Tooth for an Eye: A Chorography of Violence in Orleans Parish
December 4 – 29, 2013
The city of New Orleans is a topographical/architectural/material/cultural phenomenon with a diverse population participating in raucously colorful and fascinating pursuits and rituals. Homicide is a cultural fact of the life in the city as well. In her second book, Tooth for an Eye: A Chorography of Violence in Orleans Parish, Deborah Luster explores the city in a new way, creating a compelling portrait in the form of a photographic archive of contemporary and historic homicide sites. Following on from her first book, Prisoners of Louisiana, Tooth for an Eye explores the themes of loss and remembrance in a series of tondo photographs that offer an opportunity for the viewer to enter deeper into the idea of the city, a place where life and death coexist, neither free of the other’s influence.
Originally from Bend, Oregon, Deborah Luster currently lives and works in New Orleans, Louisiana. She has exhibited solo shows at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, New Orleans Museum of Art, and other notable public and private collections. She has published two monographs: Tooth for an Eye: A Chorography of Violence in Orleans Parish (Twin Palms Publishing, 2011) and One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana (Twin Palms Publishing, 2003). This is Luster’s second solo show at Blue Sky.