Newcomb Art Museum

Killer of Sheep
2017-03-15 19:30 - 21:00 (America/Chicago) | Freeman Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, United States
Shown in conjunction with Mickalene Thomas: Waiting on a Prime-time Star, Killer of Sheep examines the black Los Angeles ghetto of Watts in the mid-1970s through the eyes of Stan, a sensitive dreamer increasingly detached from the psychic toll of working at a slaughterhouse.
Directed by Charles Burnett, the film was shot on 16mm black-and-white film on a budget of less than $10,000. Finished in 1977, it was never shown theatrically or made available on video due to issues of music rights (the soundtrack features songs by Etta James, Dinah Washington, Gershwin, Rachmaninov, Paul Robeson, and Earth, Wind & Fire). Thirty years later, the film was restored by UCLA and remastered from 16 to 35mm.
The National Society of Film Critics has selected Killer of Sheep as one of the “100 Essential Films” of all time.
1977; 1 hr 23 min

Michelle Nonó - Poverty, Political Theater and Emancipatory Education in the Caribbean
2017-03-15 16:00 - 17:30 | 100 Jones Hall, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Caribbean artist and community organizer Michelle Nonó will discuss the role of social practice art in struggles for equality, visibility and political change. Nonó and her sister compose Las Nietas de Nonó, a performance collective that also runs an alternative art and community space in a house inherited from their grandfather in the industrial zone of San Antón, Puerto Rico. The sisters describe the center, known as Patio Taller, as a site for emancipatory education in a Freyrean model, where community members can both learn and teach according to their own abilities, needs, and interests. They also host residencies for other Caribbean artists and activists. Las Nietas are perhaps best known for popular theater productions, which address issues relevant to the community such as drug abuse, violence and incarceration, and the cycle of poverty and discrimination that feed these behaviors.

Nonó will be included in the exhibition “Revolution at Point Zero: Feminist Social Practice” opening in March at the Glass Curtain Gallery in Chicago. Last year she had a Jackman Goldwasser Residency at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. The sisters were also invited to the fourth edition of Casa Tomada, a meeting of young artists, writers and thinkers 2017 in Havana, Cuba, September 2017.

Black Girl; Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman
2017-03-12 13:30 - 15:00 | Freeman Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, United States
Shown in conjunction with Mickalene Thomas: Waiting on a Prime-time Star, Black Girl explores the complex dynamics and devastating legacy of colonialism. It centers on a young Senegalese woman who moves from Dakar to France to work for a rich white couple. Directed by father of African cinema Ousmane Sembène, Black Girl is the first African film to receive international acclaim. Martin Scorsese called it “an astonishing movie—so ferocious, so haunting, and so unlike anything we’d ever seen.”
1966; 1 h 5 min; French with English subtitles

Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman (2012) is artist Mickalene Thomas’ directorial debut film about her mother and artistic muse, Sandra Bush. Interspersed with excerpts from a conversation between the two are archival film clips, snapshots, and scenes of her mother–a former fashion model–in her hospital bed as she suffers the effects of the kidney disease.
2012; 23 min

Cleopatra Jones
2017-02-15 19:30 - 21:00 | Freeman Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, United States
Shown in conjunction with Mickalene Thomas: Waiting on a Prime-time Star, Cleopatra Jones tells of a federal super-agent (Tamara Dobson) who is a martial arts expert armed with intellect and a hot-rod sports car. The film follows her on the trail of drug kingpins, specifically the notorious “Mommy” (Shelley Winters). Of the period’s many blaxploitation films, Cleopatra Jones is notable for its black female protagonist action hero.
The film co-stars Esther Rolle (CBS sitcom “Good Times”) and Bernie Casey (“Never Say Never Again, Revenge of the Nerds 1-IV).

