NEW ORLEANS. The work that has come tore p resent Prospect.1, the newly-fledgedbiennial of contemporary art taking placein New Orleans, is a colossal Noah's A r kbuilt of plywood salvaged in the aftermathof floods caused by Hurricane Katrina.C reated by Los Angeles-based artist MarkB r a d f o rd, the vessel rests on a sandy lot in .the port city's devastated and depopulatedLower Ninth Wa rd (L9), its prow facing alevee that ru p t u red in the catastro p h i cstorm of. August 2005. Though notparticularly elegant in form orc o n s t ruction, the makeshift shipsymbolizes New Orleans's struggle forsurvival and potential for re n e w a l ,e x p ressing the spirit of both Prospect.1 and

the city itself. Conceived ando rganised by Dan Cameron, dire c t o rof the New Orleans Contemporary A r tC e n t re (CAC) , the biennial (until 18January) aspires to revitalise NewOrleans by enlisting people intere s t e din contemporary art to visit the cityand lend support to its re c o v e r y.Artnet's Walter Robinson dubbed itthe "bleeding heart biennial" , but atthe opening last month collectors andmuseum groups from around thecountry seemed genuinely pleased tobe contributing to a worthy cause. The quality of the art, by 81 artists fro m38 countries, instantly placesP rospect.1 among the world's majorinternational surveys. Many of theparticipants are well-known figure ssuch as Allora and Calzadilla, MonicaBonvicini, Rafael LozanoHemmer,Tatsuo Miyajima, Shirin Neshat, FionaTan, Fred Tomaselli and Cai Guo-Qiang. Also included are local artistssuch as John Barnes Jr, Willie Birc hand others. But the biennial is as muchabout New Orleans as it is aboutcontemporary art. The exhibition is

distributed among two dozen venues,f rom leafy Tulane University to thegritty Wa rehouse District and theweed-choked desolation of L9.Visitors ride shuttles taking in thehistoric arc h i t e c t u re, and are likely tosample regional cuisine and listen toDixieland and jazz music during theirs t a y. Steve Perry, president of theConvention and Visitors Bure a u ,hopes the experience will shatter thecity's reputation as a post disasterwasteland. "They will see a NewOrleans that breaks the stereotypes ofthe storm," he says. He and theo rganisers project that over 11 weeksthe show will attract 100,000 visitors,half from outside Louisiana,generating economic impact of $20mto $30m. The cash infusion is crucial to repair acity that remains a symbol of thefederal government's neglect of thepoor and the less widely-re p o r t e dmiddle class. When the waters of theGulf of Mexico breached the U.S. A r m yCorp of Engineers' levees ands u b m e rged much of the city of which

lies below sea level-the FederalE m e rgency Management A g e n c y(perna) took five days torespond,leaving thousands of citizens-primarily the city's poor, blackpopulation-stranded without food,w a t e r, shelter, health care and sanitaryfacilities. More than 1,830 people diedeither in the initial flood or itsaftermath and nearly the entire citywas ~vacuated. Property damagetopped $80bn, entire wards wered e s t royed, industry slowed, thehousing supply was decimated, theschool system shut down and touristsstayed away in droves. Somequestioned whether the city, whichhad been in decline for half a century,could rise again. Enter MrCamero n .The fonner curator at the NewMuseum in misconceived New Yo r k(i995-2005) proposed creating a larg e -scale biennial that would stimulate thearts I community, tourism andeconomy (fending off misconceivedideas of a fine art fair). He had alre a d ycurated biennials in Istanbul (2003)and Taipei (2006), cities that, like New

Orleans, lack powerful dealers andwealthy collectors. Last year heestablished US Biennial Inc., a NewYork-based non-profit Org a n i z a t i o nthat would funnel money toP rospect.1, and became director of theCAC, which would serve as theexhibition's main hall. Then he beganselling the idea to his contacts in NewYork, securing seed money from To b yDevan Lewis, a trustee of the NewMuseum, and her billionaire ex-husband Peter Lewis, the formerchairman of the GuggenheimFoundation. The A n n e n b e rg, Getty,Wa rhol and Rockefeller foundationssigned on, as did the State ofLouisiana's Department of CulturalR e c reation and Tourism (the City didnot contribute). Four other trustees ofthe New Museum became sponsors, asdid six trustees of the WhitneyMuseum and the Museum of ModemArt's president emerita Agnes Gund.By last month, Mr Cameron had raised$3.Sm, all but 10% from outsideLouisiana. Artists were selected andinvited to visit the city. Some cre a t e d

