Jan Gilbert doesn’t see works of art as, well, just works of art. To this artist and curator, the world is multilayered, and so are our creative interpretations of it – artful renderings, to be best appreciated, need to be peeled back, layer upon layer, intellectually and emotionally, to show the richness and texture of life and our world.

That perspective infuses Art of Our City, the potent new exhibition at The Historic New Orleans Collection that Gilbert curated at the behest of and with the assistance of HNOC director Priscilla Lawrence. 71 carefully selected works by 65 artists tell a comprehensive and compelling story of New Orleans — its people, its disasters, its successes — from the World’s Fair in 1984 to the present.

Lagniappe to this richness is the thoughtful beauty of the exhibition galleries themselves. THNOC’s $38 million renovation to the former WWL radio studio on Royal Street has turned it into a world-class museum space, one that certainly rivals anything that New York or D.C has to offer. Three stories and 12,000 square feet of gleaming contemporary exhibition space around the historic courtyard of the  the Seignouret-Brulatour House at 520 Royal St. (Carmo restaurant is operating a new coffee house and café there, too.)

And it’s all free to the public.

Read the whole article at Via Nola Vie…