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Michael Grecco: NAKED AMBITION:
An R-Rated Look at an X-Rated Industry

December 1, 2011 – February 16, 2012
Opening: Thursday, Dec 8, 4-7pm
Talk: Saturday, Dec 10 at Martine Chaisson Gallery, 4pm

Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club
225 Bourbon Street
New Orleans, LA 70130
504-524-0010
Hours: Noon-close, Daily

The Naked Ambition: An R Rated Look at an X Rated Industry project contains over 200 photographs of actors, filmmakers and personalities in the world of adult entertainment. Grecco photographed his subjects during the 2006 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, the convention which surrounds the annual AVN Awards.

The accompanying book’s forewords, written by rock musician Dave Navarro and Hustler magazine editor Larry Flynt, discuss modern culture’s acceptance of pornography into the mainstream, which allows an overtly sexual work like this to be considered a coffee table book.

Included among the portrait subjects are Larry Flynt, Jenna Jameson, Ron Jeremy, Chi Chi LaRue, Tera Patrick, Alexandra Silk, Katsuni, Dana DeArmond, Sunny Lane, Kurt Lockwood, and Michelle Aston. Uncommon in pornography-related works, the photographs have not been altered with any significant image editing or photo manipulation, thus avoiding the layer of fantasy usually applied to actors in this field.

Mr. Grecco will give a talk about the project on Saturday, Dec 10 at the Martine Chaisson Gallery. The presentation begins at 4pm, free and open to the public.

Louis Sahuc: Chartres Street, 2009

New Photographs by Louis Sahuc

December 1, 2011 – Ongoing

Photo Works
521 St. Ann Street
New Orleans, LA 70116
504-593-9090
Hours: Thur-Tue 10am-5:30pm, Wed by appt.

Louis Sahuc is an award winning photographer, preservationist and lifelong New Orleanian who resides in the French Quarter.

Louis has spent much of his storied 40 year career capturing gorgeous and timeless photographs of all that is unique about his hometown, including New Orleans’ historic architecture, beautiful misty mornings and her marvelous people.

Black and White Magazine lauded Sahuc as “…a master of romantic impressionist photography.”

Please stop by the gallery, located on Jackson Square, to enjoy Louis’ elegant and timeless photographs. We look forward to your visit!

Jennifer Shaw: We took our hurricane sideshow on the road.

Jennifer Shaw: Hurricane Story

October 2011 – March 2012

The Presbytere, Louisiana State Museum
751 Chartres St.
New Orleans, LA 70116
504-568-6968
Hours: Tue-Sun 10am-4:30pm
Museum admission: $6

“Hurricane Story,” an exhibit of photographs by Jennifer Shaw, opens at the Louisiana State Museum on Oct. 21. With twenty vivid images, Shaw narrates her experience during Hurricane Katrina. Told in vignettes created of toys, carefully lit and captured with a modified Holga camera —itself more of a toy than the choice of a professional photographer such as Shaw— the compositions alternate between the whimsical and the deadly serious. The exhibit will be on view in the Presbytere’s 1st Floor Special Exhibition Gallery through March, 2012.

In the early hours of August 28, 2005, Jennifer Shaw and her husband loaded up their small truck with two cats, two dogs, two crates full of negatives, all their important papers and a few changes of clothes. They evacuated to a motel in southern Alabama, and waited anxiously. Nine months pregnant, Shaw gave birth to her first son just as the storm ravaged the Gulf Coast. After an odyssey lasting more than two months, they returned home to New Orleans.

Like many artists, Shaw pursued an outlet to express these life-changing events in her art. “The project began as a cathartic way to process some of the lingering anger and anxiety over that bittersweet journey,” she states in the introduction to her 2011 book, “Hurricane Story.” “It grew into a narrative series of self-portraits in toys illustrating my experiences and emotional state during our time in exile.” The book, “Hurricane Story,” published by Chin Music Press will be available at the Friends of the Cabildo Giftshop in Jackson Square.

The Presbytere, a National Historic Landmark building, is located on Jackson Square.

