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FRee mini cupcakes at all locations Fri., Feb. 10th
CHILDREN’S CLOTHING FAMILY SHOES 8119-21 OAK STREET 504-866-9944 Monogramming Available
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Bruce Davenport Jr. The best kept secret in New Orleans
Homespace Gallery presents
GooD Stuff III
Lloyd Zarnado • John Walton Paje Davenport • Nicole Fernandez Anthony Johnson • Jamar Johnson Nat Williams curAteD by Mr. bruce DAveNPort, Jr.
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1135 PRESS ST. @
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custom cupcakes displayed in red box choose your custom message, design and flavor
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1128 st rocH Sat., Feb. 11 • 6pm-9pm
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art LIStINGS rEVIEW
GALLERY ORANGE. 819 Royal St., 701-0857; www. gallery-orange.com — Art Below pop-up show featuring Inkie, Art Wars, Philip Levine, Sarah Ashley Longshore, Dave Rhodes, Zack Smith and others, through February. THE GEORGES GALLERY. Metairie Park Country Day School, 300 Park Road, Metairie, 837-5204; www.mpcds. com — “the Healing Power of Art,” works by Beverly Morris and artists from the Louisiana Art therapy Association, through March 12. GUY LYMAN FINE ART. 3645 Magazine St., 899-4687; www.guylymanfineart.com — Mixed media with mechanical light sculptures by Jimmy Block, ongoing. HERIARD-CIMINO GALLERY. 440 Julia St., 525-7300; www.heriardcimino. com — “Elemental,” paintings by Regina Scully; “Minor Keys,” wall sculptures by Martin Payton; both through Feb. 19.
tHRu aPr
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the Shape of Louisiana through April 8 Ogden Museum of Southern Art 925 Camp St. 539-9600 www.ogdenmuseum.org
Assemblages by Jimmy Descant JACK GALLERY. 900 Royal St., 588-1777 — Paintings, lithographs and other works by tom Everhart, Gordon Parks, Al Hirschfeld, Stanley Mouse, Anja, Patrick McDonnell and other artists, ongoing. JAZZ & HERITAGE GALLERY. 1205 N. Rampart St., 558-6100; www.jazzandheritage.org — Works by Sarah Allen Freeman, through March 1. JEAN BRAGG GALLERY OF SOUTHERN ART. 600 Julia St., 895-7375; www. jeanbragg.com — “Fantasy Days & Flambeaux Nights,” paintings by Linda Lesperance, through February. JONATHAN FERRARA GALLERY. 400A Julia St., 522-5471; www.jonathanferraragallery.com — “State of Nature,” mixed-media sculpture and collage by Marcus Kenney; “Steady Creep,” drawings and sewn constructions by Hannah Chalew, through March 17. LEMIEUX GALLERIES. 332 Julia St., 522-5988; www. lemieuxgalleries.com — “Mann’s Mind,” works by thomas Mann; “American Ghosts,” works by Olivia Hill, through Feb. 25. MALLORY PAGE STUDIO. 614 Julia St.; www.mallorypage.com — Paintings by Mallory Page, ongoing. MARTINE CHAISSON GALLERY. 727 Camp St., 304-7942; www.martinechaissongallery.com — Paintings by Shay Kun, through March. NEW ORLEANS GLASSWORKS & PRINTMAKING STUDIO. 727 Magazine St.,
He often haunted flea markets and rummage sales, and with his leather jacket and shades, Jimmy Descant looked more like a musician than a visual artist. then his retro-futurist rocket ship sculptures cobbled from vintage vacuum cleaner and car parts began turning up at emerging artist galleries, and he called himself “Rocket Man,” which fit his hip persona. His early work was always fun but more cool than deep, more pop than profound. When Hurricane Katrina struck Descant lost his home and studio. Like many orphans of the storm he wandered, finally settling in Colorado. Flash forward six years and he now has a show at the Ogden Museum, and while the Ogden has always had a populist flair, his recent wall sculptures based on the “shape” of Louisiana, both geographically and figuratively, stand on their own. More urbane than many other self-taught artists, Descant’s works mingle the aura of the past with acerbic social commentary. Louisiana Family Farm (Angola) is a miasma of colorful old electrical parts, telephones, crucifixes, handcuffs, dials, gauges and plastic praying hands all mounted in orderly anarchy on a board in the shape of Louisiana. And like the state itself, it’s a mixture of sweetness and irony, nostalgia and strangeness. Nights of Drunk Driving in the Days of K&B is a tartly amorphous evocation of his Chalmette adolescence complete with old K&B beer cans, chrome trophies, hood ornaments, window cranks and chicken bones all arranged with the taxonomic precision of a hex. We N.O. (pictured) expresses solidarity with tsunami-ravaged Japan, and another features an old photograph of Jimmy Swaggart in a rusty frame encircled by a halo of mouse traps, gears and chicken bones in a metaphysical gumbo. Like the recent video exhibition at the Pearl, or the Music Box performances, or Dawn Dedeaux’s Prospect.2 piece, most of these works convey a surreal sense of place. As Descant puts it: “I live and create in Colorado, but I will always be a New Orleanian.” — D. ERIC BOOKHARDt