New Orleans’ City Park debuted the art installation Voodoo Experience over a three-day music festival during Halloween weekend, but you have until January 2010 to check out the large-scale conceptual art exhibition. Voodoo creator Stephen Rehage collaborated for the first time with Kirsha Kaechele and the Life is Art Foundation on this collection of site-specific pieces. Curated by Kaechele, the impressive show consists of 23 installations spread throughout the grounds.

The challenge for artists and programmers alike was to create something that would grab the attention of festival attendees who were not coming to Voodoo seeking art. Project Director Pamala Bishop explained, “In the context of a rock festival you want something that can stand up to huge crowds and tons of energy. We were looking for pieces that had a big impact – subtlety didn’t seem to fit in too well.”

Considering it’s tough to capture and keep an audience’s attention never mind at a rock festival, most of the pieces were interactive and incorporated lights and sounds. The results were quite diverse.

An enormous birdcage by Elliott Coon decorated on the interior like a parlor featured costumed performers taking part in quiet, domestic activities. Two spinning cones created by Hans Sachs and Manuel Kretzer were illuminated with neon lights and allowed the audience to crawl inside and spin. Twenty-seven giant helium balloons rose up and down in the sky and lit up in tune to music.

Coon admitted that she didn’t expect the audience to pay much attention. She was delighted in the end to see the range of people who were attracted to the piece and stayed to watch.

“Wherever you think art doesn’t belong,” she notes, “is exactly where it does.”

Coon’s birdcage and fourteen other pieces will stay on display in the Botanical Gardens at City Park until January, 2010.
City Park
1 Palm Drive
New Orleans, LA 70124
504-482-4888

Photos below: Laine Kaplan-Levenson

Photo below: courtesy of artist Elliot Coons