Out of Town

by Tim Brookover

WARHOL AND PHAROAHS
Centuries separate two hot shows in Austin and New Orleans

A pair of exhibitions—one opening this month in New Orleans and the other about to close in Austin—represents extreme points along the timeline of art. In the Big Easy, ancient Egyptian treasures reveal the power of religion and confidence about the afterlife in that culture. In the Texas capital, an impressive show of work by Pop diva Andy Warhol illuminates the allure of celebrity and the potency of media images in our own culture.

AUSTIN GOES POP
Were he still with us, Andy Warhol would turn 75 this year. He checked out in 1987, but his 15 minutes of fame (which he once famously predicted for everyone) are definitely not up. Through November 9, the Austin Museum of Art demonstrates the vitality of Warhol’s gaze on popular culture and, yes, our society’s quasi-religious fervor about fame with an exhibition of the artist’s paintings and prints from the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

The show, which opened in August, offers a rare chance to see so much Waholia at once. Check out the portraits of pop icons—Liz (pictured), Marilyn, et al.—as well as the portraits of everyday objects as icons (the Campbell’s soup can, the Coca-Cola bottle) and much more, including one of his dramatic, eerie electric chair images. The museum is also showing 20 of the four-minute “screen tests” that Warhol filmed of personalities that gathered at the Factory, his New York studio. And always the sensibility is very, very gay.

More info: www.amoa.org. (Small-world department: Dana Friis-Hansen, once the senior curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum here, is now executive director of the Austin Museum of Art.)

A LITTLE EGYPT
Beginning October 19, the New Orleans Museum of Art will present the first exhibition from the Egyptian national collection to tour this country since the Tutankhamen show captured so much frenzied attention 20 years ago (cue Steve Martin’s “King Tut”).

Many of the objects in The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt have never been on public view and others have never left home. Among the many highlights are gold and jeweled items from the royal tombs at Tanis, considered the most significant royal burial site to be found since the discovery of Tut’s tomb in 1922. The final room of the exhibition is a reconstruction of the tomb of Thutmose III, the 15th-century B.C. ruler.

The exhibition (which will travel to Houston in 2007) closes on February 25. More info: www.noma.org

Tim Brookover is editor of this magazine.

If you have any comments about this article, please email them to letters@outsmartmagazine.com.