Ohr-O'Keefe Museum; Frank Gehry • Deep Fried Kudzu

In December, I went back to the Frank Gehry-designed Ohr-O’Keefe Museum in Biloxi thinking that they would have had the pods open (I really should have checked online or called, but there’s a big part of me that likes leaving things up to chance); they weren’t open yet, but it was still fun to go back through the galleries.

Pods — these will actually be called the John S. and James L. Knight Gallery, after the philanthropic foundation that gave $3MM toward their completion:

Some pictures I’m showing here are from a previous visit, like this one:

Among the exhibits that were open on this visit were Dusti Bongé: Revisting The Legacy (now thru June 8, 2013), and Lydia Thompson: Roots, Connections and Pathways (now through June 1). Inside the gallery above are more George Ohr pieces, but photography inside the galleries is not allowed.

It is allowed, however, in the main building, where his ‘burned babies’ are:

This is the City of Biloxi Center for Ceramics on the museum campus, and they’re offering pottery classes:

Studio inside:

If you’re familiar with George Ohr’s antics/demeanor/appearance, you’ll get a kick out of the restroom signs:

Models of Frank Gehry’s designs for the buildings:

I think Gehry is a genius, but the acoustics in the galleries (especially the IP gallery) is *awful*. You really can’t hear anyone speaking clearly more than just a few feet from you…so to carry on a conversation with the docent means standing in front of them, rather than casually speaking from a comfortable distance. Both times I’ve brought it up to the docents, asking what they thought, and they’ve told me that they also love the buildings but that the sound makes it so difficult to have good discussions with visitors.

It’s all come such a long way since the damage from Katrina — this pic I took almost a year afterwards: