‘A Tale of Two Cities,’ the art of two killer hurricanes | Arts

In a way, “A Tale of Two Cities,” an exhibit at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Art, is a comparison of fresh wounds and old scars.

The group show includes paintings, sculpture, photos and fine craft by artists from New Orleans and Asheville, North Carolina, which were assembled to mark the 20th anniversary of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina and the first anniversary of Hurricane Helene in 2024.

Both storms and subsequent floods laid waste to regions known in part for their flourishing art communities.

“A Tale of Two Cities” is about commiseration and survival. The shock, emotional despair and sheer destruction seen in some of the Asheville works will seem entirely familiar to New Orleanians. Tami Beldue’s eerie self-portrait, in which her hands seem to drift aimlessly in the air, may well remind you of the depression and distraction that was commonplace during the post-K recovery.

Likewise, New Orleans artist Frank Relle’s utterly still photo of a modest Clouet Street home ravaged by the storm and flood probably echoes the sort of devastation wrought when the rivers in the Asheville region jumped their banks.

Co-curator Jan Gilbert said that if there’s any wisdom New Orleans artists might be able to share with their North Carolina counterparts, it is the bitter knowledge that it’s “going to take a long time” to get past it.

The energy in the exhibit, Gilbert said, is the “dialogue” that develops between artworks that address the same basic subject in vastly different media and styles.

One of the great juxtapositions in the exhibit is viewing Jeremy Jernegan’s utterly cool, colorless, geometric rendering of sloshing waves, displayed directly between fellow New Orleans artist Rontherin Ratliff’s emotionally fraught, earthy, splintery floating house sculptures. The disparate artworks should clash. Instead, they are marvelously harmonious.

Likewise, New Orleans artist Jana Napoli’s realistically rendered ducks, which are scattered here and there in the exhibit, add a poignant counterpoint to Asheville artist Peter Roux’s realistic paintings of roiling cumulus clouds.

Comparing Hayden Wilson’s fragile, gorgeous glass “Butterfly Wing” to fellow Asheville artist Alison Chism’s grotesque glass eyeball, titled “Hello and Good Luck Everybody,” is a yin and yang of sincerity and satire.

Such artistic interactions pop up everywhere.

In the craft room behind the New Orleans Academy of Fine Art’s twin galleries, visitors will find a show within a show, featuring pottery, woodcraft, metalwork and weaving by accomplished Western North Carolina artists.

These works may not directly address Katrina and Helene, but it represent continuity.

As NOAFA’s executive director Andrew Rodgers explained, all of the artists in the exhibit “went back to their waterlogged studio and made art.”

“Some works in the show,” he explained, are conceptual, addressing the existential climate crisis, and “some are just the artists surviving.”

Tattered Tibetan-style prayer flags made by Gilbert and Louisiana artist Babette Beaullieu flutter in the breeze outside the Academy, perhaps indicating the compassion and wisdom gained from trial and tragedy. Charmingly, beneath the flags near the Magazine Street sidewalk, is a mailbox in which visitors can leave notes, sharing their reactions to the twin storms and floods. The messages will later be put on display.