re: TulaneLSU's Top 10 paintings on Warehouse District building walls

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the long gone prisoner mural of the ranch scene and bull along the wall underneath of the I-10 and city park avenue overpass was the greatest public mural the city has ever seen, and a welcome site to weary eyes leaving the NOCC in the 90s.

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Friend,

The mural project, as well as the haunted house in City Park, were wonderful programs of the Foti administration. The parish prison art program began in 1984, according to Uncle, with a lovely Christmas message painted on the wall of the old prison visible from the interstate. I remember clearly some of those messages in later years. The program expanded to included the painting honoring Vietnam War veterans and then 9/11 first responders, both visible on the old prison south wall facing I-10.

The talented prisoners who helped beautify the city were never given due credit. In particular, I recall the mural you mention at the City Park underpass, an underpass that now is in need of beautification, but through the 90s became an attraction to lovers of art, especially those who appreciated the muscular yet serious cartoonish work of Thomas Hart Benton. His work experienced a small renaissance in the early 90s, thanks in part to the biographic film Ken Burns made in 1988. Trivia for the day: Benton was famously opposed to modern art and he was one of Jackson Pollock’s teachers!

Benton’s symbolic and elastic depictions of man versus nature in the Midwest struck a cosmic nerve in New Orleans, and the artist in the OPP who decided that Benton's 1947 "Achelous and Hercules" would be a good fit has never received the public acclaim deserving of him.

Every cultured New Orleanian who saw the mural understood the profound battle at play in that painting. The river god, Achelous, depicted as the bull and representing the Mississippi River, tries to overcome us, New Orleans, blue jeans and all. And yet, we will not be overcome. And when we struggle, our labors will be rewarded with a bounty of harvest. Benton, of course, had in mind his native Missouri River, but the battle speaks volumes in New Orleans, where the battle against our waters rages nearly every day.

It was perhaps the most ambitious of all of the many programs’ works. At over 500 feet in length, work started in July of 1990 and was not completed until the Autumn of 1991. At the time it was one of the world’s largest and most complex murals. I suspect it inspired contemporary projects like Toledo’s Glass City River Wall.




There were two other artistically significant works our wonderful citizen artists, who were incarcerated for a time, accomplished in the 90s. First, was Dali's "Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus" (1959) which survived for several years across the Convention Center.



Second was a work that no longer would likely be appreciated in a public setting, but times were different in the 90s. Everett B.D. Julio's 1869 "The Last Meeting of Lee and Jackson." I remember seeing it for the first time on a field trip to the Confederate Museum.




Thank you for reminding us of the beauty that once adorned our public concrete walls that have since been lost or fallen into quiet abstraction. One wonders the many beautiful talents that God has given and remain unused, boxed in a 6x8.

Yours,
TulaneLSU

Bait and switch

You’re dumbfounded bc it’s a character. People like that do exist but you can’t maintain that level of autism for that long without it causing your life serious issues.

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People just want New Orleans to fail

It’s a beautiful city and I hope it never does

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People don't want it to fail. They want the people who have led to the current state to finally realize how much of a failure their ridiculous policies are. Unfortunately, that will never happen so NOLA will continue to be a dumpster fire due to nothing more than pride and spite.

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God bless New Orleans.
Seriously, please.

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life is a gift from God
what we do with that life is our gift to Him
new orleans needs to bless God...

Thanks for the post. The positivity is appreciated. It’s true that murder and crime in general is trending downward. That’s nice to see but let’s not get carried away. Pats on the back along the way are nice but there’s still a mountain to climb.

We can’t ignore that there are still problems in the city of New Orleans. Serious problems.

They governing bodies have become corrupted.
The infrastructure needs massive improvement. Roads, water systems, pumps…
Graffiti is a problem.
Car theft is a problem.
Hiring police is a problem.
Racial relations are a problem.

Again, the positivity is nice. There’s more work to do

It's hot as the devil's a-hole outside, even the criminals don't want to come out. Of course crime is down.

I don't like how you think that being all religious makes you better than people. You are not better than me.

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The FBI has developed a new system and adoption isn't at 100%. It's at 60-70% and it's anticipated that in a few years the rate will be the same. LA and NYC aren't trying to avoid reporting their stats, they're huge bureaucracies and there's a lot of inertia in those systems that makes changing directions difficult.

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Horse shite and you know it.

The one glaring reality of crime stats was black crime in urban centers.

This made these elected officials and LEO look bad (ie held accountable) risking their positions of power/wealth.

They stopped responding before the FBI change to the less accurate methodology.

It’s not hard, click the box beside murder when it happens and record the sex and race of the person when the crime happens. They already do all this.

Over simplified but leadership in these places have great personal reasons to avoid reporting.