Works by Celeste Dupuy-Spencer are included in the group exhibition Prospect 5: Yesterday we said tomorrow, on view at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art until 22 January 2022.

The artist’s work grapples with the subtle and horrific violence of white supremacy in the United States through history painting, of a past both real and imagined. The suite of paintings on view in Prospect 5 are fantastical depictions of this reality envisioned across time. They range from the retelling of a New Testament story about demons to an image of military conquest, from revealing the intertwined nature of whiteness and Christianity to scenes of the end of the world. Notably, Don’t You See That I Am Burning was painted following the insurrection at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. This wild, detailed painting references historical works as well as images drawn directly from news coverage of this event. In looking across centuries and into the future, Dupuy-Spencer asks us to contend with the legacies of terror and violence that birthed this nation, forged its ideology, and continue to shape our political and social lives.

Prospect 5: Yesterday we said tomorrow is the fifth edition of Prospect New Orleans, a citywide art exhibition. Inspired by New Orleans jazz musician Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah’s 2010 album Yesterday You Said Tomorrow, the title of the exhibition centers the unspoken present, the place where past and future come together, and where other courses of action become possible. The exhibition title also implies the deferral of meaningful change, which often comes slowly or not at all. The artists and ideas that define this exhibition confront this truth, and the stark realities of history, but also suggest that we might yet plot a different future.

Ogden Museum of Southern Art