The art world is in a frenzy. Giant, inflatable sculptures have invaded Hammond. Dancers in Baton Rouge are multiplying on stage using 3D mapping technology. In Lafayette, obsessions are channeled into beautiful, yet trivial, pursuits. Prospect.3 (P.3) has begun, and it’s burst beyond the boundaries of New Orleans, taking aim at Baton Rouge, Hammond, and Lafayette in the form of P.3+.

Running for thirteen weeks from October 25, 2014, through January 25, 2015, P.3+ is the umbrella term for the independently organized art exhibits, installations, and programming happening in these three South Louisiana centers, essentially regional satellites of Prospect.3, the third full edition of New Orleans’ international art biennial. 

Based on some of the world’s greatest international exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale and the Bienal de São Paulo, Prospect.1 was conceived by contemporary art curator Dan Cameron and launched in November 2008. The show brought eighty-one leading contemporary artists from around the globe to twenty-four venues throughout post-Katrina New Orleans, providing both residents and tourists a look into artists’ interpretations of the city’s recovery and unique culture. 

Two years later, Prospect.1.5 tightened its focus to New Orleans and regional artists, then expanded its reach once again for 2011’s Prospect.2, bringing local, national, and international artists to New Orleans as well as Lafayette.  

For Prospect.3: Notes for Now, Artistic Director Franklin Sirmans, curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is maintaining the event’s international reach. He’s pulled together approximately sixty artists from Italy to Peru, Saudi Arabia to South Africa, including works by French post-impressionist Paul Gauguin and New York neo-expressionist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Meanwhile, Hammond, Baton Rouge, and Lafayette are bringing in heavy hitters of their own for P.3+. 

BATON ROUGE

In Baton Rouge, the satellite program, dubbed P.3+BR: Notes Upriver, has linked together venues around the city, including The Arts Council’s Firehouse Gallery, Louisiana Art & Science Museum (LASM), LSU Museum of Art, Shaw Center for the Arts, Baton Rouge Gallery Center for Contemporary Art, the Manship Theatre, Ann Connelly Fine Art, Lagniappe Records, The Healthcare Gallery, and The Walls Project Art & Design Center.

“We’re emulating the expansive calendar of events in New Orleans but on a smaller level,” said Raina Wirta, the executive director of Elevator Projects, a local creative arts organization. Wirta is spearheading the Baton Rouge extension of P.3+ in partnership with the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge. “Elevator Projects presents contemporary, innovative projects to wider audiences in order to connect audiences and artists. With Prospect.3, we’re partnering with organizations in Baton Rouge to elevate the caliber of the contemporary art scene in the city,” said Wirta. 

Left: John Gray’s work, pictured here, will be on display at the Louisiana Art & Science Museum. Gray will produce “The Show Window,” a storefront-style window in which he uses digital technology to create an interactive art show.

Featuring contemporary art exhibitions and special projects by emerging and established artists, P.3+BR: Notes Upriver aims to attract thousands of visitors to the capital city, including some New Orleans folks who will be hopping on a bus to visit during the opening festivities in Baton Rouge.

The reception weekend, November 14—16, includes a P.3+BR opening party, free museum admission, a local filmmakers’ festival, art happenings around the city, and twelve hours of local cultural performances at the Walls Project Art & Design Center, located on the first floor of the Chase South Tower. Elevator Projects has also initiated an alternative venue gallery on the vacant fourth floor  of the Chase Tower, calling the fifteen-thousand square-foot space Healthcare Gallery 2.0, after its sponsor. 

“The variety of performances and special projects we are presenting on Saturday at the Walls Project Art and Design Center is just a taste of what our city has to offer,” said Wirta. “One particular collaborative dance piece, titled “Elevating Dance,” involves prerecorded dance routines sent in from around the world that are then projected live during the performance. It appears as though there are a lot more dancers involved. The project is directed by Sandra Parks of the LSU School of Dance and involves over twenty student dancers. It’s a really interesting collaborative piece.”

Meanwhile, the Arts Council’s Firehouse Gallery is hosting South African artist Anja Marais, who is presenting The Ballast, a solo exhibition of mixed media installation and video works. For its part, The Healthcare Gallery will be launching an exhibit called Resilience: The Healing Power of Art, featuring new works by LSU School of Art graduate students. 

A digital technology theme runs throughout much of the work on exhibit at P.3+BR, such as LASM’s presentation of The Show Window, a storefront-style window in which artist John Gray has used digital technology to create an interactive art show. 

LASM is also spotlighting three artists who create their work in front of audiences as part of the exhibition Art in Action: Inflate. Draw. Pour, which is on display through January 4. Jason Hackenwerth built two massive sculptures out of thousands of latex balloons on site in LASM’s exhibit space. Heather Hansen, who uses choreographed movements to render charcoal onto oversize canvases, will demonstrate her technique in a special live performance on November 6, while Holton Rower’s topographical maps of poured color—made by emptying up to fifty gallons of paint onto a single plywood construct one cup at a time—will also be on display. 

