NEW YORK.- Dan Cameron, Director and Curator of Prospect.1 New Orleans, announced today the names of the 81 local, national, and international artists selected to participate in the inaugural edition of the biennial, on view November 1, 2008, through January 18, 2009. Hailing from 36 countries and five continents, many of these artists are creating new and original works that respond both to the locations in which they will be installed and to the city of New Orleans as a whole, for the largest biennial of international contemporary art ever organized in the United States.

Selected artists (in alphabetical order)
ALLORA & CALZADILLA (Allora b. Philadelphia, PA and Calzadilla b. Havana, Cuba)
GHADA AMER (b. Cairo, Egypt)
EL ANATSUI (b. Anyako, Ghana)
JANINE ANTONI (b. Freeport, Bahamas)
ALEXANDRE ARRECHEA (b. Trinidad, Cuba)
LUIS CRUZ AZACETA (b. Havana, Cuba)
JOHN BARNES, JR. (b. Bogalusa, LA)
SANFORD BIGGERS (b. Los Angeles, CA)
WILLIE BIRCH (b. New Orleans, LA)
MONICA BONVICINI (b. Venice, Italy)
MARK BRADFORD (b. Los Angeles, CA)
CANDICE BREITZ (b. Johannesburg, South Africa)
CAI GUO-QIANG (b. Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, China)
CAO FEI (b. Guangzhou, China)
FRANCIS CAPE (b. Lisbon, Portugal)
CHEN CHIEH-JEN (b. Taoyuan, Taiwan)
ADAM CVIJANOVIC (b. Cambridge, MA)
JOSE DAMASCENO (b. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
ANNE DELEPORTE (b. Corsica)
LEANDRO ERLICH (b. Buenos Aires, Argentina)
SKYLAR FEIN (b. New York, NY)
ROY FERDINAND, JR. (b. New Orleans, LA)
TONY FITZPATRICK (b. Chicago, IL)
GAJIN FUJITA (b. Los Angeles, CA)
RICO GATSON (b. Augusta, GA)
KATHARINA GROSSE (b. Freiburg/Breisgau, Germany)
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK (b. Oklahoma City, OK)
VICTOR HARRIS & FI YI YI (b. New Orleans, LA)
ARTURO HERRERA (b. Caracas, Venezuela)
JACQUELINE HUMPHRIES (b. New Orleans, LA)
ISAAC JULIEN (b. London, England)
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE (b. Johannesburg, South Africa)
LEE BUL (b. Seoul, Korea)
KALUP LINZY (b. Stuckey, FL)
SRDJAN LONCAR (b. Rijeka, Croatia)
RAFAEL LOZANO-HEMMER (b. Mexico City, Mexico)
DEBORAH LUSTER (b. Bend, Oregon)
JORGE MACCHI (b. Buenos Aires, Argentina)
SHAWNE MAJOR (b. New Iberia, LA)
NALINI MALANI (b. Karachi, India)
McCALLUM & TARRY (McCallum b. Green Bay, WI and Tarry b. Buffalo, NY)
DAVE MCKENZIE (b. Kingston, Jamaica)
JOSEPHINE MECKSEPER (b. Lilienthal, Germany)
JULIE MEHRETU (b. Addis Abeba, Ethiopia)
AERNOUT MIK (b. Groningen, Netherlands)
BEATRIZ MILHAZES (b. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
TATSUO MIYAJIMA (b. Tokyo, Japan)
YASUMASA MORIMURA (b. Osaka, Japan)
ZWELETHU MTHETHWA (b. Durban, Kwazulu Natal, So. Africa)
WANGECHI MUTU (b. Nairobi, Kenya)
SHIRIN NESHAT (b. Qazvin, Iran)
MARCEL ODENBACH (b. Cologne, Germany)
KAZ OSHIRO (b. Okinawa, Japan)
MIGUEL PALMA (b. Lisbon, Portugal)
PEREJAUME (b. Sant Pol de Mar, Catalonia, Spain)
PIERRE ET GILLES (Pierre b. La Roche sur-Yon, France and Gilles b. Le Havre, France)
JOHN PILSON (b. New York, NY)
SEBASTIÁN PREECE (b. Chile)
NAVIN RAWANCHAIKUL (b. Chiang Mai, Thailand)
ROSÂNGELA RENNÓ (b. Belo Horizonte, Brazil)
PEDRO REYES (b. Mexico City, Mexico)
ROBIN RHODE (b. Capetown, South Africa)
STEPHEN G. RHODES (b. Covington, LA)
NADINE ROBINSON (b. London, England)
CLARE E. ROJAS (b. Columbus, OH)
KAY ROSEN (b. Corpus Christi, TX)
MALICK SIDIBÉ (b. Soloba, Mali)
AMY SILLMAN
NEDKO SOLAKOV (b. Cherven Briag, Bulgaria)
MONIKA SOSNOWSKA (b. Ryki, Poland)
JACKIE SUMELL and HERMAN WALLACE (Sumell b. Brooklyn, NY and Wallace b. New Orleans, LA)
SUPERFLEX (Bjornsterne R Christiansen b. Copenhagen, Denmark; Rasmus Nielsen b. Copenhagen, Denmark; and Jacob Fenger, b. Copenhagen, Denmark)
FIONA TAN (b. Pekan Baru, Indonesia)
PASCALE MARTHINE TAYOU (b. Yaounde, Cameroon)
FRED TOMASELLI (b. Santa Monica, CA)
JANNIS VARELAS (b. Athens, Greece)
XAVIER VEILHAN (b. Lyon, France)
PAUL VILLINSKI (b. York, Maine)
NARI WARD (b. Saint Andrew, Jamaica)
XU BING (b. Chongqing, China)
HAEGUE YANG (b. Seoul, Korea)

