PDF: Haitian artist to discuss earthquake relief during March 1 visit « International Accents

BY JULIA JESSEN | MARCH 01, 2012 6:30 AM

The painting Endless Flight uses the bright, vivid colors of the Caribbean as it articulates shapes and forms across the surface of the canvas, infusing the piece with life and meaning.

Haitian-born artist Edouard Duval Carrié created this intriguing painting. He will deliver a lecture about his native country at 5 p.m. today in 2520D University Capitol Centre.

“The artist can be a powerful voice in the community in order to draw people’s attention to arts and culture of different groups around the world,” said Loyce Arthur, a University of Iowa associate professor of theater and codirector of the Caribbean, Diaspora, and Atlantic Studies Program.

Carrié, whose work is exhibited in the Figge Museum in Davenport as well as many other prestigious museums, will speak about his efforts in Haitian relief after the 2010 earthquake as well as his art and his role as a curator of several Caribbean exhibits.

“It’s a daunting and bewildering kind of thing, the situation in Haiti, but I try to do my best with the artists,” he said. “All artists in Haiti are in distress, so I try to help them and place their work in the best possible way in prestigious galleries.” Read more…

SMDCAC Grand Opening Photos by Heidi Miami Marshall

Haiti: History Embedded in Amber

Collaborating with students, Duval-Carrie visualizes Haiti

Click above image for an article about the project from the Duke Chronicle, or click here for PDF.

ART REVIEW

Brown, RISD exhibit offers hopeful perspective of strife-ridden country

The four-paneled “Paysage Aregenté’’ by Edouard Duval-Carrié. (Corey Grayhorse)

By Cate McQuaidGlobe Correspondent / April 16, 2011

PROVIDENCE — When Americans think of Haiti, the images tend to be of strife: the disastrous 2010 earthquake, a history of political unrest, terrible poverty. “Reframing Haiti: Art, History, and Performativity’’ is a monthlong celebration of Haitian culture staged by Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design that seeks to correct that impression.

“Reframing Haiti’’ offers undeniably vital, proud, even joyful works of art in five venues on both campuses, and a series of talks and workshops through April 21. Much of the art was made before the earthquake. Although arranged thematically by the event’s directors, Anthony Bogues, Katherine Smith, and Karen Allen Baxter, the exhibits lack a curator’s skilled eye and nuanced approach to installation. Some feel slapdash, as if they came together at the last minute.

That was indeed the case with a stellar group of mixed-media paintings by Edouard Duval-Carrié, an internationally known artist whom Bogues visited in his Miami studio two weeks before “Reframing Haiti’’ opened. Duval-Carrié offered up a four-panel piece he’d just finished; Bogues scrambled to find wall space.

We’re lucky he did. Duval-Carrié’s large-scale paintings on aluminum burst off the wall of Brown’s Pembroke Hall, bustling with pattern, landscape, sparkle, and mythos rooted in Haitian Vodou, what Americans think of as voodoo, a syncretic religion that blends elements of European Catholicism with African religions brought to Haiti in slave ships. Duval-Carrié often wraps his paintings around Vodou spirits, such as Erzulie and Lasiren, who represent aspects of femininity.

In “Her Saving Grace, La Sirene,’’ the central figure — which is the same spirit as Lasiren; Vodou is largely an orally transmitted religion, so spellings often vary — appears in a pattern of sparkling blue drops. She is the voluptuous power of the sea. On land above her, Duval-Carrié has painted the crumbling edifice of a building toppled by the earthquake.

The four-panel piece, “Paysage Argenté,’’ is a dense, shimmering re-creation in silver on black of the flora and fauna of Haiti in a gorgeously composed landscape. The whispers of silver over black hint that starlight has coalesced into form; that would make this Haitian scene a version of the Garden of Eden.

There are explicit, colorful threads that tie Duval-Carrié’s paintings, which have the technical polish and scope to make a splash at any contemporary art fair, to more vernacular Haitian arts, such as Vodou flags. “Flags of the Spirits,’’ a spectacular installation of flags usually made to hang in temples, is up in Brown’s Rites and Reason Theatre, a black box, and lit with the verve of a high-energy musical.

In Vodou, a distant god oversees the world, but his spiritual emissaries do all the hands-on work. This show taps some of Haiti’s best flag makers. Myrlande Constant’s striking “Baron Samdi Negre Rada,’’ portrays Baron Samdi or Samedi, a spirit known as the lord of death. He dances in a fancy white suit through a cemetery, over a gold-spangled ground; his trademark skull perches on a grave marker behind him.

