New Orleans art museums offer cool news when weather gets hot

Most Louisiana residents don’t wish for temps to soar in August. They’re too busy dreaming of autumn’s arrival. But if the heat index reaches 93 degrees in New Orleans, three city museums will offer free admission to Louisiana residents the following day. The participating museums are the New Orleans Museum of Art, Ogden Museum of Southern Art and the Contemporary Arts Center.

It’s all courtesy of The Helis Foundation. 

But there’s more. Imperial Woodpecker Sno-Balls will offer sno-balls for free on “Art & AC” days at NOMA’s front entrance and Helis will sponsor a raffle at each museum. Visitors should check-in at the front desk and receive one set of two tickets. Fill out the top portion of the ticket and turn it in for a chance to win one of two prints of "NOLA Color Study" by David Armentor. The other can be redeemed for one sno-ball.

To find out if the day’s heat index reaches 93, follow FOX8 in New Orleans with meteorologist David Bernard, along with NOMA’s Facebook page.

Weird, Wacky and Wild South is written by food and travel writer Chere Dastugue Coen.

Get your head in the game at Marie Antoinette screening

Kirsten Dunce stars as Marie Antoinette. 

You’ll lose your head over this event. Okay, enough with the puns. 

The New Orleans Museum of Art, in conjunction with its current exhibition, “A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes,” will screen the Sofia Coppola 2006 film “Marie Antoinette” this Friday (April 13, 2018) on the lawn of the City Park museum. The film focuses on the teenage Austrian princess who becomes the queen of France and who dies by guillotine 23 years later after living a life of luxury and fame.

But that’s not all. There will be food trucks from Diva Dawgs (gotta love the name association there) and La Cocinita, not to mention a bar because this is, of course, New Orleans. And there’s more! Here’s the schedule:

5 - 7:30 pm: Art on the Spot family activity table

6 - 7:30 pm: Pre-show music by DJ Swamp Boogie and a dance performance by Trixie Minx productions as decadent as Marie Antoinette's fashions

7:30 - 9:30 pm: Screening of Marie Antoinette (Rated PG-13 | 2 hours, 3 minutes | Watch the trailer here.

Aminata, from The Studio of Vanities Series, 2013, by Omar Victor Diop

The event is free to museum members, $12 to nonmember adults, $10 nonmember seniors and $6 nonmember children ages 7-12. Free to children under age 6.

“A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes” includes experimental gowns, headpieces, and jewelry by avant-garde fashion designers such as Alexander McQueen, Gucci, and Iris van Herpen, which investigate symbols of womanhood and expand the theme of fashion as art. More than 100 articles of fashion are presented in a gallery design that explores seven archetypal personality types, including Sage, Magician, Enchantress, Explorer, Mother Earth, Heroine, and Thespian.

Weird, Wacky and Wild South is written by food and travel writer Chere Dastugue Coen.