This annual juried exhibition now open at the Acadiana Center for the Arts features the work of emerging, mid-career and master artists from across the gulf south using a wide range of artwork media including, but not limited to, painting, sculpture, photography and film. A nationally recognized juror, Eleanor Heartney, has undertaken the task of selecting 72 pieces from among the hundreds submitted. The results are on display at 101 West Vermilion. $5 adults, $3 students and seniors.
In conjunction:
• May 9—July 25: AcA's Side Gallery Series offers a display of colorful fused glass artwork by Jerily LaVergne. 101 West Vermilion. (337) 233-7060 or  www.AcadianaArtsCouncil.org.

The New Orleans Museum of Art presents The Art of Caring: A Look at Life through Photography, an exhibition of more than 200 works exploring the moments that shape our being, from intimate memories to historic tragedies. Renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz sets the tone with a preface comprised of images hand-picked from her archive to illustrate the exhibition's seven thematic components: Children and Family, Love, Wellness, Disaster, Caregiving and Healing, Aging, and Remembering.
The Art of Caring showcases several works from Time LIFE Pictures, including recognizable classics by such legendary photographers as Alfred Eisenstadt and W. Eugene Smith. Contemporary artists include other established photographers such as Tina Barney, Nan Goldin, Sally Mann, Larry Sultan, Chester Higgins, Robert Polidori, Tatsumi Orimoto, Nicholas Nixon, Dona Schwartz and Neal Slavin. The exhibition features as well the work of emerging artists Elinor Carucci, Albert Chong, Misty Keasler, Jessica Todd Harper, Jeff Charbonneau and Eliza French.
A series of corresponding HBO Films will further illustrate the seven themes. Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts will, for example, complement the still photography of the "Disaster" segment.
Beginning at the conclusion of World War II, the slightly more than 60-year time span encompassed by the photographs in this exhibition allows the viewer to witness many of the great events that shaped the last half-century, as well as those that are shaping the new millennium. The stage was set during World War II for photography to take on an unprecedented role as chronicler, consciousness raiser and educator. Throughout the war, new magazines like Life, as well as Vu in France and the Picture Post in Britain, were credited with turning "documentary photographers into photojournalists and photojournalists like ... W. Eugene Smith into heroes."
After the World War II, photo-essays by photographers like Smith and Gordon Parks in Life were credited with helping to stoke "the 'can-do' energy of the times." By the 1970s, many of the same established photo-journalists, whose images stirred a nation and world, saw their professional lives evolve from careers replete with opportunities to have work published in Life, Look and other magazines, to earning a livelihood from less constant sources upon the demise of these same publications. At the same time, the advent of color photography and its acceptance as a legitimate artistic medium closed the gap between fine art and commercial work in new ways.  
10 am–4:30 pm Thursday and Friday—Sunday, and noon–8 pm Wednesday at 1 Collins Diboll Circle in City Park. Free to Louisiana residents. (504) 658-4100 or www.noma.org.
In conjunction:
Sunday, May 17, 2 pm: This panel at the museum will provide an overview of the art and issues explored through the exhibition's seven thematic components: Children and Family, Love, Wellness, Disaster, Caregiving and Healing, Aging, and Remembering. The panel will include artists featured in the exhibition, including photographer and director Neal Slavin and former LIFE photographer Bob Gomel.
Wednesday, May 20, 6 pm: An in-depth guided tour of The Art of Caring: A Look at Life through Photography, led by Associate Collections Manager Alice Dickinson.

One of the New Orleans Museum of Art's latest exhibitions, The Mind's Eye: Without Subject Matter, What Does the Artist See? is made up of more than a hundred abstract prints and drawings by artists including Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Max Ernst, Stanley Hayter, Andy Warhol and several more. NOMA Curator of Prints and Drawings, George Roland, explained an aspect of the exhibition's purpose this way: "This exhibition explores the ways artists respond to the challenge of making abstract art. In printmaking, for example, it is impossible to prepare a matrix without a vision of what the resulting image will look like. What does the artist see before producing an abstract work on paper?" Groups of pictures in the exhibition illustrate specific elements of the language of abstraction: stripes, spots, geometry, letterforms, patternmaking, biology, collage, gesture and space. The exhibition will be accompanied by corresponding quotes from the artists, as well as their critics and commentators.
10 am–4:30 pm Thursday and Friday—Sunday, and noon–8 pm Wednesday at 1 Collins Diboll Circle in City Park. Free to Louisiana residents. (504) 658-4100 or www.noma.org.

