HBCU Marching Band Series coming to Ogden Museum of Southern Art

NEW ORLEANS, La. – Ogden Museum of Southern Art has announced an exhibit highlighting HBCU Marching Bands that will open in the winter of 2025. The exhibition, Battle of the Bands, features New Orleans artist Keith Duncan’s most recent body of work that celebrates the vibrant tradition of Historically Black College and University (HBCU) marching bands. The exhibit will open Feb. 15, 2025, and will include large-scale fabric paintings of 15 HBCU bands and human-scale fabric paintings and smaller works on paper depicting each band’s drum major. Duncan, who grew up in Plaquemines Parish near New Orleans, was familiar with the cultural importance of marching bands. New Orleans has a strong marching band tradition in public schools, and these bands are the soundtrack and soul of the city’s Mardi Gras parades. Members of the high school marching bands often become members of HBCU marching bands, as well as the celebrated brass bands that play the streets and clubs of New Orleans and beyond. While attending Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge, Duncan became familiar with Southern University’s Human Jukebox. Duncan explains, “While attending LSU for my undergraduate, we would go over to Southern University at times to go check...