NEW ORLEANS, LA.- The New Orleans Museum of Art plays host to several major events next week, including a second line with the Original Big Seven Brass Band and a lecture by famed Russian scholar Suzanne Massie, as two major exhibitions—Prospect.1 New Orleans and Objects of Desire: Fabergé from the Hodges Family Collection—enter their final days. Free admission to the Museum ends the same day these exhibitions finish their historic runs—January 18.

Prospect.1 and Objects of Desire close Jan. 18
Two of the Museum’s most significant exhibitions from 2008 will close January 18. Prospect.1 New Orleans, the largest contemporary art biennial in the country, has been on view at more than 25 locations throughout the city. The inaugural exhibition has attracted tens of thousands of visitors and has been acclaimed by national media outlets including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Chicago Sun-Times, the Houston Chronicle, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and a slew of art publications.

Objects of Desire: Fabergé from the Hodges Family Collection continues NOMA’s
tradition as one of the nation’s premier destinations for the study and viewing of precious objects by Russian jeweler and sculptor Peter Carl Fabergé and his artisans. Objects of Desire is comprised of 108 objects, many of which have never been exhibited publicly in the United States, all on long-term loan from Lafayette collector Dr. Daniel Hodges.

Free admission, extended to all visitors during the runs of these historic exhibitions, will end January 18. Free admission to Louisiana residents, however, will continue to be offered to any visitor with a valid Louisiana photo identification, courtesy of The Helis Foundation.

Public programs January 14-18
The Museum’s public programs calendar is packed next week, led by one-time-only
events to close out Prospect.1 and Objects of Desire.

On Saturday, Jan. 17 at 1 p.m., a second line led by the Original Big 7 Social Aid and Pleasure Club and Brass Band will commemorate the closing of Prospect.1 New
Orleans. The procession begins at 1 p.m. in front of the Besthoff Sculpture Garden and will make its way down Lelong Avenue before entering the Museum and circling around the Great Hall and the McDermott Lobby, past the work of New Orleans-based Prospect.1 artists Willie Birch and Victor Harris and the Fi Yi Yi.

On Sunday, Jan. 18 at 2 p.m., noted Russian scholar Suzanne Massie, co-author with her husband Robert of the bestselling Nicholas and Alexandra, will lecture in the Stern Auditorium. Nicholas and Alexandra, the tale of the last Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, was adapted into a film that earned a Best Picture nomination at the 1971 Academy Awards. The Massie lecture will be followed by a booksigning and reception.

Also next week, Big Chief Victor Harris, whose Mardi Gras Indian suits are on view at the Museum as part of Prospect.1, will present an oral history of Mardi Gras Indians in a presentation titled “Roots of the Fi Yi Yi,” on Wednesday, January 14 at 6 p.m. in the Museum’s Great Hall.

That same evening, as part of the Mid-Week in Mid-City program on Wednesday,
January 14 at 6 p.m., Alan Shuptrine of Shuptrine Fine Arts in Chattanooga, Tenn.,
presents a demonstration of the lost art of water gilding.