We are excited to announce the opening of Pelican Bomb Gallery X, our first dedicated exhibition space, located at 1612 Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard in New Orleans’ Central City neighborhood. X opens in conjunction with Pelican Bomb’s five-year anniversary.

Growing out of Pelican Bomb’s roster of roving exhibitions presented across the city, X is our new physical home for critical inquiry, artistic experimentation, and open dialogue. Our recent pop-up shows have investigated a broad range of topics: the relationship between hair, identity, and cultural memory (“(De)Tangled”); the importance of food, particularly in the American South (“FOODWAYS”); and the significance of the city’s neighborhood movie theaters (“Moviehouse NOLA”). With X, Pelican Bomb continues to present programming that challenges us to create expanded and meaningful connections between contemporary art and issues in everyday life. X exists as an extension of Pelican Bomb’s digital presence, delving deep into themes in conversation with the online Art Review. Between X and our existing programs, we are able to explore the form of exhibitions beyond traditional presentations.

X functions as an additional public access point to Pelican Bomb’s extensive work with artists, writers, curators, and thinkers in and outside of New Orleans. The gallery solidifies Pelican Bomb’s goal to contextualize the local within global conversations and to examine contemporary art in relation to other disciplines.

Pelican Bomb’s Creative and Operations Director, Amanda Brinkman, will lead the new space and exhibition program, bringing her varied background in museum practice, her commitment to working artists, and her scholarship in visual culture to Pelican Bomb Gallery X. Discussing the name, Brinkman says:

We see X as relating to multiple concepts of exchange: thoughts and ideas, cultures and histories, artistic labor and value. Popularly, X is used to affirm (when voting or checking off boxes) and to negate (when deleting or crossing out). X is used in place of a signature to say “I was here” and is a marker of something that is no longer (ex-). X can be a location mark on a map highlighting where you’ve been, where you’re going, and how to get there.

We've organized a dynamic calendar of programming that furthers Pelican Bomb’s mission to support diverse voices in contemporary art. X opens with Spa Castle, a site-specific party experience created by Momma Tried, a print publication and artist project based in New Orleans. In April, X presents “False Flags,” a group exhibition curated by Noah Simblist that examines contemporary notions of nationalism and the representation of imagined communities in the Middle East and the Americas.

Join us in celebrating the opening of Pelican Bomb Gallery X and the organization’s fifth birthday on Saturday, February 13, 9 pm - midnight.

For all press inquiries, contact Charlie Tatum at 504.252.0136 or charlie@pelicanbomb.com.