10 Ink Jet Prints of drawings,
5 x color, 5 x black/white, framed
(lime tree wood lacquered white),
30 cm x 24 cm, edition of 5,
2011

Parade funebre New Orleans, 2011

Parade funebre New Orleans / Fenced off housing projects New Orleans

As a long-standing jazz DJ, Wudtke integrated the century-old tradition of jazz funerals in New Orleans (USA) in a series of drawings, Trauermarsch New Orleans/Parade funebre New Orleans, on the project residents who became homeless after hurricane Kathrina. It was not the hurricane that made people loose their homes, but local politics intent on keeping the welfare housing residents, after they were evacuated, away from the buildings that remained undamaged by the storm and thus from the electoral district. At the same time, the city of New Orleans and its tourism industry define culturally themselves mainly by jazz, which was not seldom created by precisely these welfare housing residents. Wudtke reveals a parallel to musicians living in Berlin, who also upgraded the city globally, but are now being driven away by high rents.

Parade funebre New Orleans, 2011, exhibition views, Bethanien Studio 1, Berlin