Artist Mitchell Gaudet poses in front of his art piece in front of City Hall that represents the 193 people in New Orleans who were officially classified as murdered in 2023 in New Orleans, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. (Photo by Sophia Germer, The Times-Picayune)
On a sidewalk in front of New Orleans City Hall on Thursday morning, the winter sun glinted on an 8-foot-tall sculpture made with row upon row of assault rifle bullet casings, 5,000 in all. It was the ninth consecutive year that Mississippi-based artist Mitchell Gaudet had produced a haunting artwork to recognize people murdered the year before in his hometown.
Atop the sinister curtain of brass hung 193 red glass hearts, one for each 2023 murder victim. It’s an imprecise figure, he said. Sometimes a murder or two is added to the statistics after the New Year. Happily, whatever the final 2023 tally is, it’s about 25 percent lower than the year before.
“Still, it’s 193 people killed in the city,” Gaudet said.
For the ninth year in a row, artist Mitchell Gaudet has produced a handsome yet haunting artwork that he displayed, not in a gallery or museum, but on the sidewalk near the entrance to New Orleans’ City Hall. This year’s eight-foot-tall sculpture includes a glinting brass background made of 5000 bullet casings and 193 red glass hearts, one for each of the people who were murdered in Gaudet’s hometown, New Orleans, in 2023.
Gaudet’s new artwork, like the previous eight, is partly a protest of the seemingly endless violence. But it’s more a memorial, and a meditation. Numbers can be chilling, but they can also be rather abstract. A display of translucent, blood-red hearts is vivid and arresting.
“What I hope people would take away,” Gaudet said, “is that instead of just saying 193 people were killed in the city of New Orleans, they would actually see a physical, tangible representation of each of the victims, and all of the victims as a whole.”
On Thursday, the City Council was scheduled to meet, so the steps to City Hall steps were relatively busy. A few people passed the glistening sculpture without noticing it. But, Gaudet said, based on past years, a few passersby would probably stop to discuss a lost loved one, or express their fears. Those sort of conversations don’t take place in galleries.
For each of the past nine years, artist Mitchell Gaudet has produced an artwork that memorializes the murder victims in New Orleans. For his "Murder Rate" 2023, Gaudet cast 193 red glass hearts, based on antique milagro. The hearts are displayed atop 5000 bullet casings.
A couple of years ago, Gaudet moved away from New Orleans to a home isolated in the rural countryside, where he has little apprehension of crime. These days, he said, he wonders if he’s entitled to continue to make art that deals with the topic. But he’s long planned to see the annual project through to the 10th year, when he’ll call it quits.
Over the course of the project, the cast-glass symbol Gaudet uses to mark each murder has changed — from a crying baby head to a drop of blood, a bullseye target, a small hand, a bird, a broken column, falling leaves and mirrored faces.
“Some of the yearly symbols are morose,” he said, “some years the symbols are more hopeful.” They’re always sad.
In past years, Gaudet etched the name of each victim on that year’s glass symbol to humanize the display, before he brought the artwork to City Hall. This year, he plans to add the names afterward.
Gaudet’s series will come to an end in January 2025, but his musing on the subject of (mainly) gun violence may not. In addition to his annual “Murder Rate” sculptures, he’s produced a variety of artworks that consider the American mania of mass shootings. Lately he’s been making glass assault rifles marked with slogans such as “God, Guts and Guns ” and “From My Cold Dead Hands” that seem to call into question the confluence of patriotism, religion and firearms.
“Murder Rate 2023" will be on display on Thursday, Jan. 4 only, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., in front of the steps of New Orleans City Hall, 1300 Perdido St.
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