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Dawn DeDeaux, ‘Daisy Space Clown in Black Field,’ 2013, Digital Drawing on polished acrylic (ed.1/3), 88 x 40 inches, Collection of the Artist, Photo by Dawn DeDeaux © Dawn DeDeaux

NOMA presents Dawn DeDeaux retrospective

Sheila Gibson Stoodley
Sheila Gibson Stoodley
Dawn DeDeaux, ‘Daisy Space Clown in Black Field,’ 2013, Digital Drawing on polished acrylic (ed.1/3), 88 x 40 inches, Collection of the Artist, Photo by Dawn DeDeaux © Dawn DeDeaux
Dawn DeDeaux, ‘Daisy Space Clown in Black Field,’ 2013, Digital Drawing on polished acrylic (ed.1/3), 88 x 40 inches, Collection of the Artist, Photo by Dawn DeDeaux © Dawn DeDeaux

NEW ORLEANS – The New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) presents Dawn DeDeaux: The Space Between Worlds, the first comprehensive museum exhibition for the pioneering multimedia artist Dawn DeDeaux, on view October 22 through January 23, 2022. One of the first American artists to connect questions about social justice to emerging environmental concerns, DeDeaux’s art responds to an uncertain future imperiled by runaway population growth, breakneck industrial development, and the imminent threat of climate change.

“Dawn DeDeaux has long grappled with existential questions surrounding earth and humanity’s survival,” said Susan Taylor, Montine McDaniel Freeman Director of NOMA. “Originally scheduled for Fall 2020 but twice postponed — once due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and again because of the recent climate change-induced catastrophe of Hurricane Ida — the works and messages presented in the exhibition are more relevant than ever as we navigate this challenging time.”

Dawn DeDeaux
Dawn DeDeaux, ‘CB Radio Booths, 1975-76,’ Installation of nine CB Radio Booths at various locations across New Orleans, Collection of the Artist, Photo by Dawn DeDeaux © Dawn DeDeaux

Since the 1970s, DeDeaux’s practice has included video, performance, photography, sculpture, and installation to create art that grapples with the social, political, and environmental impacts of the Anthropocene, and responds to the unique threats facing her home state of Louisiana, one of the fastest disappearing landmasses in the world. The Space Between Worlds is organized around a series of immersive installations that span DeDeaux’s entire 50-year career. Featured are early projects like CB Radio Booths, which linked communities across New Orleans via radio and satellite, to more recent works from her MotherShip series, which plots our escape from a ruined earth, and a brand new immersive 70-foot video installation entitled Where’s Mary.

Dawn DeDeaux,‘The End,’ 2013, Digital drawing on archival paper, 48 x 96 inches, Artist proof, Collection of the Artist, Photo by Dawn DeDeaux © Dawn DeDeaux
Dawn DeDeaux,‘The End,’ 2013, Digital drawing on archival paper, 48 x 96 inches, Artist proof, Collection of the Artist, Photo by Dawn DeDeaux © Dawn DeDeaux

“A ‘retrospective’ is by definition a look backward, but in the case of Dawn DeDeaux’s work, that definition doesn’t seem to fit,” said author, scholar, and catalogue contributor John M. Barry. “So much of what she’s done seems of the now. It’s beyond prescient.”

DeDeaux has long worked between the worlds of the past, present and future. Her exhibition highlights that we all have a limited-time-only opportunity to come together, coexist, and effect change.

Visit the website of the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) and see its dedicated page for Dawn DeDeaux: The Space Between Worlds.