ExhibitBE was the largest street art exhibit in the American South, as reported by New Orleans.me. It was part of the city wide Prospect 3 art experience and is a “community-centered celebration of street art’s transformative energy.” The Times Picayune named ExhibitBE the single most important art experience of 2014 and I would agree.
As reported in nola.com, the primary ExhibitBE" artist was Brandan Odums but there were quite a few others (Ayo Scott, Rontherin Ratliff, Ana Hernandez, Wild Seeds, Ceaux Yung, 3, Jess, Swan, Rone, Meek 1, Uter, Dvote, Stevie, Devin, Pyro, Sion, Sneek, Phats, Temps, Knowla, Rype, Enemy, Candy Chang, Dapa, Tdoe, Alex G, Geo, Kate, Jeremy, Noble, Mrsa, Borbeaux, Paws, Marc Fresh, Melon, Doom, Bryson, Mario Padilla). The experience was held in the unoccupied apartment complex just off of General De Gaulle Boulevard in Algiers once known as De Gaulle Manor.
In 2013 Odums' did "Project BE", a series of enormous portraits of civil rights heroes painted inside of apartments in the Florida housing development. The problem with that work was that the public wasn't permitted into the fenced apartment complex to view it.
This time Odums’ work at De Gaulle Manor was discovered by Bill Thomason. As a board member of the RDLN Foundation that owns the property, Thomason was able to get support to open it to the public. Eventually the apartment complex will be demolished to make way for a sports complex. Hotel owner and developer Sean Cummings sponsored the project.
I was fortunate to see the last two days, January 18 and 19. We had two nice days of sun and relatively warm weather to enjoy the inspiring art. There were large crowds both days. Below are some photos of the event. First, here are a few overviews.
These paintings were inside one of the building and I think they were are all done by Brandan Odums. The paintings depict key people in the civil rights movement with some of their statements.
Here are some details of the exteriors shown in the first set of photos. This work was done by several artists.
Here are other scenes through the exhibit with work done by several artists. There was more and I have only captured some of the highlights.
There were many musicians performing through out the last day. Here are some of them. The combination of muisc, art, and winter sun was powerful.