August 12, 2010

The Oxford American Presents Block Party in New Orleans

The Oxford American magazine will present a block party in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans on August 28 in partnership with Aperture and the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans to celebrate the release of the book One Block and commemorate the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

The block party, which will be free and open to the public, will take place on Saturday, August 28, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on the 500 block of Caffin Street.

The event will include musical performances by the Rebirth Brass Band and Little Freddie King, as well as local food and additional special guests.

The party is happening on the block that was the subject of One Block: A New Orleans Neighborhood Rebuilds (Aperture, August 2010), with photographs by Dave Anderson and an essay by Chris Rose.  One Block is a powerful portrait of post-Katrina New Orleans as seen through the prism of a single city block whose residents are attempting to rebuild their homes. Using portraiture and still life, Anderson explores the very nature of community while testing its resilience.  Anderson’s compassionate treatment of the neighborhood’s difficult circumstances has drawn comparisons to the work of Dorothea Lange and other Farm Security Administration-funded photographers.

Anderson also directs The Oxford American's original video series, called SoLost, which was a finalist for a 2010 National Magazine Award.  All of the SoLost episodes are available for free viewing at http://www.oxfordamerican.org.

An exhibit of photographs from One Block will open at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans (925 Camp Street) on Thursday, August 26 with a reception from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.  The evening will include a talk by Anderson and music by Lower Ninth Ward Revue featuring Al "Carnival Time" Johnson and the Guitar Lightnin’ Lee Band.  For more information, call 504-539-9600.

ABOUT THE OXFORD AMERICAN

The Oxford American is a national magazine that is dedicated to featuring the very best in Southern writing while documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South.  Billed as "The Southern Magazine of Good Writing," it has won two National Magazine Awards and other high honors since it began publication in 1992. The magazine has featured the original work of such literary powerhouses as Charles Portis, Roy Blount, Jr., ZZ Packer, Donald Harington, Donna Tartt, Ernest J. Gaines, and many other distinguished authors, while also discovering and launching the most promising writers in the region. The magazine has also published previously unseen work by such Southern masters as William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Walker Percy, James Agee, Zora Neale Hurston, James Dickey, Carson McCullers, to name just a handful. The New York Times recently stated that The Oxford American "may be the liveliest literary magazine in America."

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER, AUTHOR

Dave Anderson has been recognized as "one of the shooting stars of the American photo scene" by Germany’s fotoMAGAZIN and named a "Rising Star" by Photo District News. A multi-talented image-maker, Dave worked in the Clinton White House and at MTV before discovering photography. His acclaimed first project, "Rough Beauty" was the winner of the 2005 National Project Competition awarded by Center, Santa Fe and was published with an essay by Anne Wilkes Tucker. Vince Aletti of the New Yorker has called his work "as clear-eyed and unsentimental as it is soulful and sympathetic." Anderson’s work has been featured in magazines from Esquire to Stern and can be found in the collections of prominent museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans; the Musée de la Photographie, Charleroi; and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. As a filmmaker, Dave’s original video series, “SoLost,” shot for The Oxford American, was recently named a finalist at the 2010 National Magazine Awards. More information at http://www.dbanderson.com.

Chris Rose is an acclaimed New Orleans columnist, whose harrowing and poignant essays following Katrina were collected in his widely lauded book 1 Dead in Attic (2005). Called the "Crescent City’s Bard" by the Huffington Post, Rose is an essayist for the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, a frequent commentator for National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, and a longtime columnist for the Times-Picayune, where he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Rose currently writes for the Gambit weekly newspaper and appears regularly on Fox 8 New Orleans.

ABOUT APERTURE FOUNDATION

Aperture—located in New York’s Chelsea art district—is a world-renowned non-profit publisher and exhibition space dedicated to promoting photography in all its forms. Aperture was founded in 1952 by photographers Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Barbara Morgan,and Minor White; historian Beaumont Newhall; and writer/curator Nancy Newhall, among others. These visionaries created a new quarterly periodical, Aperture magazine, to foster both the development and the appreciation of the photographic medium and its practitioners. In the 1960s, Aperture expanded to include the publication of books (over five hundred to date) that comprise one of the most comprehensive and innovative libraries in the history of photography and art. Aperture’s programs now include artist lectures and panel discussions, limited-edition photographs, and traveling exhibitions that show at major museums and arts institutions in the U.S. and internationally. More information at http://www.aperture.org.

ABOUT PRESERVATION RESOURCE CENTER OF NEW ORLEANS

The Preservation Resource Center was founded in 1974 to promote the preservation of New Orleans' historic architecture by expanding the constituency that understands the economic, cultural and aesthetic importance of historic preservation, and by involving citizens in preservation projects and services that enhance living in New Orleans. The PRC believes that preserving a city’s architecture is tantamount to preserving its soul. New Orleans would not be the city we love today without the past successes of the PRC, and it is critical that a staunch defense of the city’s rich architectural legacy be maintained. In post-Katrina New Orleans, it is particularly crucial that rebuilding takes place in a way that is sensitive to New Orleans’ past, or there is a risk of losing everything that makes this city unique. More information at http://www.prcno.org.