At the Contemporary Arts Center, one of the biennial's main venues, Monica Bonvicini's big black-and-white drawings bring the grainy cast of old crime-scene photography to images of flooded homes, while on the roof of the New Orleans Museum of Art she has mounted an enormous illuminated sign that reads DESIRE–conjuring thoughts of Tennessee William's play, though one wonders if even Blanche DuBois's powder, perfume, and paper lanterns would have been enough to diffuse the realities of a FEMA trailer. (There's one of those, too–repurposed by Paul Villinski as a mobile art studio.)
Written by Elizabeth Schambelan