site-specific pieces and others bro u g h texisting work they felt would have aresonance. The majority re s p o n d e dthoughtfully to the flooding, theplight of the displaced and the city'shistory and character. The result isboth a meditation on tragedy and acelebration of New Orleans's uniquecultural milieu. Some of the works-such as Bradford's ark-are woven intothe fabric of the devastated L9 districtw h e re all that remains are stonestoops, derelict houses and a few newmodel homes whose design wasunderwritten by American actor BradPitt. In an abandoned house, A d a mCvijanovic covered the walls withpainted murals of the bayou, lushlybeautiful reminders of the ominousp roximity of nature. On a nearby lot,L e a n d ro Erlich placed a ladder thatleans against a window in adisembodied fragment of a brickbuilding, like the mirage of an escaperoute. Nari Wa rd converted a disusedBaptist church into a communityservices bulletin board, and PaulVillinski transformed a Fema-style

trailer into a solar- p o w e red artiststudio that would allow artists to"embed" in post-disaster settings and"contribute creatively". Wa n g e c h iMutu was compelled to try to re p a i rthe disrupted life of Sarah Latsie wholost her home in L9 and was swindledout of insurance money. bycontractors. The artist erected aframework skeleton of a · house with asingle inviting chair in its centre, andplans to sell prints to raise the moneyneeded to realise the home. GhadaAmer installed a circle of waist-highw ro u g h t - i ron letters that spell"Happily Ever After", which will bec o v e red by climbing rose andhoneysuckle to create a kind of prayerarbour for the neighbourh o o d ' sre c o v e r y. Racism and A f r i c a n -American heritage are a dominanttheme (New Orleans was once thel a rgest slave market in America). A tthe Old US Mint, part of theLouisiana State Museum, SanfordBiggers's · sculpture Blossom, 2007,consists of a tree growing through apiano emitting Billie Holiday singing

"Strange Fruit" , a blues lament aboutlynching. An installation at theAfrican American Museum byhusband and wife team McCallum &Tarry presents scores of police mugshots of demonstrators-includingMartin Luther King-arrested at the1956 Montgomery march in support ofRosa Parks, the black woman whorefused to give up her seat on as e g regated bus. The city's gay cultureis the subject of Skylar Fein's walk-inmemorial to a French Quarter leatherbar that was the scene of a deadlyarson attack in the 1970s. NavinRawanchaikul orchestrated a funeralp rocession, replete with Pre s e r v a t i o nJazz Band, for a local musician whodied while a refugee from Katrina andwas never accorded a proper funeralin his hometown. And the NewOrleans Museum of Art shows bead-andfeather body suits made by BigChief Victor Harris, leader of theAfrican-themed Fi Yi Yi tribe of Mard iGras Indians. Louisiana's lieutenantgovernor Mitchell Landrieu hassupported Prospect.! from its outset.

"In our state, culture means business-and a lot of it," he writes in a fore w o rdto the catalogue, noting that cultureand tourism, along with healthcare ,a re the state's primary employers. Heestablished a public-privatefoundation to funnel private money to" c u l t u re workers" and org a n i s a t i o n s ,and recently created 27 culturalp roduct districts-I7 in New Orleans,including the Julia Street andF renchman Street gallery are a s i nwhich sale of original works of art isexempt from the state 8.75% sales tax.He and city officials believe thebiennial will become an integral partof New Orleans's cultural life, a visualart counterpart to the annual JazzFest that attracts nearly half a millionvisitors every spring. They anticipatethat attendance will double for the·next edition and by 2012 the biennialwill be established as the US's biggestcontemporary art exhibition. Theymay be right. Mr Cameron hascommitted up to Prospect.5, and hasp roposed emulating Venice bymounting an arc h i t e c t u re biennial in

the interim years. Meanwhile, thre eyears after Katrina only about half ofthe population of 450,000 hasreturned, and while tourism isclimbing towards pre-storm levels, itremains to be seen if the biennial canrebrand a city with a reputation forcrime, poverty, dissipation and ad i s a s t rous flood, perhaps luringvisitors from nearby Art Basel MiamiBeach in early December. "Dru n k e npeople throwing up on Bourbon Stre e tis over. It's time for New Orleans tosell itself re s p o n s i b l y," saysM r C a m e ron. Jason Edward Kaufman