Legacy Traces:

The Newcomb Art Museum opened as a public exhibition space in September 1996. In 2004, with major collection transfers from Newcomb College and Tulane University, the museum’s function on campus expanded as a repository for art and design. The exhibition Legacy Traces features a selection of artworks acquired over the past decade, a majority of which were collected in the last five years. This installation marks the campus debut of twenty-one works, and considers how the museum’s acquisition practices have evolved in step with the institution’s growth and global trends in art.

Each addition draws a new path of connection among artists, objects, and our institutional history. Artists Shirin Neshat, Jennifer Grijalva and Christian Dinh offer transnational perspectives and seek to shift our viewpoint on experiences of immigration and diaspora. Jess T. Dugan and James Gobel bring intimacy to their treatment of the human body and queer relationships, whereas the figures of George Dureau and Cristina Molina are approached as mythical archetypes. Renee Stout’s rendering of local priestess Marie Laveau reflects on the complexity of her ancestral connections.

Throughout the exhibition, artists reference architecture and design to create spaces of common ground. Andy Warhol, Jacqueline Humphries, and James DeWoody reorient familiar symbols into abstractions. Works by Donté K. Hayes and Nancy Wyllie use the symbolism of portals to contemplate the transitional spaces of history and memory. Photographers Bruce Davidson and Betsy Swanson transform our perspectives on public commemorative sites. Legacy Traces asks: Whose stories are being told? What themes and histories are being centered? How are artists shaping our feelings of belonging?