For its part, the LSU Museum of Art successfully funded an original art installation through Kickstarter. Launching an open call to artists “to think creatively and dream big,” the museum awarded the project to Silas Breaux, whose installation will explore how the buildings of the past still affect us today. The installation will be unveiled in the museum’s J.D. and Patsy Lyle Lobby during a reception on November 15 along with special tours of both Kelli Scott Kelley’s Accalia and the Swamp Monster and Nari Ward’s Rooted Communities exhibitions during the P.3+BR reception weekend.

The entire effort will be bookended by the Surreal Salon Soirée at the Baton Rouge Gallery on January 25.

Find event listings for participating venues here. prospectbatonrouge.org.

HAMMOND

One of the most visible components of the Hammond P.3+ scene will be Giants in the City, a traveling public art exhibition that plants enormous inflatable sculptures in the urban landscape. The Hammond Regional Arts Center (HRAC) is the organizing entity for the city’s part in P.3+, which will focus most of its energies from January 9—11.

“With Giants in the City, we want to make sure our art exhibits are on par with all the things you can see in New Orleans and Baton Rouge and Lafayette,” said Mike Kilgore, HRAC executive director. “We’re showing that our community can attract those exhibits, and we have the vision and appreciation for that type of thing.”

Left: One of a series of four digital photographs from Heather Vallaire’s “A Show of Hands” exhibit, 2013.

Buildings throughout downtown Hammond will also open their doors for P.3+. Work by photographer Kim Bergeron, Lori Gomez’ Mardi Gras Indian bowling pins, and Heather Vallaire’s A Show of Hands are on display in both traditional and nontraditional venues such as the Regional Arts Center, the Tangipahoa African American Heritage Museum, the People’s Art Pop Up Gallery 205, and even abandoned buildings.

“We’re also partnering with artists on the train route from New Orleans to Chicago that passes through Hammond every day,” said Kilgore. “Artists from Chicago, Memphis, and Jackson, Mississippi, will all have exhibits in Hammond for the duration of P.3+.”

From January 9—11, the city is hosting a special excursion weekend, when buses will drive up from New Orleans and Baton Rouge and an all-inclusive rail excursion will arrive from Chicago. Special art installations, music and theatre performances, and other happenings—fashion shows, live body painting, belly dance—will fill out this excursion weekend, which officially kicks off on January 9 at 5 pm with the city’s 1st Friday Art Walk.

“We’re focusing on showing our local community, but also the larger art world, that Hammond has a thriving community of artists and creative individuals. Prospect.3 brings in media and attention as well as international visitors to New Orleans. We want to make sure our community here in South Louisiana has a part of that,” said Kilgore.

“More so on a long-term basis, though, we’re hoping P.3+ does for downtown Hammond what it did for the Bywater and Marigny, such as urban renewal centered around the creative class. We’re focusing on arts and culture to bring in permanent and sustainable economic and cultural development to the area,” added Kilgore. “Permanent and transformative—that’s what we want for downtown Hammond.” Visit hammondarts.org/prospect-3 for more details.

LAFAYETTE

P.3+ in Lafayette can be found downtown at the Acadiana Center for the Arts, where three galleries focus on art derived from obsessions, environmental concerns, and naturalist intuitions.

Filling the four thousand-square-foot main gallery, Trivial Pursuits: Obsession’s Allure, on display until January 25, brings to life the obsessive passions and addictions of fifteen artists, such as Stephanie Patton’s looping video of her running on a treadmill or Alfred J. “AJ” Stahl’s massive drawings of tracking the stock market. Shawne Major builds fantastic quilts out of everyday items like toy soldiers and Mardi Gras beads, while Troy Dugas turns four thousand vintage product labels into intricate art that appears woven together.

Left: “St. Jerome #4,” product labels on paper, 60" x 60" by artist Troy Dugas will be on display at the Acadiana Center for the Arts.

“Each artist either has a medium they choose or a certain object that has a liberating spirituality,” said Curator Mary Beyt. “There is often elegance in the obsessive. Sam Reveles creates paintings on paper with lots of lines that overlap. It’s very meditative and very beautiful. When you get up close, you see he built it with constant love and adoration. Visually, it’s a feast to look at.”

In an effort to display the environmental threats to the Mississippi Delta, artist, biologist, and environmental activist Brandon Ballengée offers a sixteen-foot aquarium stocked with local aquatic life. Also on exhibit until January 25, the aquarium can be found in the Acadiana Center’s Side Gallery. 

“He’s bridging the science aspect of what’s an ecosystem but has a broader artistic view of the impact on the environment. He’s putting it in your face as to what is going on,” said Beyt. “Mare Martin [in the Mallia Galleria] is her own kind of naturalist. She paints the plants she grows and takes the mud from crawfish mounds and plasters the frames with it. There is a very earthy quality to her paintings.”

The three art showings at the Acadiana Center for the Arts complement the other quality work constantly happening at the center, which is also a venue for music, dance, theater, and other performances.

“I think everybody wants Prospect to succeed,” said Chief Curator Brian Guidry. “We were happy to host the show because it brings an awareness of Prospect.3 to the region. Hopefully it succeeds, and our Southern niche here becomes a cultural destination for art.” Visit acadianacenterforthearts.org for more details.