As noted in my August 4 piece for the New Orleans Advocate | The Times-Picayune (viewable online here), the geographical spread of cultural institutions participating in New Orleans Museum Month is pretty vast – intimidating maybe, in this heat. “The destinations range from the western edge of Orleans Parish to the 9th Ward, City Park into Treme and the Central Business District and down to the foot of Esplanade Avenue,” I wrote. “Ten are located in the French Quarter.”
I realize even a cross-Quarter hike is a spirit-killer in August (map those targets here, at the French Quarter Museum Association website) so hydrate, default to shade, pace yourself, but buck up! I will do all of those things as I spend August using my Historic New Orleans Collection membership to see as many of the Museum Month institutions as possible. I’m compiling how-to-museum entries for a new section on this website, to debut whenever I get it done. Question for me: Which will be when? Answer: Pretty soon. Question for readers: Should I post these how-to entries as they’re completed or wait until they’re mostly done and post them all at the same time? I’m leaning toward incremental posting, so as to encourage feedback on the format as I go. Send me thoughts here: [email protected]. (Also, anybody who knows a fix to the left-margin mangle for these posts on mobile: Help!)
Meanwhile, check back often to follow my progress in this task to build a comprehensive consumer’s guide to local – and eventually regional – museums of all kinds. As always, thanks for reading! And thanks for signing up for the free Museumgoer newsletter!
First step: View the participating Museum Month institutions here. This New Orleans & Company page has click-though links for every participant. Two words: Click through to check for operating hours and days open. They’re all a little different.
As you plan your own Museum Month itineraries, feel free to refer to a few of the below-suggested destinations and multi-museum combos (with convenient links embedded). It’s an incomplete list and I’ll be using Museum Month to expand my knowledge of every place I’ve left off. I’ll start with the two largest institutions on the route because they both could be all-day destinations.
New Orleans Museum of Art
Seriously, make it a day. See it all. Have lunch in Café NOMA. Explore this page before you visit to plan your day. Be sure to include the exhibit “Rebellious Spirits: Prohibition and Resistance in the South,” which I wrote about here. Check out this page for a schedule of gallery talks and tours.
The National WWII Museum
Arrive at open (9 a.m.) and plan to stay until close (5 p.m.) Street parking is an option but the museum’s parking garage (1024 Magazine) is a comparative bargain at $25 for up to 12 hours, which you’ll need if you take advantage of any after-hours extras (which, with the exception of Meet the Author events, will require extra fees). Note: I’m counting a Happy Hour visit to Rosie’s on the Roof as an extra. It’s atop the museum’s Higgins Hotel & Conference Center and features a great view of unlucky commuters headed for home. It’s also a spectacular way to take in the sunset, the downtown skyline, and the Bollinger Canopy of Peace across the street. A visit to Rosie’s also offers the opportunity to check out the public areas of the hotel, which is subtly themed to the war period.
Back over at the museum, a few new(ish) things I’d point you to: The Liberation Pavilion is new to the campus since the last Museum Month. Highlights include the interactive displays of the Monuments Men and Women Gallery, which trace the efforts to recover artwork looted by the Nazis; galleries and presentations devoted to the Holocaust and Anne Frank (take a seat and watch the film in the Pam and Mark Rubin Liberation Theater, which recalls the emotions of liberated Holocaust survivors as well as the US servicemembers who liberated them); and a multimedia presentation on the third level (which will require an extra ticketed fee), the Priddy Family Foundation Freedom Theater.
In the Louisiana Memorial Pavilion, another new(ish) addition is on view: The Malcolm S. Forbes Rare and Iconic Artifacts Gallery (pictured above), which displays more than 50 objects from the museum’s collection that didn’t quite fit anywhere else. All are amazing. Also there are “Voices from the Front” digital displays (more here) that let visitors interact with members of the WWII generation.
The Cabildo and the Historic New Orleans Collection
I’m grouping these two because of a few unintended linkages between current exhibits. They’d make a good one-two expedition on either side of a lunch break. Visit neworleans.com for some Coolinary New Orleans options.
At the Cabildo on Jackson Square, “Botanica: Gardens, Landscapes, and Plant Medicines in South Louisiana” is an immersive journey into our region’s vegetal remedies, placing them in historical and cultural context while weighing the effects of climate change on traditional healing cultures. There’s lots to see and read in this exhibit, and lots to learn. You’ve got time. It will remain on view until May of 2026.
