Camille Henrot. Grosse Fatigue, 2013 (video still); video installation (color, sound). Courtesy of the Artist, Silex Films, and kamel mennour, Paris.

Honoré de Balzac wrote: “Ideas are a complete system within us, resembling a natural kingdom, a sort of flora, of which the iconography will one day be outlined by some man who will perhaps be accounted a madman.” This passage was included in Camille Henrot’s writings about her video Grosse Fatigue (2014), now on view in Prospect.3, a sprawling biennial in both geographic and thematic terms. The “madman” in this quote might be Franklin Sirmans, the artistic director of Prospect.3; Sirmans attempts to create a cohesive exhibition in a city that is perpetually unhappy with easy definitions and straightforward thought. However, Prospect.3 has some stunning and kindhearted works that try very hard to carve clear connections to a place that is a constantly shifting landscape of one part earth and two parts water.

Prospect New Orleans has had an awkward childhood. Prospect.1, founded by Dan Cameron, opened in October 2008 with eighty-one artists from thirty-four countries in about thirty locations. Artistically, the biennial was a smashing success, drawing comments such as, “Prospect.1 takes the reprobate scallywag nihilists of the contemporary avant-garde and converts them … into goody-two-shoes bleeding-heart believers in the nobility of humankind.”[1] Unfortunately, Prospect.1 ended over a million dollars in debt, defaulting on the public’s trust. Then, unable to meet funding expectations, Prospect returned in 2010 with something called Prospect1.5, a mostly local affair that was as awkward as the first iteration was ballsy. Prospect.2 opened the next year in 2011, with a graceful mix of international and local artists, but was still significantly less exciting that the first iteration. Prospect.3 now has grown into early adulthood and has regained some of the energy that made Prospect.1 so great. This year’s iteration opened on October 25 with fifty-eight artists spread around eighteen locations.

Zarina Bhimji. Waiting, 2007 (video still); 35mm color film, HD transfer; single screen installation; 7:48. Courtesy of the Artist.

Tucked between a bank and a barbershop, the University of New Orleans St. Claude Gallery is an easily overlooked spot, but Shrine, the collaboration between the Propeller Group and Christopher Myers, is one of the most successful works of Prospect.3. Sirmans says in the catalog, “That one learns much about oneself in and through the Other is at the crux of this project.”[2] Nowhere can you see this as clearly as with the film The Living Need Light, And The Dead Need Music (2014), part of a collaborative installation with Myers. The film, which takes its title from a Vietnamese proverb, reveals the relation between the culture of Vietnam and New Orleans via the “butterfly effect of … non-locality whereby two distinct phenomena affect one another across a vast expanse of space and time.”[3] Replete with lush imagery of funeral rituals, characters such as a bandleader with a peripatetic orchestra lead us through marketplaces, streets, and into a marsh. Sprawling mourners and spiritual leaders crowd the frame. This film is accompanied by costumes and sculptures from the film (for example, a six-headed tuba). The Living Need Light unites two groups that, only one generation ago, perpetrated unspeakable acts on each other. The Vietnam War continues to leave deep scars that are only now beginning to heal in our current generation. It is deeply moving to see how uniquely spiritual and commonly human are our shared funerary practices.

Jose Antonio Vega Macotela. #331 (from Time Divisa), 2010; human hair and paper; 22.05 x 16.93 in. Courtesy of the Artist and LABOR, Mexico D.F.

One of the disappointments of Prospect.3 is the frequent lack of care for exhibition space. Works by Jose Antonio Vega Macotela, Camille Henrot, and Shigeru Ban seem to be stuffed into the corners at Longue Vue House and Garden. Macotela’s works, which explore the idea of proxy, were hung in an awkwardly small room off the side of the house. In Time Divisa (2006­–2010), the artist trades his time with Mexico City prisoners: The prisoners request Macotela to perform an act for them, such as visiting a grave, asking forgiveness from a family member, or spying on a lover. In return, the prisoner completes a work of the artist’s choosing: picking up cigarettes, writing down everything they did that day in chronological order, etc. Camille Henrot’s Grosse Fatigue, a film that moves through the history and systematization of the universe, was in an even smaller area. Shigeru Ban’s work was relegated to the gatehouse; any hope of a conversation between the works is unlikely. Similarly, William Cordova’s and Terry Adkins’ work at Dillard University is in two far-flung locations of the campus; Cordova’s work is stuck in what feels like a side room, and Adkins’ work seems pushed into a corner in the entranceway of a building. All of these works would command more attention if their presentation was made with greater care.