PG; 1973; 1h 29m

Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
2017-02-07 19:30 - 21:00 | Freeman Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, United States
Shown in conjunction with Mickalene Thomas: Waiting on a Prime-time Star, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song is a groundbreaking film in the history of African American cinema. It tells of a young hustler who goes on the run after saving a Black Panther from local racist authorities. Written, directed, produced, edited and starring Melvin Van Peebles, the film ushered in a wave of films known as Blaxploitation cinema, which responded to a lack of black heroes and heroines in popular film.
1971. Rated R. (nudity and graphic sexual content; viewer discretion advised). Musical score by Earth, Wind & Fire. 1 hr 37 min

Muses-Inspired Shoe Workshop
2017-01-31 17:30 - 19:30 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Just in time for Carnival, NAM is hosting a two-part Carnival shoe-decorating workshop, inspired by one of our favorite Mardi Gras krewes. The instructor is a current riding member and is recognized for her highly creative designs.
Due to the time required for preparing and decorating the shoes, attendees must be able to attend both workshops, on January 31 AND February 7.
Supplies and refreshments provided will be provided.
$40 advance registration required; email tfriel@tulane.edu to register or additional information.

Jenni Sorkin - Material Decisions: Women, Process, and Form
2017-01-26 18:30 - 20:00 | Freeman Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, United States
Jenni Sorkin, author of Live Form: Women, Ceramics and Community (University of Chicago Press) will speak about her scholarship focusing on the intersection between gender, material culture, and contemporary art.
Sorkin was also co-curator of Revolution in the Making: Abstract Sculpture by Women, 1947–2016 at Hauser Wirth and Schimmel in Los Angeles.
Sorkin holds a B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an M.A. from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, and a Ph.D. from Yale University.
This event is supported in part by the Newcomb Art Department and the Sandra Garrard Memorial Fund for Recent Trends in Contemporary Art.

Opening Reception
2017-01-18 19:30 - 21:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Public reception for the opening of Mickalene Thomas: Waiting on a Prime-time Star. This event is free and open to the public

Conversation with Mickalene Thomas
2017-01-18 18:30 - 19:30 | Freeman Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, United States
In conjunction with the NAM exhibition Mickalene Thomas: Waiting on a Prime-Time Star, the artist will speak about her work in conversation with Dr. Mia Bagneris, Assistant Professor, History of Art, Tulane University.
A public reception celebrating the show’s opening will immediately follow in the Woodward Way breezeway.
Mickalene Thomas (b.1971) is a USA Fellow and acclaimed international artist known for her elaborately lush works that celebrate the power of female beauty toward claiming women’s agency. Thomas combines historical artworks and pop cultural representations that define and reference fashion and domestic spaces through a queer lens.
Mickalene Thomas is a 2015 United States Artists Francie Bishop Good & David Horvitz Fellow, a distinguished visual artist, filmmaker and curator who has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally. She is known for paintings that combine art-historical, political, and pop-cultural references. Her work introduces complex notions of femininity and challenges common definitions of beauty and aesthetic representations of women.
Thomas earned her MFA from Yale University in 2002, and a BFA from Pratt Institute in 2000. Her first solo museum exhibition, Origin of the Universe, originated at the Santa Monica Museum of Art in 2012 before traveling to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, where her film “Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman” premiered. Recent solo exhibitions include George Eastman House, New York; L’Ecole des Beaux Arts, Monaco; and First International Contemporary Art Biennial, Columbia. Her work has been shown in numerous group exhibitions, including at La Conservera Contemporary Art Center, Ceutí, Spain; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Hara Museum, Tokyo; National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; Saatchi Gallery, London; and University Museum of Contemporary Art, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her work has been featured in various catalogues and reviewed by Artforum, Art in America, The New York Times, The New Yorker, NY Arts, Modern Painters, and The Wall Street Journal, among others.
Mickalene Thomas is represented by Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong; Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago and Berlin; Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects; and Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris and Brussels. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, and serves on the board of the Brooklyn Museum, Children’s Museum of the Arts, MoCADA, MoMA PS1, and Rush Philanthropic.
supported in part by Newcomb Art Department and Sandra Garrard Memorial Fund for Recent Trends in Contemporary Art
photo: Francois Meyer, Mickalene Thomas, 2013

Marking the Infinite Film Screening
2016-11-16 19:30 - 21:00 | Freeman Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, United States
In conjunction with Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists from Aboriginal Australia, the museum is screening two short documentaries Nyapanyapa: The Constant Artist and Bush Plum: The Contemporary Art of Angelina Pwerle.
Both artists’ works are included in the Newcomb Art Museum exhibition.
Bush Plum is a visual poem, capturing the imagery and connection between Angelina Pwerle’s painting and country. Central Australia is a place of extraordinary power and beauty, the art from this place is a mirror, a spiritual reflection of beliefs, of culture, of country, of its plants and animals. (duration 32 min.)
The Constant Artist introduces viewers to Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, beginning at the VCA Print Workshop at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne and later at her art centre in East Arnhem Land. (duration 30 min)

