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“History or Premonition” Exhibition Showcases Work by 40 Alumni of the Joan Mitchell Center Residency Program
The artist-curated exhibition “History or Premonition” reflects on Mitchell’s legacy through the work of artists who participated in her Foundation’s residency program.
On the occasion of Joan Mitchell’s Centennial and the Joan Mitchell Center’s 10th Anniversary, the Joan Mitchell Foundation presents the group exhibition History or Premonition, on view August 1-30 at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans. Curated by two artists and residency program alums, Josiah Gagosian (New Orleans) and Nyeema Morgan (Chicago), this multidisciplinary exhibition marks the first of its kind, presenting to the public the breadth of work and influence that Mitchell’s legacy has had on the lives of the over 300 artists who hail from, or came to, New Orleans as Artists-in-Residence at the Joan Mitchell Center.
The exhibition will be presented throughout the Studio Building at the Center, with artworks grouped within themes that relate to Mitchell’s own life and creative practice. The 40 exhibiting artists include Firelei Báez, Yanira Collado, Maren Hassinger, Demond Melancon, Carrie Moyer, Pat Phillips, Robert Pruitt, Lisa Sigal, Carlie Trosclair, Jina Valentine, John Isiah Walton, and Brittney Leeanne Williams (full list below). Following an opening reception on Friday, August 1 (6–9pm), viewing hours will be Fridays to Sundays, 12–5pm, from August 2-30.
“We see these dual milestones—the centennial of Joan Mitchell’s birth and the 10-year anniversary of the Joan Mitchell Center—as an opportunity to reflect on the artist community that has grown out of the Foundation’s programs for artists, and in particular, the artists who have worked and been in dialogue over the years at the Joan Mitchell Center,” said Christa Blatchford, Executive Director, Joan Mitchell Foundation. “The exhibition makes concrete the threads of connection between Mitchell and today’s visual artists—a web of artist-to-artist exchange that continues to grow outward.”
History or Premonition will feature work by:
| Scott Andresen, New Orleans, LA Katrina Andry, New Orleans, LA Firelei Báez, Miami, FL Rollin Beamish, Bozeman, MO Tyanna J. Buie, Providence, RI Elenora Rukiya Brown, New Orleans, LA Juan Angel Chavez, Chicago, IL Sean G. Clark, New Orleans, LA Yanira Collado, North Miami, FL william cordova, North Miami, FL M. Florine Démosthène, New York, NY Clifton Faust, New Orleans, LA Maren Hassinger, New York, NY Elana Herzog, New York, NY Miro Hoffman, New Orleans, LA Horton Humble, New Orleans, LA Soraya Jean-Louis, New Orleans, LA Salvador Jiménez-Flores, Chicago, IL Shana Kaplow, St Paul, MN Camille Farrah Lenain, New Orleans, LA |
Kaori Maeyama, New Orleans, LA Demond Melancon, New Orleans, LA Joshua Mintz, New Orleans, LA Carrie Moyer, New York, NY Lavar Munroe, Baltimore, MD Anne C. Nelson, New Orleans, LA Maia Cruz Palileo, Brooklyn, NY Pat Phillips, Philadelphia, PA Ryan Pierce, Portland, OR Robert Pruitt, Houston, TX Rontherin Ratliff, New Orleans, LA Amy Schissel, Homestead, FL Loren Schwerd, New Orleans, LA Lisa Sigal, Brooklyn, NY Carlie Trosclair, New Orleans, LA Jina Valentine, Chicago, IL Samantha Yun Wall, Portland, OR Tom Walton, New Orleans, LA John Isiah Walton, New Orleans, LA Brittney Leeanne Williams, Los Angeles, CA |
Established in 1993, the Joan Mitchell Foundation’s programs fulfill the painter’s wish, as stated in her will, that her foundation provide support to individual artists in their practices. Following more than two decades of grantmaking, the Foundation expanded its offerings to include a residency program, as a nod to the informal residencies Mitchell frequently offered to other artists, who she invited to come live and work at her home in France. The decision to locate the residency center in New Orleans followed many years of close work with artists and arts organizations in New Orleans through the Foundation’s grant programs. In 2015, the Joan Mitchell Center officially opened its two-acre campus in New Orleans’ 7th Ward, following two years of off-site pilot programs in the French Quarter.
Now 10 years after its official opening, the Center has hosted more than 340 individuals, including artists local to New Orleans and former grant recipients of the Foundation, based elsewhere in the U.S. As a retreat for artists in a city rich with creative energy and cultural histories, the program offers time and space for creative work, and opportunities for Artists-in-Residence to exchange with their peers and others in the New Orleans community.
“The mix of local and national artists on campus is a hallmark of the Joan Mitchell Center’s residency program, and has provided fertile ground for the program to really take root in New Orleans. There is always the potential for interchange within each cohort, in which local artists can be ambassadors of the city’s culture, helping translate all that is so specific and remarkable about New Orleans for the national residents. In turn, the national residents bring with them resources, experience, and ways of working that can help open doors and expand the perspectives of the local residents. This exchange, along with dedicated time to delve into a practice in a supportive environment, is what makes this program so potent,” said Stephanie Pearl Travers, Artist Programs Manager for the Joan Mitchell Center and Exhibition Manager for History or Premonition.
Travers continued, “We see the alumni exhibition as a wonderful opportunity to make visible the wide-ranging creative work that has taken place both in the residency’s pilot years and here on Bayou Road, while paying homage to Joan Mitchell’s legacy. While she never lived in New Orleans, I’d like to think that Mitchell would be proud of what has been done here at the Joan Mitchell Center as we carry forward the generosity and hospitality she showed to artists in her lifetime.”
In planning the upcoming exhibition, curators Josiah Gagosian and Nyeema Morgan (both past participants in the residency program) drew inspiration from a collaboration that took place within Joan Mitchell’s lifetime. The title, History or Premonition, comes from a poem by Nathan Kernan, written as part of a 1992 collaboration in which Mitchell persuaded him to provide the words to accompany her visual work. Gagosian and Morgan write: “The result is a work that speaks of connection and alienation, of memory as evinced by the experience of a landscape, one time and place perhaps evoking another long past, or hinting at something yet to come. Out of that foreshadowed future emerged something Mitchell might never have been able to envision: a foundation made up of the fabric of her history and her passions, and stewarded beyond her life by others caught up in the momentum of what she had set in motion. The artists featured in History or Premonition have their own relationship with time and place, their own memories, histories, and premonitions of a future in the process of being created.”
Gagosian and Morgan continue, “It is ultimately Mitchell’s support for other artists, in both community and collaboration, that defines her ongoing legacy… In this sense, her legacy branches beyond her own life and work to encompass the lives of a nationwide community of artists, taking root in a city rich with its own culture. In celebration of Mitchell’s living legacy, we are taking a moment to collectively witness work from that ever-expanding community.”
