Artists Descending: Dan Cameron curates Prospect 1.5 exhibit at Jonathan Ferrara Gallery
Founder and artistic director of U.S. Biennial Inc., a nonprofit organization that produces Prospect New Orleans, curator Dan Cameron created Prospect 1 in 2008, resulting in the most significant cultural initiative in the city since hurricane Katrina. It was the largest contemporary art biennial in U.S. history, showcasing 80 artists from around the world and attracting 80,000 visitors, with a direct economic impact of $25 million to New Orleans. Cameron’s second edition is Prospect 1.5, a program of contemporary art exhibitions, symposiums, and special events taking place this month through February 19.
Prospect 1.5 is a prelude to the upcoming Prospect 2 New Orleans, to be held from October 22, 2011 to January 29, 2012.
“Of the 80,000 people who attended Prospect 1, 55,000 of them were nonlocals,” says Jonathan Ferrara, owner of Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in the fashionable Warehouse District. “There is a traveling circuit of art collectors. They go to Venice in June, Miami in December, and San Paulo, Brazil, in September and October. They travel around collecting the very best in contemporary art,” Ferrara observes. “They stay at hotels like the Ritz-Carlton and eat at restaurants like Emeril’s. Many of these wealthy collectors are influential, and they are often attached to boards or foundations. By being exposed to the contemporary art scene here, they are predisposed to directing their funds to New Orleans. So what you have is this creation of cultural tourism for New Orleans.”
Ferrara has been instrumental in facilitating fundraising endeavors and various venues for Prospect New Orleans since its inception in 2006. “Technically, I’m on the advisory committee. But beyond that, I have been one of Dan’s biggest supporters, and I’ve introduced him to a lot of people in the area such as Mitch Landrieu. I have also helped him raise money,” he says. “I’ve traveled with Dan to Miami, Venice, and many other cities where people understand Prospect as an economic engine. The last people to comprehend its significance are the people of Louisiana. So I’ve been working to convince the local people to get behind it in a big way. This is the future of visual and contemporary art.”
By showcasing new art from around the world in a setting that is culturally unique, Prospect’s exhibitions contribute to the revitalization of New Orleans, while bringing international attention to the city’s expanding visual arts community.
“Beyond becoming very good friends with Dan, I have learned from this,” he says. “Prospect has propelled my gallery from a local space to a national gallery in just two years. It has also started the careers of some of our artists such as Skylar Fein. This year, he’s had a solo exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art and was reviewed in the New York Times. He then got acquired by the Whitney Museum. Next week, I am bringing him to Miami to the public fair. His career exploded after Prospect 1.”
Approximately one-third of Prospect.1.5’s participants are native New Orleanians who have since moved away, several of whom will be exhibiting in their hometown for the first time. In addition, the exhibition program will showcase the latest generation of young artists who have adopted New Orleans as their home, many moving to the city since Katrina five years ago. With the world’s focus once again on the Gulf region following this summer’s devastating oil spill, Prospect1.5 calls attention to the significance and vibrancy of New Orleans’ arts community.
In conjunction with Prospect 1.5, Ferrara’s gallery presents the group exhibition “Resounding” January 1-February 1, with an opening reception the evening of January 8.
“Resounding” is the brainchild of Cameron, a curator of international acclaim. He selected the theme and artists for an exhibition that is inspired by the silence at the end of musical performances. He explains, “For devoted music fans, the hardest adjustment one has to make is the echoing silence that descends when the band finishes playing and the house lights go up. Within the sudden absence of music, other senses rush to fill the void, with visual art foremost among the ways music becomes ‘represented’ when nobody is playing.”
Cameron’s group show at Jonathan Ferrara Gallery is fitting for a city whose roots run deep in music. “As technology increasingly transforms the medium for delivering music to its audience to obsolete artifacts, we look upon the vinyl LP, the cassette, and the CD as artifacts from a parallel universe. Each of the five participating artists in the group show deals with this involuntary distance from their musical muse in a different way.” Artists in the exhibition are Fikret Atay, Rhona Bitner, Sean Duffy, Tim Lee, and Ted Riederer. Their works represent a diversity of styles, backgrounds, and mediums.
“The Prospect 1.5 exhibition at my gallery is different in that it showcases international artists,” says Ferrara. Fikret Atay, who is from the Kurdish region of Turkey, has often incorporated the principle of accidental or found music into his videos by treating the impulse toward rhythm and melody as a kind of side effect of other cultural processes. In this way, the sound of two boys warming up on a winter night at an ATM, or of men gathering for prayer, becomes a conduit for a musical impulse that is an innate part of the human behavior he depicts.
In Rhona Bitner’s photographs of sites where legendary musical performances took place, one senses a residue of the historical act, much as one might when contemplating a battlefield where scores of individuals fought and died several lifetimes ago. Whether it is an image of Sun Studios in Memphis, Preservation Hall in New Orleans, or Cobo Hall in Detroit, invisible cues inform the viewer that they are gazing upon something important.
Ted Riederer and Sean Duffy both use the vocabulary of record collecting to produce a startlingly up-to-date range of images. Duffy’s ingeniously altered record players and album jackets suggest hidden meanings in the accidental and the mundane, while Riederer’s constructed environment of recycled vinyl ties together the escape fantasy of Star Wars with an unabashedly romantic perspective on the intricate network of indie bands and labels throughout the country.
Tim Lee’s photographs and videos are simple slights-of-hand that enable the artist to become one of his own musical idols by recording himself playing an instrument and then attaching that image to the figure of an actual musical virtuoso.
“The New Orleans art community is a very exciting place to be working right now,” Cameron remarked. Prospect 1.5, which highlights the contemporary art scene with more than 50 artists presenting work in the 12 venues throughout the metropolitan area, showcases many of the world’s most promising and recognized local, national, and international artists. Some are visiting New Orleans during the event in advance of developing major new projects to be premiered at Prospect 2.
“I’m giving Dan my entire gallery for the month. I’m the only commercial gallery owner that has turned their entire exhibition space over to Dan,” Ferrara asserts.
“Prospect is taking an international spotlight and shining it very, very brightly on New Orleans. It’s as if Dan Cameron is holding a big spotlight for all the world to see. Because of this, we are now harnessing all of our collective talents, wisdom, and assets.” For further information on the exhibit, visit jonathanferraragallery.com. ✦