Overall, the curatorial concept is one of finding specific connections—through ideas, aesthetics, or traditions—to New Orleans. The majority of Prospect.3 artists are exhibited at the Contemporary Art Center.[4] Some of the works here are standouts—Zarina Bhimji’s film For Waiting (2014) is a stunningly beautiful series of scenes of a sisal-processing factory near Mombasa, Kenya. Sisal is a species of agave harvested for its fiber, which is used to make rope, cord, sacks, and carpets. Huge mountains of decadent white filament are piled up in an antiquated warehouse. Slow camera shots, rich textural shots, and quiet natural sounds add to a feeling of stillness and beauty. Yet I also felt a very clear sense of dread, possibly from a shared colonial history. Bhimji’s visceral film is entrancing.

In the opening of Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino wrote, “Only in Marco Polo’s accounts was Kublai Khan able to discern, through the walls and towers destined to crumble, the tracery of a pattern so subtle it could escape the termites gnawing.” New Orleans is a city suspended in space and time. Prospect.3 strives to describe, as Marco Polo does, a reflection the imagination, memory, artifact, and spirit of the world through the rippling mirror of New Orleans. Distortion of these ideas is a natural effect, but what new concepts and notions will be born from that distortion? These will be the true reward that Prospect.3 will give to New Orleans.

[1] Walter Robinson, “BLEEDING-HEART BIENNALE.” ArtNet. Accessed 11/2/14. http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/robinson/robinson11-7-08.asp

[2] Franklin Sirmans, “Somewhere and Not Anywhere” (Delmonico Books/Prestel Publishing: Hong Kong, 2014).

[3] Prospect New Orleans. Wall text from UNO St. Claude Gallery.

[4] Artists exhibited at the CAC are: Theaster Gates, Lucien Smith, Lucia Koch, Manal AlDowayan, Firelei Baez, Zarina Bhimji, McArthur Binion, Douglas Bourgeois, Mohammed Bourouissa, Thomas Joshua Cooper, Charles Gaines, Pieter Hugo, Yun-fei Ji, Glenn Kaino, Sophie T. Lvoff, Hayal Pozanti, Pushpamala N., Joe Ray, Analia Saban, Lisa Sigal, Agus Suwage, Entang Wiharso, and David Zink Yi.

It sounds like a riddle: No one can buy more of it, and few have enough of it; it wears on the rich and poor equally; loss of it produces deep fear. Time’s ability to be transferred and manipulated is at the heart of José Antonio Vega Macotela’s mixed-media series Time Divisa, part of which is on view at Longue View House and Gardens for Prospect.3. Throughout history, humanity has meted out punishment by taking away an individual’s time. Imprisonment is the physical demonstration of divided time. Macotela’s work provides an alternate source of time, a jailbreak of sorts.

Jose Antonio Vega Macotela. Time Exchange 331 (from Time Divisa), 2010; human hair and paper; 22 x 17 in. Courtesy of the Artist and Prospect.3.

Macotela trades his time with convicts held in Mexico City’s Santa Marta Acatitla Prison. On a specific day, a task requested by a prisoner is performed by the artist concurrently with the prisoner creating a work of art. “What they usually want me to do is to literally take their place in the outside world. I’ve visited the tombs of their brothers and said a few words. I’ve asked their fathers for forgiveness. I’ve gone dancing with their mothers. I’ve met their sons and acted as their father for a day. I’ve read a letter out loud to a dying relative in the hospital. One prisoner even asked me to go to his girlfriend’s house and watch her masturbate so that I could describe the scene for him, bit by bit.”[1]

Time Exchange 331 (2010) was made in exchange for Macotela spying on a prisoner’s ex-lover in the Zona Rosa in Mexico City. Made out of short, dark hairs from both the prisoner and his now-current lover, Time Exchange 331 depicts a map of the prison, with cell blocks surrounding a circular room. The extremely personal nature of the medium emphasizes the relationships that were formed from this project. The prisoner, “Eduardo,” used one of the few free commodities present in a prison—his own body—to create a work dictated by Macotela. The map of the prison is also a Poleana board, a board game played almost exclusively in prisons. The origin of the game is not clear, but some say it was introduced by Colombian narcotraffickers at Santa Martha Acatitla; others say it was adapted from a 1950s Parker Brothers game.[2] The board resembles the architecture of a prison, with the cells surrounding a circular main room, recalling Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. The composition of this game and of Time Exchange 331 depicts a prisoner’s conceptualization of power relations in prison and the fantasy of breaking out of that structure.

