Vodou Riche: Contemporary Haitian Art

August 27-October 16, 2007

[C]Spaces: Glass Curtain Gallery, Columbia College, Chicago

Each year, Columbia College Chicago chooses a theme for its "Critical Encounters" project, a college-wide initiative with extensive programming

that seeks to explore art in the context of social sciences. The 2007-08 theme was "Poverty and Privilege" and it was within this context that "Vodou Riche: Contemporary Haitian Art" was conceived. The exhibition sought to contrast the enormous discrepancy between the economic poverty of Haiti with the richness of its longstanding artistic tradition. The concept was explored through a bold multimedia exhibition that examined the contemporary Haitian arts of Vodou. Gone were European ideas of "primitivism" hyper-focus on Haiti as the first "Black Nation" analysis of the roots of Creole culture, or the all-encompassing lens of Duvalierism.

Curator Neysa Page-Lieberman, director of [C]Spaces, included objects from more than fifteen artists, most of whom are Haitian-born and currently residing across the Diaspora, from Haiti to New York City. The group of artworks was diverse and included many pieces made by women. In particular, drapo, a traditionally male art form of flag making, displayed a new and exciting face in this exhibition, in part through the hands of female artists. The gallery walls were draped in many stunning and contemporary examples of this famous Haitian art form in a strong stylistic and gender break from even the recent past. Women have now set up their own ateliers and trained other women. The resulting style is larger, bolder, more figural, and astonishingly painterly. Also notable was another emerging female artist, Veronique Leriche Fischetti, whose Exodus, a mixed-media sculptural creation that takes the form of Dambala-Wedo (the Vodou husband-and-wife dual spirit of the serpent and the rainbow, associated with water, wisdom, and fertility) bursts through the air with an uncommon energy. Fischetti's pieces of this sort are suspended in the air or freestanding figural works that are often created with recycled materials, including dolls and old t-shirts that are so tightly wound they stand erect.

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But the use of recycled materials as an aspect of Haitian aesthetic, necessity, and ingenuity reigned paramount in the work of a group of artists known as "The Sculptors of Grand Rue" so named for their residence at the southernmost end of downtown Port-au-Prince's main avenue. The group consists of three men, Andre Eugene, Jean Herard Celeur, and Frantz Jacques (Guyodo), all of whom are part of a close-knit community that is both a provisional car repair area and a developing arts district. Celeur's Untitled (Three Figures On Motorcycles) will have stood out in the memory of all viewers as a crucial piece of the exhibition. Three grinning human skulls riding upon skeletal motorcycles, the center rider exhibiting an enormous phallus, both invited and challenged the average viewer to embrace the spirit of Gede, the Vodou Iwa representing death, sexuality, and dark humor.

These often controversial topics (as well as the creolization of Catholic iconography) seem an appropriate segue to the fact that the perception of Vodou remains negative for many Westerners. This is ever apparent in subtle ways, but also in deeper, more public ways, such as Veronique Leriche Fischetti's experience with the public's lack of understanding. As recently as February 2001, after less than twenty-four hours of exhibition in the Central Islip Public Library in Long Island, New York, patron complaints led to the artist being asked to remove her work due to allegedly offensive content. In a wry turn of physical and spiritual reappropriation (so very appropriate to the Vodou theoretical framework), Vodou scholar Marilyn Houlberg used many of these same pieces the next month in "Haiti: Vodou Visionaries" her acclaimed exhibition at the Intuit Center in Chicago.

Thus, context is imperative in effectively communicating the complex cosmology and aesthetic universe of Vodou to a general audience. "Vodou Riche" effectively situated itself in a hospitable context, as was apparent from the warm responses in local press and community. Reception to "Vodou Riche" was favorable and abundant in exchange and ideas, not only in reaction to the exhibition itself, but also to the panel and reception arranged in conjunction with the show, which included artists and scholars such as the Sculptors of Grand Rue and Houlberg. In part, the contemporary "international art market" appeal of "Vodou Riche" did much to take this art and religion out of the proverbial darkness. However, a well-selected subcontext based in Vodou ideology or aesthetics may have added an additional dimension to ease clarity for the viewer both ideologically and visually. Parts of what makes Vodou art so rich are the underlying cosmological concepts--the same concepts which are so difficult for the average viewer to understand. Thus, the exhibition could have explored Vodou beyond the first-tier theme of contemporary richness, additionally arranging and developing content that would be more explicitly directed to understanding the cosmology and depth of Vodou as a religious and cultural practice. This would have added a dimension of understanding for the audience in terms of why the art of Haitian Vodou is so rich.

However, "Vodou Riche" sought less to place Vodou art within a historical and cultural context and more to explore current aesthetics. Page-Lieberman directly addressed this in her opening panel, stating that "Vodou Riche' draws less from the history of Vodou art in Haiti, but rather situates itself firmly in the current world, where the arts are dramatically different than just a decade ago." The show achieved this particular goal with a breadth and vivacity that showed an insider's knowledge and enthusiasm for the art of Haitian Vodou as is exists in the current artistic moment. All was secondary to contemporary aesthetics, and this did much to level the playing field between (the dreaded and almost always misleading labels of) "outsider" and "insider" art. The exhibit made strides in examining the art of Haiti in a new light, and turned further away from the ethnographic "cabinet of curiosities."

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Finally, one work in particular stood out due to its lack of readily digestible Vodou iconography. Edouard Duval-Carrie's My Life as a Tree was chosen by the artist himself to fit the theme of contemporary Vodou art. This work, in a series of three panels, is a mixed-media painting of a tree with twisted, writhing roots exposed to the world and small sets of eyes, humming birds, stars, and portraits peering through its branches. The composition is painted onto aluminum under a glass surface, with parts of the metal scratched away so that shimmering lights shine through from behind. It is obscured by a muddy treatment applied to the underside of the glass, which functions to selectively reveal or hide the crisp surface of the tree imagery.

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This complex imagery invokes a profusion of interpretations, but none immediately apparent as relative to Vodou. In this work, Duval-Carrie, like "Vodou Riche," has stepped away from historical and cultural reference, but even further, he has stepped away from the traditional iconography of Vodou. The muddiness of this composition combined with the striking beauty parallels the theme of "Vodou Riche" that of creative richness in the face of poverty. Duval-Carrie's choice of work, and by extension the contemporary context of "Vodou Riche," suggests that Haitian identity and visual culture by necessity indicate the power and aesthetics of Vodou. This underlying sentiment of the exhibition was indeed a contemporary look at Haitian art, with a nod to the future.

Columbia College has decided to turn "Vodou Riche" into a traveling exhibit and is currently arranging its touring schedule with other venues around the country; more information may be found at www.colum.edu/vodou.

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reviewed by Jenny Maki

JENNY MAKI is a graduate student in art history at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. jsmartel@stthomas.edu