As little as I feel I know about the contemporary art scene, I know I can identify quality ideas. Ironically, the urgency of great art is often difficult to immediately describe. Finally, it takes shape in your brain as a moment you’ve lived and want to share like a good book, great song or great wine. You find yourself wanting to write it down or explain it to people that didn’t get the chance to bear witness. Such is art and such is writing. They are about moments.

Although not many people outside of the art community have heard of Prospect 1, no one could have avoided hearing and seeing the catastrophe that was Hurricane Katrina. From the complete antipathy of our federal government, to broken levees and broken homes; from the Garden District to the Lower Ninth Ward, not much has changed since the storm – save the strong will of the few that have tried to rebuild. The insurance companies still have not followed up on many promises, and contractors’ botched plans are still obvious. So are the lies and lack of follow-through.

This is taken into consideration daily in New Orleans, and it has created a psyche. Thus, Prospect 1 was put together to make multiple statements about that moment. While under way, the biennial, directed and curated by Dan Cameron, spanned the entire city of New Orleans, and incorporated anything from a burned-out warehouse to the old U.S. Mint. Eighty one artists from 30 countries filled the faded nooks of the Crescent City.

The ensemble of artists was asked to make their contextualized comments on New Orleans and its current state. Between walks and well-scripted shuttle service, we saw the impact. Each neighborhood has its own pulse, but none more captivating than the Lower Ninth Ward – where you could feel the thickness; the sad, stuck-soul barely breathing, but alive.

The absolute joy brought by gentleman-slash-ad-hoc curator, Mack McClendon, had been contagious. He welcomed us to his own mini-curation, called The Lower Ninth Ward Village, in a green warehouse off of Charbonnet Street. He was proud of the participating artists, and was noticeably appreciative that we were simply there to see the show. His attempts at creating something bigger than the current mood of his neighborhood radiated from Miguel Palma’s, Rescue Games, a water-soaked barge constructed in the hanger section of the warehouse, rocking back and forth with its self-contained, epic, mini-waves going nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

In another room, a local artist’s bright canvases reminded browsers of our newly elected president’s creed: Hope.

“I just can’t believe people can think these things and then actually make them happen,” McClendon commented, his own support and enthusiasm a pilaster in a desolate neighborhood with far too few foundations. He is as big a part of the art here as anything else.

Walking around the corner we came to an old but surprisingly well-maintained two-story house. Its antique storefront was originally intended to be turned into a neighborhood art/dance studio when it was bought just weeks before the storm. Now called the Tecrema Center for Arts and Culture, it survived Katrina’s impact, but stayed empty (on multiple levels) until the current show – now breathing bayou murals and slated geology installations. Its tired, tired owner greeted everyone with a smile and a sigh.

The next street over, down Burgundy, people used to own houses – not in deed but in lineage – but now they have nothing left, not even pictures. Among these literal ruins were meditations on failure, religion, nature, love, hate and race. Some you could call art on purpose, some you could call art just for being there.

And the moment was totally in and around the notion of loss after the storm. We drove deeper into the flooded zone, further below sea level, and came upon Mark Bradford’s life-sized “Arc,” which seemed to be an L.A. artist’s social commentary on our country’s disproportioned fixation with his hometown and stars. The height of the arc was proportional to the height of the flood waters.

The surrounding empty lots provided a sparse background. Empty lots, empty soul, and without Oprah and Brad, not even Los Angeles would think about this small street anymore.

As the ground sloped down away from the levee, we found ourselves in the most desolate part of Lower Ninth. The only buildings left were made of brick or concrete, including the abandoned Battleground Church with a brilliant gem-shaped sculpture in its hallowed out hall. The sculpture relied on found pieces of exercise equipment and other debris found after the storm. Inside the hall, very little light helped with illumination, rather the installation relied heavily on the echoes of a looped tape playing a congregation’s plea, while newspaper clippings of grandmothers and grandchildren lost and evacuation plans marked the walls. Heavy.

We finished our tour at a park, the closest point to where the levee broke. A cinder block structure was all that remained of what once was a restroom at a playground. We went inside and found a beautiful, flowing water feature with rocks surrounding it with receding water lines pointing out the daily effects of the flood, marking recession and flow. The only sound in this part of the now desolate neighborhood was the trickling of the water out of the fountain and our own voices. We left the Lower Ninth Ward shortly after seeing this piece.

The Lower Ninth Ward was not the only place that hosted amazing art. From the New Orleans Modern Art Museum to the Warehouse district, there were many pieces we did not even get to contemplate given our day and a half to wander around. Once you are back in the thick of downtown, it’s easy to forget about the Lower Ninth Ward in the higher grounds of the city. There are still plenty of tree-lined streets and cast-iron gated gardens. The food we ate was outstanding and we celebrated a great friend’s 40th birthday. In the evenings, we found ourselves tipsy on the streets of the French Quarter, with our trip to the once flooded remains of the Ward, becoming more and more out of focus. The neon parrot colors of Bourbon Street accomplished the goal of forgetting the day’s troubles, maybe on purpose.

Weeks after attending the event the most striking moments were not the hurricanes of Pat O’Briens (although they were fun), but memories of how artists got together in a battered city a few years after the real hurricane struck to make their own comments on the still evident moments after the storm. Prospect 1 will be difficult to forget.