During Prospect.2, local artist Kathleen Loe has an installation on the relationship between Blackhawk helicopters, carcasses and haute couture at The New Orleans Healing Center.

November 2011. Hitched to the Universe: International Art at home in the Big Easy: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”—Robert Muir

The New Orleans International Contemporary Art Biennial is back for round two. Like the inaugural event, Prospect.2 is expected to positively impact the local cultural and fiscal economy as it attracts artists, art lovers, and collectors from near and far. Prospect.2 kicked off with a Friday night gala on October 21, and special performances on Saturday accompanied the official opening of all venues. Exhibits will run through January 29, 2012.

The impetus for the 2008 iteration, Prospect.1, was to reinvigorate tourism and support recovery in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Two independent impact studies credit the first event with producing over $20 million dollars for the local economy and generating positive international attention in the national press.

While recovery was a centralizing force, it was not the sole purpose of the event. It is the tradition of international art biennials to showcase innovative visual art created by contemporary artists practicing all over the world. There is a growing tradition of soliciting international artists to generate site-specific works that actively engage the history and geography of the host city. Several artists from varying locales created projects expressly for both biennials.

A good number of pieces generated intentionally for Prospect.1 responded explicitly to the post-Hurricane environment, and many were installed in the Lower 9th Ward—but Prospect.2 is even more reflective of the city’s broad history.

“It has nothing to do with Katrina anymore,” director and creative mastermind, Dan Cameron explained to me. “We are establishing ourselves as a part of the cultural economy of New Orleans. We intend to become an institution.”

Katrina, it seems, was a centrifugal force to Prospect.1, because the devastation it left behind was a force awaiting its reckoning. These days most of us in South Louisiana suffer from Katrina-fatigue. We’re ready for people to remember that New Orleans was famous long before 2005.

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