Roudy Azor’s flag, “12 Jan. 2010,’’ depicts the quake: A man, or spirit, in a black suit glittering with purple tumbles out of the sky as others huddle beneath; buildings in the background topple like a house of cards. The sheer color and sparkle of these flags helps to integrate their dark content in a belief system that embraces death, rebirth, and rejuvenation.

More Vodou art is on view at the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology at Brown, where Boston-based Vodou priestess Marie Evans has set up an ebullient altar dedicated to Lasiren, overflowing with ritual objects, including bead-bedecked bottles, a blue-spangled cloth covered with shells, a mermaid statue holding a glass globe, and a broom.

Haitian history pervades its art as much as Vodou does. On the floor above Duval-Carrié’s show at Pembroke Hall, a small exhibit is devoted to 20th- and 21st-century artists interpreting the Haitian Revolution, which followed a slave revolt in 1791. Images such as Rony Deetgen’s “Heroes of the Independence’’ portray seminal figures such as Toussaint L’Ouverture, here in conference with his generals in an ornate room. He points out the door; in the distance the blue and red Haitian flag flies. Under French colonial rule, the flag had been France’s tricolor; the liberated Haitians symbolically removed the white.

These paintings, and those arranged salon-style in the Cohen Gallery at Brown’s new Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, are dominated by a style particular to Haitian art. Spaces are foreshortened, figures are flat and stylized. I wonder if this has its origins, in part, in the textile portrayals on the Vodou flags. The result is bright and cartoony. This jampacked exhibit, much of it borrowed from the Waterloo Center for the Arts in Iowa, should have been edited down.

But some of Haiti’s most renowned artists have work here. There’s Hector Hyppolite’s “Erzulie et ses soeurs,’’ in which the spirit of love and her sisters sit amid resplendent bouquets of delicately rendered flowers. Hippolyte worked in the first half of the 20th century, and his Vodou-inspired scenes became a favorite of the Surrealists.

Then there’s contemporary artist Frantz Zephirin, whose depiction of Baron Samedi graced the cover of the New Yorker after the earthquake. His brash, antic painting “The Dictatorship by International Money’’ is a fantastical, nightmarish scene of an island scattered with paper currency. Handcuffed figures with human bodies and vividly patterned animal heads trudge into the water. On land, a man in a pirate hat tragically brands Lasiren with a dollar sign.

The final element of “Reframing Haiti,’’ a succinct exhibit of sculptures made by Haitian metal workers from old oil drums, is up at RISD’s Ewing Multicultural Center Gallery. No spangles or bright colors here, but these sculptors make up for their dark materials with tensile gesture and a lyrical rhythm to their composition.

“Reframing Haiti’’ gushes with eye-catching imagery and narrative, but despite a brochure and wall text, much useful context is missing. A detailed explanation of Haitian iconography would go a long way in tying these exhibits together, and more deeply rooting them in Haitian cosmology.

Cate McQuaid can be reached at catemcquaid@gmail.com.

 

(michael cohea/brown university)

 

REFRAMING HAITI: Art, History and Performativity

At: Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, through April 21, www.brown.edu/web/reframing-haiti/index.html

At Brown University: Cohen Gallery, Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts,

154 Angell St.

Rites and Reason Theatre,

Churchill House, 155 Angell St.

Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Manning Hall, College Green

Cogut Center for the Humanities,

Pembroke Hall, 172 Meeting St.

At RISD: Yellow House Gallery, Ewing Multicultural Center, 41 Waterman St.

Global Caraïbes
Focus sur la création contemporaine caribéenne
du 12 juin au 17 octobre 2010

Qu’est-ce qu’être caribéen aujourd’hui ?
Cette question complexe est abordée par l’exposition « Global Caraïbes » qui livre à travers les oeuvres de vingt-trois artistes issus de 11 pays du bassin caribéen, des réponses très personnelles à cette interrogation.
«Global Caraïbes» prolonge l’exploration des territoires artistiques et singuliers engagée par le Musée International des Arts Modestes.
A cette occasion, le MIAM dédie un espace à Edouard Duval-Carrié, artiste, collectionneur et commissaire de l’exposition. En écho à «Global Caraïbes», des oeuvres de deux artistes caribéens, Kcho, cubain et Hervé Télémaque, d’origine haïtienne vivant en France seront exposées, ainsi qu’une projection de photographies de peintures de rue, prises à Port-au Prince (Haïti), rassemblées dans le projet de livre du photographe anglais Pablo Butcher.