The LSU Museum of Art's newest exhibition, Reunion: James Burke, Edward Pramuk and Robert Warrens, will open to the public from May 17—August 9.
When the U.S. emerged as an economic and political power in the early twentieth century, it also became a central focus of the international art scene. In 1949, Jackson Pollock appeared in Life magazine, signaling a shift whereby New York became the art standard against which all other art would be measured. During this time, many artists flocked to New York, but three highly respected artists chose to make their marks in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, instead. James Burke, Edward Pramuk and Robert Warrens, each from northern states, chose to take their place in art history, not in the art center of New York, but in Baton Rouge. At the LSU Museum of Art, the exhibit Reunion highlights works from these three artists’ tenure at LSU and includes some more recent creations.
Burke and Pramuk arrived at the Louisiana State University School of Art in 1965; Warrens arrived two years later. They taught painting, drawing, printmaking and design throughout much of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Their works range in size and medium, but assuredly define each era with an accurate attention to current art trends. They are some of the most influential figures behind contemporary painting in Louisiana over the past four decades, and they continue to create in Southern Louisiana.
Regular exhibit hours are 10 am–5 pm Tuesday—Saturday; 10 am–8 pm Thursday; and 1 pm–5 pm Sunday. 100 Lafayette Street. $8 adults, $4 children. (225) 389-7200 or www.lsumoa.com.

Instructor Julie Dupre Buckner has guided her decorative abstract painting class, harnessing her students' creativity, and now both teacher and students will have work on display at the Wealth Planners Gallery in the Campus Federal Building. Stop by and check out the colorful results of the class' action, verve, and hard work. 9 am–4 pm at 6230 Perkins Road. (225) 769-8841 or campusfederal.org.

The Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum has one new and one continuing exhibit on display through September 5:
•  Radical Visions: The Revolution in American Photography, 1945-1980: The decades after the Second World War were a time of incredible growth and change in the American photography scene. Parallel to the rise of Abstract Expressionism, American photography in the post-war years was marked by innovation and discovery and, like Abstract Expressionism, it made the U.S. the center of the art world in photography. See the work that earned the nation that accolade.   
• George Rodrigue: Images of Home: Rodrigue's early paintings (1970s) center on his Cajun background and childhood memories of family outings, Cajun customs, portraits of family, friends and neighbors, and the landscape of this area. Live Oak trees and interpretations of legendary myths infuse Rodrigues “Cajun” works with a sense of mystery, humor, and joie de vive characteristic of this southwest Louisiana culture. 
10 am–5 pm Tuesday—Saturday at 710 East Mary Boulevard. $5 adults, $4 seniors, $3 students. (337) 482-2278 or www.louisiana.edu/uam.

The Louisiana Art and Artists' Guild's Members Only Workshop Show will exhibit at the Independence Park Theater. Work on display will include art by noted local artists, such as Bryon Levy, Roberta Loflin, Larry Downs and Steve Shamburger. All are welcome to the opening reception on Sunday June 14, 2 pm–4 pm. 7800 Independence Boulevard. Gallery hours are 10 am–5 pm Tuesday—Friday. (225) 926-4657.

As this annual celebration of the Bard comes around for its sixteenth season this summer, June sees the finish of one production and the start of another on Tulane's Lupin Theatre stage. These two stagings of Shakespear's work are:
• King Lear, May 28—June 13. Directed by Ron Gural and Jim Fitzmorris.
• The Comedy of Errors, June 25—July 11. Directed by Lorenzo Gonzalez.
The Lupin Theatre is on the Tulane University campus in Dixon Annex. (504) 865-5106 or www.NewOrleansShakespeare.com.

Just as folks pull out their seersucker and linen for the hot weather ahead, BREC’s Magnolia Mound Plantation staff will decorate the property with "Summer Dress for the Historic House." In this latest exhibit, the house will boast its traditional garb, including items specific to protecting the interior and furnishings of an historic house during the hot summer months. Visitors can see a bed dressed out for mosquito protection, draping clothes to protect mirrors, and much more. 10 am–4 pm Monday—Saturday and 1 pm–4 pm Sunday. 2161 Nicholson Drive. $8 adults; $6 seniors and students; $3 children. (225) 343-4955.

