New Orleans Review

Since 1968

Art Column

Where Were You Then?
Holding Time in NYC

Art Column by Emily Farranto

I wasn’t in New York to see Holding Time; I was in New Orleans. I saw the show on a one-on-one video tour with Z Behl, the artist and filmmaker who organized the exhibition. The seventeen participating artists were children in close proximity to the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Holding Time was an invitation to these artists, several who were friends attending Stuyvesant High School, to articulate, commemorate, and share their personal experiences and lasting impressions of this global event.

Where Do You Belong? The Paintings of Enrique Martinez Celaya

Art Column by Emily Farranto

I was standing in the viewing room of Jack Shainman Gallery in front of a large painting by Enrique Martinez Celaya. The painting showed a shirtless adolescent boy holding up a dead rabbit. The figure was looking directly at me. I wanted to look and I wanted to look away. A second large painting depicted another boy (or man?) with similarly intense eye contact. There is something straightforward about Martinez Celaya’s work, something ultra-sincere, but there is also something reluctant, held back.

If You Build it, Will They Come?

Art Column by Emily Farranto

The first art opening I attended last spring after the long lockdown was at Wading Room Gallery on Alvar Street, a new and temporary space created by Peter Hoffman and Ryn Wilson. Though I usually avoid openings, I wanted to support the new project, was curious to see what was there, and maybe just needed to get out of the house. This event and gallery, a garage and surrounding lawn, got me thinking about the spaces–current, past and future–to see art in New Orleans.

Virtually There: Looking at Art From a Distance, Part 2

Art Column by Emily Farranto

It was dark outside my window in New Orleans and nearly dark outside Katarina Janeckova Walshe’s studio in Corpus Christi, Texas. We were finally on a video call; she was sitting in her studio, an enclosed space underneath her stilted house and I was in my home office. I apologized, remembering I was chewing gum, took it out and stuck it on my tape dispenser. Katarina held up a slice of pizza and said it was okay because she was eating her dinner. Speaking to her, one feels immediately on familiar terms.

What Does a Stingray Mean?

Art Column by Emily Farranto

Photograph by Kevin Barrios, 2020 

In a post-Christmas torpor, a kind of sensory malaise, I found myself recalling that a year ago I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Now, lying on my living room floor in the doldrums …

Hindsight is 2020

Art Column by Emily Farranto

Hindsight is 2020

My Top Ten Nine Art Experiences of the Year

It’s a tradition to end the year with Top Ten lists. Artforum dedicates its December issue to reviewing the year in film, music, and art. The New York …