ART21: Mexico City
2016-10-25 19:30 - 21:00 | Freeman Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, United States
Join us for a screening of “Mexico City” from season 8 of PBS’ award-winning broadcast series Art21 with a special welcome from Carlos Ponce, Consul of Mexico, New Orleans.
The episode will explore how Natalia Almada, Minerva Cuevas, Damián Ortega, and Pedro Reyes use the growing megalopolis as their canvas. The artists present everyday materials as artworks, mine recognizable images for their poetic potential, and take their art to the streets.
Wine & cheese reception to follow.

Screening: "Rabbit Proof Fence"
2016-10-18 19:30 - 21:30 | Freeman Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, United States
Set in 1931 and based on true events, Rabbit Proof Fence tells the story of three Aboriginal girls who escape from a life of indentured servitude and set out across the Outback. As the girls make their 1,500 mile journey back home by following a rabbit proof fence that bisects the continent, they are pursued by the Australian government. Directed by Phillip Noyce. Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes. Drama. Rated PG.

Screening: "Ten Canoes"
2016-10-04 19:30 - 21:30 | Freeman Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, United States
Two interwoven stories of life in Australia before colonization are presented in both color and black & white in seamless transitions. Considered both groundbreaking and mesmerizing, it swept the 2006 Academy Awards. Named as one of the 100 Best Films of World Cinema. Directed by Rolf de Heer & Peter Djigirr; 103 minutes; unrated with English subtitles. Contains nudity; parental discretion advised.

Newcomb Roadshow
2016-10-01 13:00 - 16:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Join us for our first annual Newcomb Roadshow!
Guests will have the opportunity to get an on-site evaluation of one work of Newcomb arts and crafts, and meet other collectors and enthusiasts.
Each registered guest is allowed one object believed to be a product of the Newcomb Pottery enterprise (pottery, needlework/embroidery, metal work/jewelry, or bookbinding), and may only meet with one appraiser. Guests are encouraged to set up follow up appointments with appraisers for more objects to be formally appraised.
Refreshments will be served, and all attendees will receive a complimentary hardcover copy of The Arts & Crafts of Newcomb Pottery (a $65 value).
Advance registration and a $40 participation fee are required. Contact tfriel@tulane.edu or call 504-865-5361 to register or for more details.
Time slots will be assigned at the time of registration. Guests should arrive at least 20 minutes prior to their appointment to allow time for parking and sign-in. If a guest arrives late for their scheduled time slot, they will either have to wait for an open slot or receive a shorter evaluation, if time allows.
The Newcomb Roadshow is a fundraiser for the Newcomb Art Museum and proceeds directly contribute to our exhibition programming.

CANCELLED -- Art Workshop: My Home in Space
2016-09-16 18:30 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
This workshop has been cancelled. We regret any confusion this may cause. Please note that similar programming may occur later in the year.

“Art Inspired by Space”
2016-09-14 18:30 - 20:00 | Freeman Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, United States
Renowned former NASA Senior Researcher Dr. Yvonne Clearwater will present an overview and wide ranging examples of creative works that have both been inspired by and served to inform the process of space exploration as they arise from the convergence of science, art, technology, transmedia, and fan culture.

"From Antarctica to Outer Space: Reflections on Isolation and Confinement"
2016-09-13 18:30 - 20:00 | Freeman Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, United States
Renowned former NASA Senior Researcher Dr. Yvonne Clearwater will explore the range of meanings and variance of human experience in the realm of isolation and confinement, solitude and loneliness, highlighting the human experience of living and working in space. She will then present an overview of her interdisciplinary work in leading NASA space human factors and habitability research efforts toward the design of the International Space Station, with an emphasis on the critical relationships between the environment, psychological well-being and human performance.

Exhibition Reception: Marking the Infinite
2016-09-07 18:30 - 21:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Join us in celebrating the opening of Marking the Infinite, Contemporary Women Artists from Aboriginal Australia.
6:30 pm – Talk by Dennis Scholl, collector and Henry F. Skerritt, Curator, Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia
7:30-9:00 pm – Public reception
Free and open to the public.