At the Historic New Orleans Collection, 520 Royal Street, the new permanent exhibit “A Vanishing Bounty: Louisiana’s Coastal Environment and Culture” also tours the Louisiana ecosystem, and also with an eye toward the impact of climate change. A rare second edition of John James Audubon’s “The Birds of America” is the star object here, but several clever interactives also help tell the story. Mike Smith wrote about “A Vanishing Bounty” for the Times-Picayune here. Nina Bozak, HNOC curator of rare books, wrote about the Audubon folio here.
Both museums offer additional exhibits to take in while you’re inside. At HNOC (a Museum Month participant though admission is free September through July as well as August), the exhibit “Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration” has just opened and will be on view through January 19, 2025. A 90-minute guided tour of the exhibition is offered at 10 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. At the Cabildo, the art exhibition “Hunt Slonem: A Retrospective” closes September 30. Back at HNOC, the art exhibition “Unknown Sitters” closes October 6. Doug MacCash from the Times-Picayune wrote about the art exhibits here and here.
One final linkage: A display case in “Captive State” contains artifacts that were recovered from the Cabildo during an early-1990s archeological dig. The Cabildo was built by the Spanish in the 18th century as a municipal building, which housed civil and military prisons for the colony. Read more about “Captive State” on HNOC’s First Draft blog here.
House museums
“How we lived” could be a thematic journey all its own. Three Museum Month house museums are located the French Quarter and can be toured sequentially. Another is almost suburban.
Located in the Lower Pontalba building on Jackson Square, the 1850 House offers a snapshot of city life in the mid-19th century with all the splendor (elegant furnishings and table settings) and horror (tales of enslaved workers whose involuntary labor made the elegance possible). The Hermann-Grima (820 St. Louis) and Gallier (1132 Royal) houses are where to learn more about French Quarter life in the 1800s. Built in 1826, the Historic BK House and Gardens (1113 Chartres but closed through August 4) completes the trifecta. Like all of the house museums mentioned here, the colorful histories of the home’s inhabitants (Morphy, Beauregard, Giacona) will be as interesting as the décor. Eight acres of beautiful gardens are a major attraction at Longue Vue House and Gardens, which through August 17 will feature the Kristine Mays sculpture installation “Rich Soil” (pictured above). Details, including audio tour, here.
Potions
Founded in 1950, the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum, 514 Chartres, is housed in a classic creole townhouse once occupied by Louis J. Dulfilho Jr., the first licensed pharmacist in the United States. Tour the Sazerac House, 101 Magazine, for an overview of libation history in the city. Also samples. The Southern Food and Beverage Museum (SoFAB) also covers some cocktail territory. Its new exhibition, “The Natural Port: A Look at New Orleans Coffee Culture” (see photo), examines the local history of a different kind of beverage. A full report on this exhibit is coming soon to The Museumgoer. Nearby at 1712 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd., the Ashé Cultural Arts Center offers an introduction to the arts and culture of Black New Orleans.
More art, culture, etc.
One of the marquee exhibitions for this Museum Month is the New Orleans Jazz Museum’s “It All Started in Jane Alley: Louis Armstrong in New Orleans,” which explores the musician’s early years in his hometown, as well as a few notable return trips after he’d departed in 1922 to share his incandescent talent with the world. Doug Brantley wrote about the exhibit for French Quarter Journal. Find the article here. Check out this visual visit to key locations in Armstrong’s early life here. The museum is located at 400 Esplanade.
The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience “shines a light on the experience of strangers in a strangers in a land” at 818 Howard. “Gestures of Refusal: Black Photography and Visual Culture” is due to close September 15 at the Contemporary Arts Center, 900 Camp Street. The recurring “Louisiana Contemporary 2024” art exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, 925 Camp Street, opens August 3 and will run through October 13. While visiting the Louisiana Children’s Museum, 15 Henry Thomas Drive, the Acorn Café is a restful setting for a break from the many family activities available there. “Maroon Queen Cherice Harrison-Nelson: A Narrative of Black Women’s Labor, Power, and Presence” is on view through August 31 at the New Orleans African American Museum, 1417-1418 Governor Nicholls Street. Downriver, the art on view at StudioBE, 2841 Royal, is a stimulating immersion in large-scale, imaginative works. The TEP Center, 5909 St. Claude, is a Civil Rights landmark, community center, senior-housing facility, and museum. Read more about it here.
Again, this is an incomplete list. Again, visit neworleans.com for the complete roster of Museum Month destinations, and be sure to share your August quest for local history, art, and culture on your own social media feeds using the hashtag #MuseumMonth.
See you out there!