NEW ORLEANS, LA – New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) presents “The Second Line” Cocktail Service, a focused installation on view through May 2019 that celebrates a new digital and glass work of art commissioned by the museum. On a Friday night in November 2016, Scottish designer Geoffrey Mann (British, b. 1980) recorded the sounds he heard on Frenchmen Street in New Orleans. Using cutting-edge digital technologies combined with time-honored glass craft, Mann’s “The Second Line” Cocktail Service embodies that night’s jazz music and conversation into three-dimensional objects.
“In Mann’s mind, ordinary objects can witness extraordinary moments,” said Susan Taylor, NOMA’s Montine McDaniel Freeman Director. “This cocktail service conveys the magic of our city, and also provokes thoughtful observations about materials and human connection.”
For the “The Second Line” Cocktail Service, Mann recorded a compelling conversation with band leader Aaron Blanks along with the cadence of a jazz trumpet and street noise. He used the recorded sound waves to digitally activate a 3D computer-modeling design of the cocktail service. What started as classic barware became undulating shapes, dancing to the voices and jazz. These unorthodox glasses were made real through rapid 3D prototyping (“3D printing”) in nylon, and then the perfectly copied in flame-worked glass. The resulting glass and gold-plated nylon cocktail service is on view with the companion animation. The cocktail shaker and six glasses—including the ubiquitous New Orleans “go-cup”—ripple in sync with the digital sound waves of the video, forever capturing a transitory moment on Frenchmen Street.
“Geoffrey Mann uses new digital creation tools in a way that is the opposite of how they are often perceived,” said Mel Buchanan, NOMA’s RosaMary Curator of Decorative Arts and Design. “For this work of art, the first 3D-printed design to enter NOMA’s permanent collection, digital manipulation is used sensitively. The Second Line encourages us to engage on an emotional level with the everyday goods around us, considering what they might share in our human experiences.”
“The Second Line” Cocktail Service is on view in the Elise M. Besthoff Charitable Foundation Gallery in the newly reinstalled Lupin Foundation Center for Decorative Arts on NOMA’s 2nd floor.
About NOMA and the Besthoff Sculpture
The New Orleans Museum of Art, founded in 1910 by Isaac Delgado, houses more than 40,000 art objects encompassing 5,000 years of world art. Works from the permanent collection, along with continuously changing special exhibitions, are on view in the museum’s 46 galleries Fridays from
10AM to 9PM; Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 10AM to 6PM; Saturdays from 10AM to 5PM and Sundays from 11AM to 5PM. NOMA offers docent-guided tours at 1PM every Tuesday – Sunday. The adjoining Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden features work by over 60 artists, including several of the 20th century’s master sculptors. The Sculpture Garden is open seven days a week: 9AM to 6PM. The New Orleans Museum of Art and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden are fully accessible to handicapped visitors and wheelchairs are available from the front desk. For more information about NOMA, call (504) 658-4100 or visit www.noma.org. Museum admission is free on Wednesdays for Louisiana residents, courtesy of The Helis Foundation. Teenagers (ages 13-19) receive free admission every day through the end of the year, courtesy of The Helis Foundation.
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For additional information and hi-res images, contact Margaux Krane: 504.658.4106 | mkrane@noma.org