brad Kahlhamer’s wire and bell dream catchers are delicate and intricate. The green flora in watercolor panels by Cuba-born Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, who explores how identity is formed through gender, history and religion, are lush and sinewy. Check out Kader Attia’s circular floor sculpture of more than 2,900 bent beer cans crowded together and Margarita Cabrera’s vinyl, thread, metal and wood baby grand piano sculpture that looks like it’s about to fold into itself.