The mission of Kolaj Institute is to support artists, curators, and writers who seek to study, document, and disseminate ideas that deepen our understanding of collage as a medium, a genre, a community, and a 21st century movement. We operate a number of initiatives meant to bring together community, investigate critical issues, and raise collage’s standing in the art world.
Kolaj Institute’s Gallery in New Orleans presents exhibitions and connects Kolaj Institute and the artists we work with to the vibrant St. Claude Arts District. We produce 8-10 exhibitions a year and participate in Second Saturday, the neighborhood’s monthly art walk, putting the collage art, books and exhibitions in front of New Orleanians and visitors.
The Gallery is located at 2374 Saint Claude Avenue, Suite 230, at the corner with St. Roch Avenue above the Peach Cobbler Factory. The Gallery is open Thursday-Saturday, Noon-6PM or by appointment.
Volunteers play a critical role at Kolaj Institute Gallery. We are looking for people who can help install exhibitions, staff the gallery during open hours, help with archiving, and lend a hand with opening receptions. If you’re interested or have questions send an email to gallery@kolajinstitute.org.
If you’d like to support Kolaj Institute’s mission, Make a Donation.
CURRENT EXHIBITION
Camera & Collage
29 November 2024 to 25 January 2025
as part of PhotoNOLA 2024
Opening Reception during Second Saturday: 14 December 2024, 6-9PM
The mediums of collage and photography are bound together in an ongoing dialogue. The photographer makes pictures of the world. The collagist remixes those pictures to tell a story about the world we live in. What happens when the photographer begins collaging their own work? What happens when the collage artist picks up the camera?
“Camera & Collage” brings together artists from Australia, Kuwait, Mexico, Canada, and the United States each of whom have developed a practice that sits at the intersection of collage and photography. The artwork demonstrates a variety of techniques and approaches. The artists are engaged in collage as process; making art with family archives and found materials; exploring alternative processes; and challenging how we think about images in a world flooded with them. In doing this, the artists invite viewers to consider questions of identity and gender; family and memory; the materiality of photography; and history and artist process.
The exhibition, “Camera & Collage”, takes place at Kolaj Institute Gallery from 29 November 2024 to 25 January 2025 as part of PhotoNOLA 2024, an annual celebration of photography in New Orleans, produced by the New Orleans Photo Alliance in partnership with museums, galleries, and alternative venues citywide. A reception will take place 6PM to 8PM on December 14, 2024 as part of Second Saturday in the Bywater. The exhibition is the third in a series in which Kolaj Institute is exploring the intersection of Photography & Collage.
The gallery is open Thursday through Saturday from Noon to 6PM and by appointment.
PAST EXHIBITIONS
Temporal Geolocation: How Place & History Inform Identity in Collage
11 October to 24 November 2024
Paula Mans, T. Owens Union, Candace Caston, & Jeanna Penn
In Lure of the Local, Lucy Lippart wrote, “When we know where we are, we’re in a far better position to understand what other cultural groups are experiencing within a time and place we all share.” How do we temporally geolocate ourselves? How does the history of that place inform who we are in that place? How do we bring our own histories into a place that has a history of its own. North American modern life is fundamentally diasporic in nature. So many of us are from somewhere else and yet, where we are and when we are shapes who we are at any given point in time. How do we reconcile disparate identities and nurture a whole sense of self? In the exhibition, “Temporal Geolocation,” Paula Mans, T. Owens Union, Candace Caston, and Jeanna Penn draw on history and a sense of place to make collage art that speaks to identity. The exhibition runs 11 October to 24 November 2024 at Kolaj Institute Gallery.
