Acadiana artist Brian Guidry has been named the new curator at the Acadiana Center for the Arts. Guidry, a graduate of the USL art department, with a masters from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, will step into the high-heeled pumps of former curator Rose Courville.
While Guidry considers himself primarily a painter, he also works in multiple media such as sculpture, environmental installations and video. After eight years in New York, Guidry moved back to Lafayette in 2001. He curated Gallerie Lafayette inside Jefferson Street Market for five years, and served as an adjunct art professor at UL. Two years ago, he traveled with the late painter Elemore Morgan Jr. to New York to help facilitate Morgan’s America project. Morgan spent weeks painting the Brooklyn Bridge and Ellis Island, some of the last works before his death in 2008. Last year, Guildry participated in Prospect.1, the New Orleans art biennial, and has recently had a show in New Orleans, at Good Children Gallery. Next week, he will have pieces in shows opening at the Contemporary Art Center and Louisiana ArtWorks, also in the Crescent City.
Guidry will have a full schedule at the AcA. Shows are scheduled in both the big and side galleries through the end of the year. Hanging them will be a bit of a snake dance while construction goes on for the new theatre. No problem, says Guidry. He says he’s looking forward to putting together shows by locals, those whose “art-making is part of their lives.”