Exposition co-produite par Culturesfrance

L’Institut français et la Haïtien Cultural Arts Alliance présentent l’Exposition Global Caribbean au Musée d’Art Contemporain de Porto Rico en collaboration avec le MIAM, le Service culturel de l’ambassade de France et l’Alliance française de Porto Rico.

Initiée par Culturesfrance dans le cadre de son programme « Caraïbes en création », et intégrée au programme officiel de la foire, Art Basel Miami Beach en 2009, « The Global Caribbean : Focus on the Caribbean Contemporary Visual Art Landscape », visait à renforcer la visibilité de la création artistique caribéenne auprès des principaux prescripteurs et décideurs du marché de l’art.

Première exposition de cette envergure conçue, présentée dans la région et exportée vers d’autres destinations, The Global Caribbean, a été l’une des manifestations inaugurales du Little Haïti Cultural Center, nouvel espace culturel pluridisciplinaire, au cœur du quartier Haïtien de Miami, dirigé vers l’importante et active communauté caribéenne implantée en Floride du Sud.

« Caribes Globales » (titre espagnol) est présentée au MAC en collaboration avec l’Institut Français, la Haïtien Cultural Arts Alliance, le Musée International des Arts Modestes de Sѐte, France (MIAM), le Service Culturel de l’Ambassade de France aux Etats-Unis et l’Alliance française de Porto Rico dont le titre est « Global Caraïbes, Focus sur la création contemporaine caribéenne et Edouard Duval Carrié, un artiste collectionne. »

Au-delà de la diversité plastique des œuvres présentées, cette exposition soulève des problématiques : quelle culture caribéenne partagée sur un territoire éclaté formé d’îles qui parlent des langues différentes ? Quelle légitimité à revendiquer une identité caribéenne, à l’heure où la mondialisation entraîne métissages et déplacements incessants des populations ? Quel rôle pour la région Caraïbe sur la scène internationale ?

La variété des matériaux utilisés et des thèmes abordés témoignent du foisonnement créatif de la région caribéenne et de la multiplicité des identités qu’elle englobe.

L’Institut français engage aujourd’hui l’itinérance de cette exposition entre les Etats-Unis et l’Europe, avec la présentation aujourd’hui de Global Caribbean à Porto Rico d’où sont originaires quelques artistes de cette exposition et avec l’espoir d’une itinérance dans les autres îles de la Caraïbe.

Global Caraïbes réunit une vingtaine d’artistes caribéens contemporains, rassemblant diverses générations et diverses techniques de travail comme la photographie, la peinture, des installations plastiques, gravure, sculpture et vidéo. L’exposition a été conçue dans le but de rompre les stéréotypes ayant tendance à cataloguer l’art de la Caraïbe comme folklorique, enfermé dans son territoire et distant des développements de l’art international.

Marianne Ramírez Aponte, directrice exécutive du MAC, commente l’importance de ce projet : “Global Caribbean propose un échange d’expression artistique innovant entre les différentes nations de notre région, reconnaît l’importance des diasporas dans le développement culturel de chaque pays et rompt avec les notions esthétiques figées de ce qu’est la culture et l’identité. L’exposition et la programmation éducative préparées pour l’occasion, provoquent et répondent à des questions comme : Qu’est-ce qui caractérise l’art contemporain de la Caraïbe ? Quel sens possède l’art “caribéen” durant notre époque de mondialisation… ? Je suis très fière de positionner le MAC au sein de ces questionnements, afin d’augmenter la communication entre ces pays voisins, et avec eux de pouvoir ainsi réaffirmer l’importance du rôle capital que joue Porto Rico, en étant le seul musée du pays collectionnant et promouvant l’art portoricain depuis une perspective caribéenne régionale et de la culture latino-américaine.”

La présentation de Global Caribbean au Musée d’Art Contemporain de Porto Rico sera accompagnée d’une riche programmation éducative et culturelle en collaboration avec le Centre d’Etudes Avancées de Porto Rico et de la Caraïbe, et de l’Alliance Française de Porto Rico. Cette programmation sera dirigée vers un public varié et sera menée par les commissaires d’exposition, les artistes et professeurs de diverses disciplines.

<Via: Les Alliances françaises dans le monde>