April 20, 2021 (New Orleans): Writing for Art in America Magazine, Kristina Kay Robinson shares her thoughts on the CAC's Fall/Spring exhibition, Make America What America Must Become, An Exhibition of Gulf South Artists, on view through Sunday, April 25, 2021.
Excerpt from the full review:
“Make America What America Must Become” takes its title from a line in James Baldwin’s “A Letter to My Nephew.” Originally published as an article in 1962, it would later be renamed “My Dungeon Shook,” appearing as the first of two missives that constitute Baldwin’s seminal work The Fire Next Time (1963). The Contemporary Arts Center exhibition, mounted in response to what the curatorial statement calls a summer of “electoral consternation,” features some thirty-five living artists from the Gulf South. Participants were chosen by two New Orleans curators—CAC director George Scheer and Toccarra A.H. Thomas, an artist and director of the Joan Mitchell Center—and Brooklyn-based Katrina Neumann, director of a private collection. Such a robust showing of regional artists is unusual, even in Louisiana. The exhibition seeks to present a picture of urgent contemporary art concerns, and to reflect what many institutions are doing in response to the nation’s current political climate."