Prospects New Orleans will not be available in the next edition in 2027
Prospect New Orleans is a city-wide three-year launch in 2007 and will not be released in 2027. Instead, the organization will focus on creating a publication to understand its first 20 years and will be published in 2027.
Title 20 years of prospectthe volume will include a mixture of oral history and critical papers about the first six editions and include archival images for each edition.
Nick Stillman, former executive director of the prospect, told Artnews In the interview. “This is not the focus now. The focus now is to actually retreat. [from] It’s an extremely demanding honing of the three-year cycle, while amplifying and focusing on this legacy and archive work. ”
Stillman is characterized by the board’s decision to focus on the decision of the archival project rather than being aware of another exhibition of the triennial, an overall exhibition brought about by several different factors. The most important of these is to secure the legacy of the prospect. “We don’t want to see situations where the prospect threatens to erase,” he said. “It’s an attempt to turn our attention to ensuring the achievements of the prospect and the achievements it grows and develops, and recognize and organize in ways they are not here now.”
The first edition opened in 2007 two years after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the city. Stillman said its founder, Independent Curator Dan Cameron, aims to respond to the disaster.
Over the twenty years since, the prospect has become one of its kind repetitive exhibitions, known for its specific involvement with New Orleans and its large-scale committee of artists. “This allows artists from outside New Orleans and New Orleans to center the concept of the projects they never made,” Stillman said.
The first two versions were organized by Cameron, which has carefully observed the curators to achieve its subsequent iterations, including Franklin Sirmans (for Prospect.3), Trevor Schoonmaker (Prospect.4), and Naima J. Keith and Diana Nawi (Propppect.5). MCA Denver Senior Curator Miranda Lash and artist Ebony G. Patterson organized the latest version, which runs from November 2024 to February 2025. Although Prosppect made directories for each version, only two out of the six documents that included its device and commission. “The public doesn’t really see a lot of prospects, and that’s what we need to correct,” Stillman said.
When it opened, Prospect was the only city-wide effort held in multiple locations in New Orleans. As a result, it engages in several partners, including art museums and institutions, which are often part of the exhibition. “It’s an opportunity to take a step back, reevaluate and make sure we don’t tax the entire ecosystem we have to work with and work with the prospect,” Stillman said.
Another important factor in the decision to suspend the exhibition program this cycle is funding. Stillman said that for each three-year cycle, the prospect’s budget ranges from $5 million to $6.3 million, making it comparable to the arts organization, which has an annual budget of less than $2 million. The budget includes its staff salaries, artist fees, manufacturing fees, transportation and insurance, and powerful programming during the exhibition.
Since 2019, Prospect has received annual grants from national art donations, ranging from $15,000 in 2021 to $45,000 in 2024, and $60,000 in 2014 and $50,000 in 2017. Funding for its latest awards was awarded to its latest awards after the Trump administration canceled the NEA NEA Grant in May.
Although Prospect received only a small portion of the NEA budget and was not affected by the recent cancellations, Stillman said the organization was concerned about its overall financial situation given the current political situation. Art organizations of similar scales have begun to suffer losses, and he predicts that this is just the beginning.
“The Prospect Board is well suited to the macro-political situation we face in this country,” he said. “For large-scale exhibitions, these efforts are less funded, which implicitly or explicitly address highly political themes.”
While charities such as the Mellon, Ford and Warhol Foundation have stepped in to these cuts, Stillman said: “This is one of the factors we think are the current funding landscape, and yes, it has to be. It’s a factor when I and others look at the current art landscape for small and medium-sized art organizations.
“We see how art threatens the current government,” he added.