Advanced Wound Healing Techniques
Collage by Robbie Morgan
16 August to 6 October 2024
Made in the months leading up to the artist’s 40th birthday, “Advanced Wound Healing Techniques” is a collection of collage made with personal photographs that were destroyed in a series of fires that took place when artist Robbie Morgan was 24 years old. In the intervening sixteen years, the artist carted around these photographs, moving them from home to home, storing them, occasionally reflecting on them. The collages speak to trauma, destruction, memory and how, as we age, we make sense of things. The artist wrote, “The collective assemblage allowed me to connect to these memories in a way that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to if I hadn’t made this work. “
Magic in the Modern World
1 June-11 August 2024
In Fall 2023, Kolaj Institute invited collage artists to visit New Orleans and explore magic as a cultural idea, an ancestral tradition, a construct used by power to subjugate, and as a practice used by others to resist colonization and capitalism. Writer Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” While Clarke was looking backwards, the artwork in this exhibition considers the role of magic in our contemporary, modern communities and what role it may play in the future.
Artwork in this exhibition speaks to honoring ancestors; tapping cultural magic; cosmology and life building; the power of womanhood; the quietude of modern magic; the practice of offerings and rituals; magical colors; spirit animals; magic in the diaspora; punishment of magic and the persecution of witches; and care for spiritual beings.
Also included in this exhibition is Jennifer Evans’ A Memorial to Witches of Dumfries located in the New Orleans Healing Center next door, to the left of the front entrance, across from Island of Salvation Botanica.
This exhibition was curated by Ric Kasini Kadour. Artists in the exhibition are Caroline Alterman, Rodney Boone, Lela Goldstein, Alexandra Montclair, Johanna Merfeld, Bridgette Bramlage, Ariya Aladjem Wolf, Vanessa L Moore, Debi A Barton Haverly, Jennifer Lai, Ihosvany Plasencia, Alicia Zapata, Jennifer Evans, and LaVonna Varnado Brown.
Collage the Planet: Environmentalism in Art
19 April-26 May 2024
The premise of the exhibition “Collage the Planet: Environmentalism in Art” is that science has the capacity to tell us how to care for the planet, but those solutions are meaningless if humanity doesn’t care enough to evolve and change. Art is a unique technology that can distill complexity into simple human gestures that, when experienced, facilitate a deeper understanding of our world. The exhibition shows examples of artwork that speaks to environmental issues and offers us an opportunity to intellectually and emotionally foster a healthy relationship with the natural world.
Artworks from invited artists will be joined by collage made during the Collage the Planet: Environmentalism in Art Artist Residency where artists from across North America spend five days in New Orleans exploring how they adapt their artist practice to speak to the complexities of environmental issues and contribute to a broader dialogue on sustainability and ecological consciousness.
The exhibition and artist residency, “Collage the Planet: Environmentalism in Art” is part of Kolaj Institute’s project, Politics in Collage, a series of residencies, publications, discussions, and exhibitions examining complex socio-political issues that contemporary society is contending with, in order to spark meaningful dialogue and inspire deeper engagement.
Kolaj Institute Grand Opening Exhibition and Reception
9 March-14 April 2024
Grand Opening Reception: 9 March 2024, 6-9PM
As part of the grand opening celebration for Kolaj Institute’s new home, Kolaj Institute is mounting an exhibition of artwork that is part of Kolaj Institute’s collection. This includes New Orleans artists such as Michael Pajón, Bianca Walker, and Kolaj Institute Director Ric Kasini Kadour. Members of the Mystic Krewe of Scissors and Glue will exhibit a collection of collaborative artworks. Artwork from Kolaj Institute’s past projects will also be on view, including from Artists in the Archives, Empty Columns Are a Place to Dream, Folklore & Collage, and Politics in Collage. Also on view will be Standard Processes in Dressmaking, a collaged altered book by nine members of the International Collage Community. Other artwork from Kolaj Institute’s collection in the exhibition is being curated by participants in the Curating Collage Workshop. A display of Kolaj Institute’s books will be on view and for sale.
The exhibition tells the story of Kolaj Institute and how the organization works with the International Collage Community to champion this fascinating medium.