Robert W. Tebbs: Elmwood Plantation (side elevation), 1926, vintage gelatin silver print, Louisiana State Museum, 1956.087.331

Robert W. Tebbs: The Louisiana Plantation Photographs

December 5, 2011 – November 2012
Opening: Monday, December 5, 5:30-8:30pm

The Presbytere, Louisiana State Museum
751 Chartres St.
New Orleans, LA 70116
504-568-6968
Hours: Tue-Sun 10am-4:30pm
Museum admission: $6

Robert W. Tebbs produced the first photographic survey of Louisiana’s plantations in 1926, with the guidance of Richard Koch, New Orleans preservation architect. A precise documentarian, Tebbs also reveals a poetic sensibility in the plantation photos: a frequent emphasis on aspects of decay, neglect, incompleteness, and loss lends a wistful aura compounded by the fact that many of the homes no longer exist.

Louisiana in the mid-1920s moved from an economy beyond slave-based agriculture, toward mechanization, and on the brink of social and political reforms. Tebbs’s Louisiana plantation photographs capture a literal and cultural past, reflecting a new national awareness of historic preservation and presenting plantations to us anew. The exhibition features 60 of Tebbs’s most striking photographs, and will be on view in the 2nd Floor Special Exhibition Gallery through Nov. 2012.

On Monday, December 5th, the Friends of the Cabildo, the Louisiana Landmarks Society and the Preservation Resource Center join with the Louisiana State Museum to celebrate the opening of Louisiana Plantation Photographs by Robert Tebbs. December 5th also marks the release of the book Robert W. Tebbs, Photographer to Architects: Louisiana Plantations in 1926, written by LSM visual arts curator Dr. Richard Anthony Lewis. The Louisiana State University Press published the 165-page hardcover catalogue, with foreword by Robert J. Cangelosi, Jr., President of Koch and Wilson, APC. Lewis and Cangelosi will offer remarks and sign copies of the book.

Open to the public. Complimentary refreshments will be served.

The Presbytere, a National Historic Landmark building, is located on Jackson Square.

Stephen Wilkes: Carolyn Parker on Porch, Holy Cross, 2006

In Katrina’s Wake: Restoring a Sense of Place,
Photographs by Stephen Wilkes

December 8, 2011–March 3, 2012

The Historic New Orleans Collection – Williams Research Center
410 Chartres Street
New Orleans, LA 70130
504-598-7137
Hours: Tue–Sat, 9:30am–4:30pm

Presented in conjunction with PhotoNOLA 2011, this exhibition tells the stories of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and the Holy Cross neighborhood of New Orleans’s Ninth Ward—two historic communities united by disaster and the struggle to preserve their heritage and rebuild the social fabric that is integral to their neighborhoods. In the spring and summer of 2006, photographer Stephen Wilkes documented the damage wrought by Katrina in these two areas. He also photographed and recorded the stories of the people committed to rescuing the past for the future of their historic communities.

Shannon Brinkman: Preservation Hall Interior, Daytime

Preservation Hall at Fifty: Celebrating Jazz
Featuring photographs by Shannon Brinkman

November 4, 2011- November 3, 2012
Opening Gala: November 4th, 2011, 8pm-midnight, gala tickets $50

Old U.S. Mint, Louisiana State Museum
400 Esplanade Ave
New Orleans, LA 70116
504-568-6968 | 1-800-568-6968
Hours: Tues-Sun 10-4:30
Museum admission: $6

Preservation Hall is celebrating its 50th year anniversary with an exhibition at the Old U.S. Mint Museum. Featured in this exhibit are 60 medium format film photos by Shannon Brinkman, made between 2002~2011. Many have never before been shown in a public venue. LSU Press published a book on her work, ‘Preservation Hall’, in 2011.

The show also includes vintage images and memorabilia and wonderful audio and written quotes from the Preservation Hall Jazz band members. Eve Abrams, heard on NPR, and co-author of ‘Preservation Hall’ pulled inspiring quotes and audio from interviews she made with the musicians between 2008-2010.

The exhibition will launch with a Gala on November 4, 2011.

Shannon Brinkman has led a duel life with over 20 years as a working photographer spent between sport horse photography covering events such as the Olympics, Pan Ams, World Equestrian Championships, as well as an award-winning art photography career. She has resided in New Orleans since 1997. ”

Josephine Sacabo: Las Estrellas

The Historic New Orleans Collection

Williams Research Center
410 Chartres St
New Orleans, LA 70130

Joséphine Sacabo Lecture
Friday, December 9, 2011
7-9pm
Free and open to the public :: Limited seating, first come first served.

