With so much to do in New Orleans, many forget that the city’s art scene is just as vibrant as the food and music. Fall means exciting exhibits at various museums, including the launch of Prospect.6, the city’s art triennial. Check out the highlighted exhibits below and search our calendar to find even more art in New Orleans. 

Prospect.6   

Prospect is a citywide contemporary art triennial and the first exhibition of its kind in the US with a decade-long history. Every three years, they bring new art to an old city by inviting artists from all over the world to create projects in a wide variety of venues spread throughout New Orleans. ‘Prospect.6 the future is present, the harbinger is home’ is brought to life through exhibit openings, mural unveilings, family and community programming, performance art, galas, parties, and more.  

Some of the highlights of Prospect are on view in exhibits at various museums, such as the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans African America Museum, Contemporary Arts Center, and The Historic New Orleans Collection. Other installations are at outdoor locations, such as the sculpture perched atop Harmony Circle. There’s also an installation at the abandoned Ford Motor Plant in Arabi. Prospect.6 is on view from November 2, 2024 - February 2, 2025. 

Baldwin Lee "Lula, Mississippi," 1984, Vintage gelatin silver print, 16” x 20”
Collection of the artist, courtesy of Joseph Bellows Gallery
“Baldwin Lee”

“Baldwin Lee”  

At the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the exhibition “Baldwin Lee” will feature a selection of over 50 gelatin silver prints culled from thousands of images Lee made across the South in the 1980s. Many of these photographs will be exhibited for the first time. The exhibition will include compelling portraits of Black Americans, as well as a collection of landscape, cityscape, and still-life images that visually encapsulate the Reagan-era American South. The exhibit is open from October 5, 2024 to February 16, 2025.  

"Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration"
Image courtesy of The Historic New Orleans Collection
"Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration"

"Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration"  

Louisiana’s present-day distinction as the world’s incarceration capital is rooted in three centuries of history. Throughout this history, people in power have used systems of enslavement and incarceration to hold others captive for punishment, control, and exploitation. Black Louisianians have suffered disproportionately under these systems. Through historical objects, textual interpretation, multimedia, and data visualization, the Historic New Orleans Collection's newest exhibit, Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration, investigates these throughlines and arrives at an irrefutable truth: that the institutions of slavery and mass incarceration are historically linked. See it at The Historic New Orleans Collection from July 19, 2024, through January 19, 2025.