Highlights of the Biennial - A number of biennial highlights respond to the destruction wrought on the city of New Orleans and the Gulf Region in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. Mark Bradford will create a wooden Ark utilizing the shell of a destroyed house and other discarded scraps of wood in the Lower Ninth Ward. Paul Villinski, a New York-based artist known for creating work from debris who has said he found “new, urgent purpose in the disaster of Hurricane Katrina,” will create his Emergency Response Studio, a “green”-powered mobile artist’s studio, out of a discarded, now-iconic FEMA trailer. South African photographer Zwelethu Mthethwa, who first visited New Orleans in the more immediate wake of the hurricane, returned to the Lower Ninth Ward in late 2007 to create his first photographs outside of Africa, which will debut at Prospect.1.

Highlights of the biennial also include works by artists who have selected unique locations in which to install work. Adam Cuijanovic will paint one of his murals inside an abandoned house in the Lower Ninth Ward, and Nari Ward will convert an abandoned church in the Lower Ninth Ward into an installation. Navin Rawanchaikul will present his New Orleans I Love Taxi Project, similar to one created in New York in 2001 with the Public Art Fund. In New Orleans, he will interview taxi drivers and weave their tales into a comic book story that he will produce and print, then distribute in city taxis during the biennial.

Other artists creating new works specifically for Prospect.1 New Orleans are Jacqueline Humphries, who will create a new work using metallic autopaint; Julie Mehretu, who is creating a suite of large-scale paintings; Pierre & Gilles, who are creating a new series of enhanced photographic images; Kay Rosen, who will transform city billboards and benches into enigmatic word-puzzles; and Kaz Oshiro, who is working on a new series of his characteristic sculptural trompe l'oeil pieces.

A number of New Orleans-born and based artists have also been selected to participate in the biennial, among them Shawne Major, who is creating three large-scale wall hangings; Willie Birch, who will present a new series of drawings; and Croatian-born, New Orleans-based sculptor Srdjan Loncar, who will erect a sculptural pile of money in front of the Old U.S. Mint and encourage the public to carry some of it away in briefcases provided at the site.

Recent and iconic works by other major artists will also be on view. Lee Bul will present delicate glass and aluminum works that were shown at Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in 2007-08; Fred Tomaselli will present two works that were painted in response to Hurricane Katrina along with a third, new piece; and Trenton Doyle Hancock will present elements including costumes, backdrops, and sculptures that he has created for Ballet Austin's new production Cult of Color.

Participating Venues - Artists’ works will be installed in some 100,000 square feet of exhibition space throughout the city of New Orleans. In November 2007, Prospect.1 announced that the following institutions would partner with the biennial by providing space for artist projects and installations: Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, The Historic New Orleans Collection, L9 Center for the Arts, Louisiana Artworks, The Old U.S. Mint Louisiana State Museum, The National World War II Museum, New Orleans African American Museum, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts|Riverfront, New Orleans Museum of Art, Newcomb Art Gallery at Tulane University, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

Joining these venues are Ashé Cultural Arts Center, The George & Leah McKenna Museum of African American Art, and Longue Vue House & Gardens.