Joséphine Sacabo is an internationally acclaimed photographer who divides her time between New Orleans and Mexico. Both locales influence the dreamlike, surreal, and romantic quality of her photographs.

For the PhotoNOLA 2011 keynote lecture Sacabo will present an overview of her work to date, and will discuss her technical and aesthetic approach to the photographic medium.

Joséphine Sacabo is a native of Laredo, Texas, and was educated at Bard College, New York. Previous to coming to New Orleans, she lived and worked extensively in France and England. Her earlier work was in the photo-journalisitic tradition, influenced by Robert Frank, Josef Koudelka, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. She now works in a very subjective, introspective style, using poetry as inspiration. The poets she lists as her most important influences include Rilke, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Juan Rulfo and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz.

Sacabo’s most recent series, “Óyeme Con Los Ojos” (Hear Me With Your Eyes) was featured as a Fotoseptiembre USA 2010 Signature Exhibit, in San Antonio TX. Her photographs are currently on display in a retrospective at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and a solo show at A Gallery for Fine Photography.

***

A PhotoNOLA Welcome Party at A Gallery for Fine Photography, where Joséphine Sacabo’s latest work is on display, precedes the lecture from 4:00-6:00pm that evening.

PhotoNOLA’s multiple artist book signing event, presented in partnership with Octavia Books, will directly precede Ms. Sacabo’s lecture at THNOC’s Williams Research Center, from 5:00-7:00pm. Several of Sacabo’s titles will be available for purchase then, which the artist will be available to sign following her presentation.

Renee Allie: Holding Dolls

CURRENTS 2011: NOPA Members Showcase

December 5, 2011 – January 2, 2012
Opening: Thursday, Dec. 8, 5-7pm

Crescent City Brewhouse
527 Decatur Street
New Orleans, LA 70130
888-819-9330 / 504-522-0571
Hours: Mon-Thurs Noon-10pm, Fri & Sat 11:30am-11pm, Sun 11:30am-10pm

The New Orleans Photo Alliance’s annual members showcase. Curated by Richard McCabe, Photography Curator at The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and hosted by the Crescent City Brewhouse, the exhibition showcases works by twelve New Orleans Photo Alliance members:

Renee Allie, Susan Barnett, Laura Burlton, Charles Franklin, Carolyn Hampton, Maria Levitsky, Hannah Neal, Don Norris, Valorie Polmer, Mary Quin, S. Gayle Stevens, Warren Thompson

Preview the exhibition here.

The Crescent City Brewhouse is one of New Orleans’ premier restaurants and the only French Quarter microbrewery. The atmosphere at the Crescent City Brewhouse is warm, relaxed and festive with Live Jazz performed nightly by local musicians.

Susan Barnett: Hustle

Laura Burlton: Adrift

Charles Franklin: Untitled 008

Carolyn Hampton: The Blooms Are Heavy

Maria Levitsky: DIXIE BREWERY, HOLE IN FLOOR

Hannah Neal: Prima Ballerina

Don Norris: Tourist Cabins (1930)

Valorie Polmer: Cat Claw Roof

Mary Quin: Through the Glass

S. Gayle Stevens: Thread

Warren Thompson: Grid 14

Marie-Dominique Verdier

New Orleans Walls: Still Standing
Marie-Dominique Verdier

December 1- 31, 2011
Opening: Thursday Dec 8, 5-8pm

Big Bunny Fine Art
332 Exchange Place
New Orleans, LA 70130
504-309-2444
Hours: Wed-Sun 10am-8pm

“New Orleans Walls: Still Standing” is a solo exhibit of double-exposed photographs featuring over 80 New Orleanians (Drew Brees, Fats Domino, Irma Thomas, Susan Spicer, Theresa Andersson, Angela Hill, Ellis Marsalis and many more). The show will feature numbered giclee prints on canvas and matte paper. The series of photographs was put into a book which also features short stories that were shared by the models. The pictures span 17 years, and went from film to digital. The original series was presented at the Shooting Star.

Several of the people who posed for the project will come to the opening for an impromptu jam session and story telling.