NEW ORLEANS – The Department of Design is hosting “A Tribute to Harold Baquet: Picturing Blackness,” a meditation on Black imagery and culture from the noted New Orleans photographer, which opens Oct. 24 in the newly renamed Diboll Design Center, on the 4th floor of Monroe Library at Loyola University.
A seventh-generation New Orleanian of Creole descent, Baquet spent 30 years photographing New Orleans and its people, specifically Black political and daily life. He worked at New Orleans City Hall as a photographer during the mayoral administrations of Dutch Morial and Sidney Barthelemy, and later spent 25 years as the photographer at Loyola.
“The exhibition also includes the work of 10 photographers from the Black and Brown communities in New Orleans, who were asked to provide photos in the same spirit as Baquet’s to serve as a response to his work,” said Daniela Marx, chair of the Department of Design and director of the Diboll Design Center, formerly known as the Diboll Gallery.
L. Kasimu Harris, a New Orleans-based photographer and writer, is curating the exhibition, which will include 55 images in total.
“I didn’t personally know Harold Baquet, but I know his work as a quintessential photographer of New Orleans,” said Harris. “The work that Harold did outside of his jobs are evidence of his love for the city.”
Marx noted that Harris is an acclaimed photographer in his own right. He will be one of 13 artists worldwide to take part in an exhibit called “New Photography 2025,” opening next year at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In addition, he will be exhibiting in Prospect.6: “The Future is Present, The Harbinger is Home,” an international art triennial that will take place citywide in New Orleans and opens on Nov. 2.
The photographers who will share space with Baquet are Jamal Barnes, Edward Buckles, Delaney George, Camille Farrah Lenain, Ashley Lorraine, Girard Mouton III, Akasha Rabut, Tod Smith, Trenity Thomas and Eric Waters.
Harris, also an adjunct faculty member at Loyola, chose the photographers whose work will hang alongside Baquet’s, saying he wanted to “dig deeper” and show different perspectives of New Orleans that pushed visual boundaries.
For example, Lenain contributed a photograph of a musician cleaning his instrument at his home, which, in turn, provides an intimate look at how the musician lives, Harris said. In another photo, Mouton captured the late R&B singer Ernie K-Doe outside the Mother-in-Law Lounge, which K-Doe operated before his death, he said.
The exhibition will run through April 1, 2025, and is free and open to the public. The Diboll Design Center is open the same hours as Monroe Library, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For more information, visit https://cmm.loyno.edu/news/.
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