By Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter
Dallas, TX – Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter: The easy answer says a sense of place partly defines Southern art. But like the modern glass and stone, five-story building in the Crescent City's 19th century warehouse district, the art in the Ogden Museum defies stereotypes. Artist Jeffrey Cook, a New Orleanian who helped organize the display of works, says that's by design.
Jeff Cook, New Orleans artist: I think people come in and want everything literal. They want it photo-realistic. They want photographs that show oppression, or things with reference to the South. They're not going to see that.
Zeeble: Viewers, he says, will not see for example, pictures of hooded Klan figures. In the 47-thousand square foot building - the first in a three-phase construction project - they will see paintings, crafts, photographs and sculpture from the last one hundred years, collected from across the South. Works like early 20th century scenes of sun-drenched or snow-covered meadows, or bluebonnet fields by relatively unknown masters Will Henry Stevens or Robert Onderdonk. And recent works, including Jeffrey Cook's "Making of a Melody," a painted assembly of found boards, metal, a broom, and cloth, resembling an abandoned home in his neighborhood.
Cook: It's very busy. We all know what a quilt looks like: there's lots of patterns, lots of writing, lots of torn rags. The two figures have a reference to homelessness; back to back, they have a sad feel to them.
Zeeble: Cook says he created this work hoping to heal himself of the oppression and pain he feels in his New Orleans community. Over the years, he says it's been promised so much by politicians and businesses, only to be let down repeatedly. It's neither easy nor pretty, like some of the museum's lush landscapes. But to Roger Ogden, whose 12-hundred works form the museum's core collection, it's also beautiful.
Roger Ogden, New Orleans art collector: Whether it's non-objective, really tough abstract, in-your-face work, or some of the social commentary narrative work of the pain in society. There's beauty in all of that. The beauty's in the communication. If we see something that awakens some part of our minds that might not have been awakened before, what's more beautiful? It's learning, opening minds. And art is a fantastic vehicle to open minds.
Zeeble: Ogden, for whom this museum is named, wasn't always open to modern art or collecting. He bought his first piece, an Alexander Drysdale Louisiana bayou scene called "Blue Lagoon" while a student at Louisiana State University. He fell for the work hanging in a gallery because it reminded him of his youth in Lafayette. Ogden desperately wanted it, but couldn't afford it. So he asked his father to help him buy it as a Christmas gift for his mother. But buying art intimidated both of them. Ogden says the pitch to his dad was a hard sell until his father entered the gallery and was drawn to painting.
Ogden: He said, "It's this one, isn't it? Wow." I said, "Yes sir, it is." He got it, he just totally got it, the sense of place. Wasn't just that it was moss-laden oaks and bayous, it was the way it was rendered. And we bought the painting. My mom was absolutely thrilled. She couldn't believe these two oafs of hers could be so sensitive to buy her art for Christmas. That's honestly how it started.
Zeeble: That was 37 years ago. Every year since, Ogden has added to and expanded the collection while building a prosperous real estate business. By the 1990's, art experts praised the collection as significant and extensive. Ogden, who calls himself the quintessential capitalist entrepreneur, says he focused on Southern art because it hadn't been well explored. It was an artistic niche he could fill. But not just for himself.
Ogden: There's a thought that permeates my very soul, and that art doesn't belong to any of us. Art belongs to the people. Art represents the best of human nature in any given era. If war represents the worst of human nature where we can't work out differences until we bow each other up, then art, which comes from individual creative soul - art is generally measure of advancement. So the thought that we're only stewards of art for part of our lifetime, it just had to be.
Zeeble: The art here, valued somewhere around $30 million, represents the bulk of Ogden's net worth. But the collector says he's not a gazillionaire, and was able to collect the pieces in part because they were affordable. D allas-based painter David Bates, whose canvas "Blue Heron and Green Snake" is owned by Ogden, thinks he knows why. For decades, he says, only work from the Northeast - New York, Boston, Philadelphia - was dubbed "great American art."
David Bates, Dallas-based artist: All else is regional. And that had such a bad, derogatory term. It was the country cousin to whatever good is. That's what regional is, even though the Northeast is a region too. It seems that was the good region and other ones were the country cousin versions.
Zeeble: What blossomed in the South, more than elsewhere, Bates says, was art centered on history, especially African American history, and storytelling, which includes simplified folk art
Bates: There's a whole sense of people who tell stories and people who communicate verbally. If I go in for beer somewhere, stop in a diner somewhere, I'll meet someone interesting. Then you're talking, I'm looking at them, their face, next thing you know, they're in a painting. From memory. That's another huge thing; the concept of memory. If you're an abstract painter down here, you're a really brave soul. You'd get, "What the hell's that? It doesn't communicate." It really didn't communicate to me, either.
Zeeble: The Ogden Museum does contain abstract works, although the goal is to build the collection. Some of the best known abstract artists who worked in the South, like Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, are not in the Ogden's permanent collection. Roger Ogden says he can't afford the multi-million dollar prices these artists command. But Willie Birch, whose sculpture is in the Ogden, says the collector needs them.
Willie Birch, artist: I'm watching the museum. To me - and I don't want to offend any other artist - but I think there's a higher level. And I'm looking to see where it goes from here. This isn't enough for me. I'm hard on myself, so I hope they understand. I think there's another level. We'll see how they develop it. Many artists are from the South, like Charles White, who lived here. Romare Bearden; I don't see a Bearden in the collection.
Zeeble: Ogden director Richard Gruber, who used to run the only other museum of Southern art, the Morris, in Augusta, acknowledges other gaps in the collection. He'd like a Georgia O'Keefe painting, photos by Walker Evans, works by Thomas Hart Benton, who spent a lot of time in the South. Yet the collection's already grown to more than double the original size. And he believes more high quality works in the fledgling museum will arrive as the collection, and the museum's educational mission, become better known.
Gruber: Our argument is not that this is a provincial museum or provincial effort. It's looking at the South and offering a context for those who've used the South or come from the South or seen the South as part of their creative process.
Zeeble: Over the last half century or so, the South has grown in population, wealth, and sophistication. Gruber says up to now, its history has been written by outsiders. Now, in part through the Ogden, some of that perspective will be conveyed by Southerners. The Ogden's research library and a wing, for 18th and 19th century art, are currently under construction. For KERA 90.1, I'm Bill Zeeble.
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