Jose Antonio Vega Macotela. Time Exchange 291 (from Time Divisa), 2009; intervened book; 8.27 x 6.3 x 4.72 in. Courtesy of the Artist and Prospect.3.

One of the greatest prison-break stories is Alexander Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo. The main character, Edmond Dantès, reveals the prisoner’s mentality: “How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure.” Similarly, the prisoners in Santa Marta Acatitla prison have long periods of time to contemplate the outside world. In Exchange 291 (2009), Macotela exchanged time spent searching for a prisoner’s girlfriend for a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo in which the prisoner (“El Kamala”) used his hand to scratch a hole through the center of the novel; the work recalls Dantès’ own years-long attempt to escape by slowly digging through stone. But “Eel Kamala” is no fictional character. How much time does it take to scratch through 500 pages with a finger? Exchange 291 is a literal manifestation of a span of time spent detained, one longer than anyone might hope to experience.

The concept of trading time is a very old one. In the 12th century, the old or unable could use a proxy traveler to complete a religious pilgrimage. This tradition anticipates Macotela’s work and raises the possibility that the idea of time exchange is potentially an innate spiritual response to impairment. Macotela says, “Women would usually ask for favors dealing with faith, like asking me to crawl on my knees inside the Basílica de Guadalupe (one of the most revered churches in Mexico) to do penance on their behalf… It is as if they were looking for hope beyond the human realm, because the human realm is no longer within their reach.”[3] Prison walls may bind the physicality of individuals, but Macotela creates a (limited) transcendence of the corporeal and the opportunity to realize metaphysical desire.

[1] Antonio Vega Macotela, as told to Gabriella Gómez-Mont, “Mexican Rashes,” Vice Magazine, http://www.vice.com/read/mexican-rashes-137-v15n6. Accessed November 30, 2014.

[2] http://linvo.blogspot.com/2007/11/poleana-poliana.html. Accessed November 30, 2014.

[3] Antonio Vega Macotela, as told to Gabriella Gómez-Mont, “Mexican Rashes.” Vice Magazine, http://www.vice.com/read/mexican-rashes-137-v15n6. Accessed November 30, 2014.

Camille Henrot. Grosse Fatigue, 2013 (video still); video installation (color, sound). Courtesy of the Artist, Silex Films, and kamel mennour, Paris.

Prospect New Orleans has had an awkward childhood. Prospect.1, founded by Dan Cameron, opened in October 2008 with eighty-one artists from thirty-four countries in about thirty locations. Artistically, the biennial was a smashing success, drawing comments such as, “Prospect.1 takes the reprobate scallywag nihilists of the contemporary avant-garde and converts them … into goody-two-shoes bleeding-heart believers in the nobility of humankind.”[1] Unfortunately, Prospect.1 ended over a million dollars in debt, defaulting on the public’s trust. Then, unable to meet funding expectations, Prospect returned in 2010 with something called Prospect1.5, a mostly local affair that was as awkward as the first iteration was ballsy. Prospect.2 opened the next year in 2011, with a graceful mix of international and local artists, but was still significantly less exciting that the first iteration. Prospect.3 now has grown into early adulthood and has regained some of the energy that made Prospect.1 so great. This year’s iteration opened on October 25 with fifty-eight artists spread around eighteen locations.

Zarina Bhimji. Waiting, 2007 (video still); 35mm color film, HD transfer; single screen installation; 7:48. Courtesy of the Artist.

