FESTIVAL/NEW/WORKS

18 artists practicing within Louisiana, FESTIVAL/NEW/WORKS brings together CACNO’s prologue and future visual artists in this intergenerational exhibition that is both historical and forward-looking. Established artists who have previously exhibited at the CACNO were asked to nominate emerging artists whose practices resonate with or challenge their own. These selections form intentional relationships, bridging past and future, experience and experimentation. The result is not simply a presentation of new work, but a framework for dialogue. With several aesthetics illustrated, FESTIVAL/NEW/WORKS shares the interdisciplinary nature of a visual art practice. With many works resisting singular definition, they instead offer a contemporary world view of perspectives shaped by distinct backgrounds, and artistic lineages. Inquiry and Discovery is the conversation for these artists. Established artists who exhibited at the CACNO in its past five decades were asked to name an artist that ‘feels like the future’ to them in the landscape of visual art. Angel Perdomo, Caitlin Waugh, Courtney Egan, Elvira Michelle, Gina Laguna, Irvin Washington Jr., Jake R. Swanson, Jan Gilbert, Jer’lisa Devezin, John Alleyne, John Barnes, Kerry Punzo Luis Cruz, Azaceta Malaika, Favorite Martin, Payton Myron Solomon Jr.,Ron Bechet and Skylar Fein. FESTIVAL/NEW/WORKS is ultimately less about marking fifty years and more about activating them. This exhibition is about history, not as a fixed time, but as a visceral conversation that is to be carried forward, for artists of this moment.