May Gallery & Residency

Specialties

May gallery & residency (2839 North Robertson Street, New Orleans) provides art practitioners with resources to achieve a higher level of professional and creative development, and encourages a greater acknowledgment, understanding and value of contemporary art, and the cultural, built and natural environments of New Orleans and the South East. Our goal is to actively seek links between the arts, other areas of cultural production and the sciences and to involve art as a contributing voice in the global intellectual, social and political discourse.

May books (2402 Royal Street, New Orleans) is an independent book store and gallery based in New Orleans focusing on visual and graphic arts, architecture, photography, music, new media, and creative source material. We sell a curated selection of new contemporary art books, from exhibition catalogues to monographs, theory publications, as well as a wide range of international magazines. New publications are delivered weekly, and book launches and signings will take place regularly.

History

Established in 2012.

Located in the Upper 9^th Ward of New Orleans in a former beer brewery since 2012, May produces original context specific artworks and installations for public exhibition by international contemporary artists, and concurrently provides educational public programming to New Orleans and south eastern United States. May’s educational programing teaches critical thought through public discussions, publishing, exhibitions and by actively integrating international resident-​artists into the surrounding communities. All educational programming and entrance to exhibitions is free and open to the public.

May gallery & residency (May Gallery, Inc. Charter #4 121 7210N) is a Louisiana State registered Non-​Profit Corporation. May’s 501c3 IRS non-​profit application is currently under review. May is able to accept tax-​deductible donations through its fiscal agent, Press Street /​Antenna gallery. May Books, LLC is a for-​profit, sole proprietorship owned by Émilie Lamy.

Meet the Manager

Keene K.

Manager

Keene Kopper (b. 1979) trained and worked as a design architect in Massachusetts (’03-’05) and then in New York City for Kohn Pedersen Fox Architects (’05-’09). While working as a design architect for six years he maintained his artistic practice, producing artwork, and curating arts-​specific events. He moved to New Orleans in 2008. As a curator, Keene specializes in working with artists to create all new, original context specific art installations which are often executed as immersive architectural, social, political or sensory interventions.

Through his experiences with various artist residency programs, and through the influence of other international arts galleries, museums, and institutions of critical thought and education, he was inspired to create a new artist residency program in New Orleans. The program focuses primarily on the production of large scale context specific installation art, publicly accessible exhibitions and education programming, and publishing.