Tucked between a bank and a barbershop, the University of New Orleans St. Claude Gallery is an easily overlooked spot, but Shrine, the collaboration between the Propeller Group and Christopher Myers, is one of the most successful works of Prospect.3. Sirmans says in the catalog, “That one learns much about oneself in and through the Other is at the crux of this project.”[2] Nowhere can you see this as clearly as with the film The Living Need Light, And The Dead Need Music (2014), part of a collaborative installation with Myers. The film, which takes its title from a Vietnamese proverb, reveals the relation between the culture of Vietnam and New Orleans via the “butterfly effect of … non-locality whereby two distinct phenomena affect one another across a vast expanse of space and time.”[3] Replete with lush imagery of funeral rituals, characters such as a bandleader with a peripatetic orchestra lead us through marketplaces, streets, and into a marsh. Sprawling mourners and spiritual leaders crowd the frame. This film is accompanied by costumes and sculptures from the film (for example, a six-headed tuba). The Living Need Light unites two groups that, only one generation ago, perpetrated unspeakable acts on each other. The Vietnam War continues to leave deep scars that are only now beginning to heal in our current generation. It is deeply moving to see how uniquely spiritual and commonly human are our shared funerary practices.

Jose Antonio Vega Macotela. #331 (from Time Divisa), 2010; human hair and paper; 22.05 x 16.93 in. Courtesy of the Artist and LABOR, Mexico D.F.

One of the disappointments of Prospect.3 is the frequent lack of care for exhibition space. Works by Jose Antonio Vega Macotela, Camille Henrot, and Shigeru Ban seem to be stuffed into the corners at Longue Vue House and Garden. Macotela’s works, which explore the idea of proxy, were hung in an awkwardly small room off the side of the house. In Time Divisa (2006­–2010), the artist trades his time with Mexico City prisoners: The prisoners request Macotela to perform an act for them, such as visiting a grave, asking forgiveness from a family member, or spying on a lover. In return, the prisoner completes a work of the artist’s choosing: picking up cigarettes, writing down everything they did that day in chronological order, etc. Camille Henrot’s Grosse Fatigue, a film that moves through the history and systematization of the universe, was in an even smaller area. Shigeru Ban’s work was relegated to the gatehouse; any hope of a conversation between the works is unlikely. Similarly, William Cordova’s and Terry Adkins’ work at Dillard University is in two far-flung locations of the campus; Cordova’s work is stuck in what feels like a side room, and Adkins’ work seems pushed into a corner in the entranceway of a building. All of these works would command more attention if their presentation was made with greater care.

Overall, the curatorial concept is one of finding specific connections—through ideas, aesthetics, or traditions—to New Orleans. The majority of Prospect.3 artists are exhibited at the Contemporary Art Center.[4] Some of the works here are standouts—Zarina Bhimji’s film For Waiting (2014) is a stunningly beautiful series of scenes of a sisal-processing factory near Mombasa, Kenya. Sisal is a species of agave harvested for its fiber, which is used to make rope, cord, sacks, and carpets. Huge mountains of decadent white filament are piled up in an antiquated warehouse. Slow camera shots, rich textural shots, and quiet natural sounds add to a feeling of stillness and beauty. Yet I also felt a very clear sense of dread, possibly from a shared colonial history. Bhimji’s visceral film is entrancing.

In the opening of Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino wrote, “Only in Marco Polo’s accounts was Kublai Khan able to discern, through the walls and towers destined to crumble, the tracery of a pattern so subtle it could escape the termites gnawing.” New Orleans is a city suspended in space and time. Prospect.3 strives to describe, as Marco Polo does, a reflection the imagination, memory, artifact, and spirit of the world through the rippling mirror of New Orleans. Distortion of these ideas is a natural effect, but what new concepts and notions will be born from that distortion? These will be the true reward that Prospect.3 will give to New Orleans.

[1] Walter Robinson, “BLEEDING-HEART BIENNALE.” ArtNet. Accessed 11/2/14. http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/robinson/robinson11-7-08.asp

[2] Franklin Sirmans, “Somewhere and Not Anywhere” (Delmonico Books/Prestel Publishing: Hong Kong, 2014).

[3] Prospect New Orleans. Wall text from UNO St. Claude Gallery.

[4] Artists exhibited at the CAC are: Theaster Gates, Lucien Smith, Lucia Koch, Manal AlDowayan, Firelei Baez, Zarina Bhimji, McArthur Binion, Douglas Bourgeois, Mohammed Bourouissa, Thomas Joshua Cooper, Charles Gaines, Pieter Hugo, Yun-fei Ji, Glenn Kaino, Sophie T. Lvoff, Hayal Pozanti, Pushpamala N., Joe Ray, Analia Saban, Lisa Sigal, Agus Suwage, Entang Wiharso, and David Zink Yi.