NOMA will present the first exhibition to focus on the works of Pierre Joseph Landry. Born in France, Landry emigrated to Louisiana at the age of 15. He became a military officer under Andrew Jackson during the war of 1812, and subsequently became a successful sugar planter. Stricken by illness at the age of 63, he began carving wood sculptures with biblical, allegorical and historical subjects.

Please join curators William Fagaly, The Françoise Billion Richardson, Curator of African Art, New Orleans Museum of Art, Tony Lewis, Curator of Visual Arts, Louisiana State Museum, and Katie Burlison, Curator of Decorative Arts, Louisiana State Museum as they introduce the exhibition in a brief discussion at 6pm on Friday, October 16th. Afterwards meet up with the curators inside the galleries for an informal Q&A.

Organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Louisiana State Museum, nearly two dozen sculptures will be presented, drawn from the collections of the organizers as well as The Historic New Orleans Collection and private U.S. lenders.

Kerri McCaffety counts among her accolades a Gold Lowell Thomas Award from the Society of American Travel Writers, an Author of the Year award from the New Orleans Gulf South Booksellers Association, and seven national publishing awards. Her books include Obituary Cocktail: The Great Saloons of New Orleans; The Majesty of St. Charles Avenue; Etouffée, Mon Amour: The Great Restaurants of New Orleans; Napoleon House; St. Joseph Altars; The Majesty of the French Quarter; New Orleans New Elegance, and The Majesty of St. Francisville.

Aaron McNamee will present aspects of his ongoing Laminate Series in a discussion with the work of Tim Youd. For years both artists have worked with preexisting printed media and literature in ways that obscure and recontextualize traditional readings.

Aaron McNamee was born (1977) and raised in rural Northeastern Oregon without electricity or running water for the first six years of his life. After adjusting to the commodities (including indoor plumbing) and rituals of the modern world, he spent time skateboarding, snowboarding, traveling and art making. Concentrating on sculpture, he earned a BA from Eastern Oregon University in 2004. Intrigued and seduced by the Wild­-West lifestyle of post-Katrina New Orleans, Aaron pursued his graduate work with an assistantship at Tulane University followed by one at University of New Orleans where he earned his MFA in 2010. He continues to live in New Orleans and serves as an Artist in Residence at the University of New Orleans where he teaches sculpture and drawing. Working with themes of time and media, McNamee has meticulously laminated the daily newspaper into complete one-year cycles in what critic D. Eric Bookhardt writes “subverts the processes of mechanical media…The news and its media are ephemeral, yet here pages that once held all that was weighty in the world are congealed into dead weight and reduced to inert blocks of abandoned information in a weird entombment.” McNamee has exhibited his artwork throughout the United States and in Europe. His work appears in public and private collections including the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation and Eastern Oregon University and has been reviewed in Artforum among other publications. He is a member of Good Children Gallery (New Orleans, LA) and is represented by Boyd Satellite Gallery (New Orleans, LA).

New Orleans based cellist, singer, composer and improviser Helen Gillet grew up in Belgium, Singapore, Chicago and Wisconsin. Gillet has forged a path for the cello in the New Orleans music scene since her arrival in 2002. She has performed extensively across the United States and Western Europe. Beginning cello lessons at the age of nine, Gillet has taken her classical education all the way to a Master’s Degree (Beloit College ’00, Loyola University New Orleans ’04). Her training as an improviser began with North Indian Hindustani vocal ragas in 1998, which launched her into the worlds of free improvisation, jazz, funk, rock and French chansons. Gillet has performed at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Voodoo Festival, Copenhagen Jazz Festival and Hindsgavl Festival in Denmark, Mirano Oltre Festival in Italy and at the Kennedy Center Center in Washington D.C. and tours extensively in music venues across North America and overseas.