Exhibition VIP/Members Reception
2016-09-07 17:30 - 18:30 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Museum V.I.P.s and members are invited to attend a sneak peek of Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists from Aboriginal Australia. Guests will enjoy light hors d’oeuvres and libations. Email museum@tulane.edu to join, renew, or inquire into membership.

Hello, Goodbye Art Activity
2016-06-18 13:00 - 15:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
It’s time to say goodbye to KAWS’ Companion (Passing Through). The 16-foot outdoor sculpture has greeted visitors to the museum for the past year, but it will leave campus later this month. We think it looks a little sad to go, no?
At the same time, we are thrilled about the arrival of our Newcomb Enterprise coloring book, a fun and informative publication for all ages that recognizes the important artistic legacy of Newcomb College.
To mark both events, we invite you to bring your favorite companion to say goodbye to ours and, while you’re here, receive a free coloring book. Colored pencils and a space to create your own masterpiece will be provided.
Free and open to the public. Email tfriel@tulane.edu for more information.

Women of Newcomb Opening
2016-06-03 18:30 - 20:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Join us in celebrating the opening of Women of Newcomb, Recent Acquisitions.
5:30-6:30 pm
VIP reception & members-only exhibition tour
A special opportunity for our VIPs and members to see the exhibition before it opens to the public.
Email museum@tulane.edu to join, renew, or inquire into membership.
6:30-8:00 pm
Exhibition public reception
Free & open to the public
above image: Carolyn Froshin Heller, Abstract (detail), 2000-11.

"Is Shakespeare Enough?"
2016-05-26 18:00 - 20:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Lecture given by Hillary Eklund, Associate Professor of English, Loyola University as part of the First Folio! event.
The First Folio! exhibition at the Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane — part of the international events planned for 2016 in observance of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death — will feature a First Folio of Shakespeare open to the famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy in Hamlet and, unique to Tulane’s version of the exhibition, a rare quarto of Hamlet on loan from Tulane parent and bibliophile, Stuart Rose. Printed in the large “folio” size, the First Folio is the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays. It was assembled after Shakespeare’s death in 1616 by two of his fellow actors, John Heminge and Henry Condell, and was published in 1623. The First Folio is the only source for eighteen of Shakespeare’s plays, among these some of his best known and most popular, including Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, and As You Like It, all of which might otherwise have been lost.

Sonnets in the Gallery
2016-05-16 13:00 - 15:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
A reading of Shakespeare’s love poetry, on the site of the First Folio exhibition, will be hosted by Peter Cooley (Tulane Professor of English and Poet Laureate of the State of Louisiana).

Diana Al-Hadid Artist Lecture
2016-05-10 18:30 - 19:30 | Freeman Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, United States
Diana Al-Hadid will discuss her upcoming NAM exhibition, which runs from May 9 – July 24, 2016. The works appear to be trapped in an eternal moment of precariousness and decay. Inspired by historical forms from art and architecture, Al-Hadid’s highly material sculptures and paintings are charged with drips, textures, patterns, and ornaments that recall Arabic calligraphy and Islamic textile patterns. Yet through their ruinous quality, they simultaneously evoke absence. The works have been described as metaphorical “bridges” between the past and the present, as well as cultural bridges between the Middle Eastern world of Al-Hadid’s early childhood and the Western world she now inhabits.
Al-Hadid received a BA in Art History and a BFA in sculpture from Kent State University and an MFA in sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University. She later attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. Her work is included in the collections of The Whitney Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Weatherspoon Art Museum, and The Judith Rothschild Foundation, New York, among others. Al-Hadid has had solo exhibitions at the Secession in Vienna, Austria, Columbus College of Art and Design, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Nasher Sculpture Center, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, La Conservera, Nevada Museum of Art, and the Hammer Museum.

Exhibition Openings
2016-05-09 19:00 - 20:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Join us in celebrating the opening of three exhibitions:
– First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare
– Diana Al-Hadid
– Elena Dorfman: Syria’s Lost Generation
Prior to the public reception, a jazz funeral for Shakespeare will be led by Dr. Michael White around the Newcomb Quad.
Free and open to the public.