Wedding photography is often considered separate from the concept of photography as a pure art form, but many talented and noted photographers in the New Orleans Photo Alliance prove that the two can indeed intersect. The proof is present in Forever Hold Your Peace, their group exhibition on the subject of weddings. In curating this exhibition, Sylvia Plachy, a Hungarian born, New York based, world-renowned photographer, selected 31 photographs depicting the traditions, customs, symbols and the rich human tableau surrounding wedding rituals. Featured artists include Marc Pagani, Evan Abramson, Katie Delavaugh and Kate Nicholson. New Orleans Photo Alliance Gallery, 1111 St. Mary Street. Regular gallery hours are 3 pm–6 pm Friday and noon–4 pm Saturday & Sunday. (504) 610-4899 or www.neworleansphotoalliance.org.

A new exhibition of sculptures by artist John Barnes, Jr. opens at LeMieux Gallery this month. Barnes’ most recent body of work deals with the condition of the environmental refugee, something he experienced firsthand in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. His pieces are the hybridization of boat and house forms, structures that offer security and safety at one moment and could sink or collapse in another. Barnes “vandalizes” his surfaces, marking them with tags and symbols, each telling a different story. His structures are meant to challenge viewers to contemplate their own fragile circumstances and fleeting comforts. An opening reception will take place 6 pm–8 pm Saturday, June 6. Regular gallery hours are 10 am–6 pm Monday—Saturday. 332 Julia Street. (504) 522-5988 or www.lemieuxgalleries.com.

In honor of the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion at Normandy, The National World War II Museum is mounting an ambitious special exhibit entitled June 1944: One Month in the War that Changed the World. The exhibit will explore pivotal events occurring worldwide in June 1944, such as the liberation of Rome, the landings at Normandy, the landings at Saipan, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, Operation Bagration, the lifting of the Siege of Imphal, the Battle of Kohima and the signing of the G.I. Bill of Rights. The 3,000 square-foot exhibit will showcase artifacts large and small from around the world, many of which will be interpreted in semi-immersive settings, as touch screen technology will highlight the personal stories of veterans, and computerized maps will help to orient the visitor. 9 am–5 pm Tuesdays—Sundays at 945 Magazine Street. (504) 527-6012.

Three new exhibitions have recently opened at the New Orleans Museum of Art. The first of these exhibitions, Mnemonic Devices: Rachel Jones and David Webber, features recent work by the Louisiana-based artists, will continue through August 23 in the second-floor Weisman Gallery for Louisiana Contemporary Art. FLOATULENTS: Inflatable Photographs by Martin von Haselberg, the first American solo museum exhibition for the Los Angeles-based artist will be on exhibit until September 6, and Marcus Coates: Animal Instincts, comprised of five videos from the past 10 years by the British artist through August 23.
• Mnemonic Devices: Rachel Jones and David Webber: A duo of Louisiana artists, Rachel Jones and David Webber explore the process of selecting and assembling information from memories and pre-existing documents into new visual amalgams. Working in painting and video respectively, the artists share an interest in dissolving imagery and narratives into expressive fragments. In her paintings, Jones depicts loosely-defined human figures and landscapes which hover on the edge of recognition. Webber, working in video, superimposes images on top of each other, evoking the cognitive process of recollection as it is built through associations.
• FLOATULENTS: Inflatable Photographs by Martin von Haselberg: In this, von Haselberg's first American museum show, his latest photographic experiments are presented as inflatable works, which instead of rising into the air, rest upon the floor as sculptures.
• Marcus Coates: Animal Instincts: Presented in NOMA's new permanent video art space, this exhibit is comprised of five video pieces featuring a range of work from the past ten years. Ornithologist, naturalist, artist, and shaman, Coates creates videos that examine humankind's complicated relationship to other living species. Assuming the role of a shaman in his later pieces, Coates journeys to the "lower world" of animal spirits, updating the historical role of a shaman as a community problem-solver. In his own words, "you can't escape your humanness, but the point of my work has been to explore the degrees to which you can test that boundary and entertain the possibility of becoming something else."
10 am–4:30 pm Thursday and Friday—Sunday, and noon–8 pm Wednesday at 1 Collins Diboll Circle in City Park. Free to Louisiana residents. (504) 658-4100 or www.noma.org.

The Louisiana State Archives Roadshow exhibit will include Louisiana memorabilia and collectibles gathered from citizens across Louisiana, that speak volumes to the state's history. Examples are a pack Bible that belonged to Lieutenant General John Archer Lejeune, who was born in Pointe Coupee Parish, graduated from LSU and is credited with developing the amphibious doctrine which prevented the Marine Corps from being disbanded following World War I; and an original Clementine Hunter painting on a wooden bread board. See these and more through July 27. Exhibits at the archives are open Monday—Friday, 8 am–4:30 pm, Saturday from 9 am until 5 pm and Sunday from 1 pm until 5 pm.3851 Essen Lane. (225) 922-1000.