Why you should experience New Southern Photography at Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, Louisiana.
New Southern Photography is a groundbreaking photography exhibition where the Warehouse Arts District's creative vitality, contemporary Southern identity, visual storytelling, and photographic innovation reshape how the American South is understood through the view of twenty-first-century artists.
Set within Ogden Museum of Southern Art along Camp Street near Andrew Higgins Drive and just steps from the National WWII Museum, this ambitious exhibition assembles diverse photographic voices through immersive installations spanning documentary photography, conceptual imagery, video, new media, and experimental lens-based practices that collectively examine the evolving cultural landscape of the contemporary South. Individual gallery presentations encourage visitors to engage deeply with each artist's distinctive perspective while revealing broader conversations surrounding memory, identity, landscape, family, mythology, race, and social transformation. Every installation contributes to an expansive visual narrative that challenges inherited perceptions of the region through some of today's most compelling photographic practices. The result is an exhibition defined by curatorial ambition, artistic diversity, and one of the most influential surveys of contemporary Southern photography.
What you should know about New Southern Photography at Ogden Museum of Southern Art.
New Southern Photography is best known for opening on October 6, 2018 as the largest photography exhibition ever organized by the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, presenting the work of twenty-five emerging, mid-career, and established photographers through individually curated monographic installations that examine the visual iconography of the modern American South. Conceived in 2012 and curated by Richard McCabe, the museum's Curator of Photography, the exhibition explores regional character within an increasingly interconnected world while expanding Southern photographic traditions established by figures including William Christenberry, William Eggleston, and Sally Mann through the perspectives of a new generation of artists. The exhibition features photography, video installation, and new media created during the preceding decade by artists including David Emitt Adams, Kael Alford, John Chiara, Tommy Kha, Andrew Moore, Nancy Newberry, RaMell Ross, Jared Soares, Susan Worsham, and twenty-five photographers whose work collectively addresses memory, cultural mythology, family, landscape, social change, and the tension between historical legacy and contemporary Southern life. Accompanied by a major exhibition catalogue published by the University of New Orleans Press, the project was organized as a traveling exhibition through 2021 and established the foundation for an ongoing triennial series documenting the evolution of Southern photography.
Each installation concentrates on a single body of work, allowing individual artistic voices to develop within a broader curatorial structure that encourages comparison across diverse photographic approaches and lived experiences. Documentary practice, constructed imagery, environmental portraiture, conceptual photography, and experimental media collectively broaden the visual language traditionally associated with Southern photography while introducing perspectives from historically underrepresented communities. The exhibition's emphasis on contemporary practice rejects simplified regional narratives in favor of nuanced explorations of urbanization, migration, race, environment, gender, family, and place, establishing an authoritative platform for understanding how photographers continue redefining the cultural character of the American South. Through rigorous scholarship, ambitious curatorial vision, and exceptional artistic breadth, New Southern Photography stands among the most significant museum exhibitions dedicated to contemporary Southern photography in the twenty-first century.
How to fold New Southern Photography at Ogden Museum of Southern Art into your trip.
New Southern Photography works as the cultural centerpiece of an exploration through New Orleans' Warehouse Arts District.
Begin at National WWII Museum, where one of the world's foremost museums devoted to the Second World War provides a powerful historical introduction before continuing to New Southern Photography at Ogden Museum of Southern Art to experience one of the defining surveys of contemporary Southern visual culture. Continue to Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, whose multidisciplinary exhibitions broaden the neighborhood's creative discussion through innovative contemporary practice. Conclude at Julia Street, where galleries, public art, and converted warehouse architecture provide a fitting finale celebrating the district's enduring role as the artistic heart of Downtown New Orleans. The progression moves naturally from internationally significant history to contemporary Southern photography before concluding through two defining arts destinations, revealing why the Warehouse Arts District remains one of the nation's most energetic cultural neighborhoods.
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