Shakespeare Jazz Funeral
2016-05-09 18:30 - 19:00 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Join us in celebrating the opening of First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare with a jazz funeral for the Bard. Led by Dr. Michael White, this special parade will honor and remember the greatest playwright and poet the world has known.
Celebrating life at the moment of death, the traditional New Orleans jazz funeral is held when a prominent member of the community is “buried with music.”
The musicians, funeral directors, family, and friends of the dead make up what is called the first or main line, while the crowd marching behind is collectively known as the second line.
At the beginning, the band plays dirges, somber Christian hymns performed at a slow walking tempo. After the body is laid to rest, or “cut loose,” the band plays up-tempo music, the second liners begin dancing, and the funeral transforms into a street celebration.
by Matt Sakakeeny
modified, with permission of the author, from http://musicrising.tulane.edu

Tania Bruguera Artist Lecture
2016-05-07 11:00 - 12:00 | Freeman Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, United States
One of the leading political and performance artists of her generation, Tania Bruguera will speak about her projects: intensive interventions on the institutional structure of collective memory, education, and politics.
Her work The Francis Effect is currently on view in New Orleans as part of False Flags, a group exhibition curated by Noah Simblist, at Pelican Bomb Gallery X (1612 Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard). First presented in 2014 at the Guggenheim, the performance exists in the guise of a political campaign requesting the Pope grant Vatican citizenship to all immigrants and global refugees. Visitors can add their voice to Bruguera’s petition before and after the talk and at “False Flags,” on view through May 29.
Recognized as one of the 100 Leading Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine and shortlisted for the 2016 #Index100 Freedom of Expression Award, Bruguera is a 2015 Herb Alpert Award winner, a Hugo Boss Prize finalist, a Yale World Fellow, and the first artist in residence in the New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs.
In 2013, she was part of the team creating the first document on artistic freedom and cultural rights with the United Nation’s Human Rights Council. Her work has been exhibited at Documenta, the Venice Biennale, the Tate Modern in London, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, among others. She lives and works between New York and Havana.
This event has been organized by Pelican Bomb in partnership with NAM and the Cuban & Caribbean Studies Institute at Tulane University.
Learn more about this event HERE.
photo by Akisa Omulepu

Elena Dorfman, Syria's Lost Generation
2016-04-20 18:30 - 19:30 | Stone Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans
Elena Dorfman will discuss Syria’s Lost Generation, to be exhibited at the museum starting May 9. For several months over the last two years, Dorfman covered the Syrian refugee crisis for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Of the millions of Syrians displaced by the ongoing civil war, the artist was drawn most strongly to the teenager refugees, observing: “they seemed particularly shell-shocked and bereft. Through portraiture and audio recordings, Elena Dorfman (1965- ) offers a humanistic perspective to the Syrian conflict, a global crisis that has claimed more than 470,000 lives and driven 6.5 million people driven from their homes.
Since graduating from Sarah Lawrence College in 1988, Elena Dorfman has specialized in documenting extreme circumstances and unusual subjects. She has exhibited her work at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Cincinnati Art Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Museum of Modern Art. Dorfman lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

False Flags: Imagined Communities and the Nation State
2016-04-02 15:30 - 16:30 | Stone Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans
This panel discussion is in conjunction with False Flags at Pelican Bomb’s Gallery X, a group exhibition curated by Noah Simblist that investigates contemporary notions of nationalism and the representation of imagined communities in the Middle East and the Americas. Moderated by Simblist, panelists will include Ruti Sela and Maayan Amir from the Tel Aviv-based Exterritory Project, an ongoing art project that wishes to encourage both the theoretical and practical exploration of ideas concerning extraterritoriality in an interdisciplinary context and Alhena Katsoff from the Tel Aviv-based Public Movement, a performative research body which investigates and stages political actions in public spaces.

Kate Clark Exhibition Walk-Through
2016-03-26 14:30 - 15:30 | Newcomb Art Museum, Woldenberg Art Center, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Kate Clark exhibition walk-through with Professor Henry L. Bart Jr., Ph.D. Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Director, Tulane University Biodiversity Research Institute, and Monica Ramirez-Montagut, Director, Newcomb Art Museum.
