We read, often, that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere — of the massacres at the polls and in the church, of the Haitians’ desperate voyages to South Florida that usually end in death or deportation. We see pictures of portly generals smiling from a lavishly appointed palace, contrasted with shoeless peasants who make up 90 percent of the population and who haven’t had a voice in their government since the late 18th century.
And even though hundreds of thousands of Haitians now live in South Florida from Delray Beach to Miami, we know very little about them.
Everyone has seen the tourist pictures pumped out by the dozen for enchanted foreigners who delight in the bright colors and “primitive” style. But these canvases filled with lusciously tropical rolling hills, dotted with peasants who seem to have some kind of magical connection with the land, are just superficial portraits. The history of Haiti, the mystical religion of its people, and their joyful culture is far more interesting.
The Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, is presenting a show, “Where Art is Joy/Forty Years of Haitian Art,” that speaks volumes about this exotic country. It is a captivating overview of paintings and folkloric objects that reveals a small part of the mystery that is Haiti.
“This is probably the most important retrospective of Haitian art put on in the United States — at least since the Brooklyn Museum show 10 years ago,” said co-curator Selden Rodman. “And this show includes a whole new generation of artists that weren’t around in the 1970s.”
Rodman is an authority on Haitian art by virtue of the fact that he has published six books on the subject and has lived in Haiti and worked with the artists there on and off since 1947. His latest book, Where Art Is Joy/Haitian Art: The First Forty Years, is the jumping off point for this retrospective.
More than 140 works by 65 artists have been culled from collections all over the United States by Rodman and co-curator Candice Russell, film writer for the Fort Lauderdale News/Sun-Sentinel.
Rodman explains in his introduction to the show’s accompanying catalog that most of the works included were inspired by the unofficial religion of the country, “voudoun,” the academically preferred term for voodoo. The artworks belie the black magic stereotypes, revealing instead moments of mystical illumination and spiritual satisfaction.
The exhibition begins with works from the 1940s, when Haitian artists began to be encouraged by the opening of the Centre D’Art in Port-au-Prince. Rodman co-directed this school and art gallery with founder DeWitt Peters in the late 1940s.
The expressionistic work in this exhibit of artists such as Hector Hyppolite (who became the most well-known of the first generation after French surrealist Andre Breton wrote about his talent in 1945) foretold the flowering that was soon to come. Wilson Bigaud, whose work is also in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, is well-represented in the show with four works.
His Self Portrait of 1953 depicts deep eyes full of mystery and a large hand so out of scale with the rest of his body; Bigaud’s large, supple hand is that of an artist prepared to paint.
Because the artists were self-taught, and not cursed with the lessons of perspective and realism, there is an immediacy to these flat paintings. The artists can say more in their own style than if they were using conventional artistic devices.
Among the second generation of painters, Andre Pierre, a voodoo priest, has become the most famous. His works incorporate vevers, geometric patterns sprinkled on the ground during religious ceremonies, which enliven the whole of his canvases.
During the past 40 years that Haitian art has been introduced to the rest of the world, there have been numerous schools of artists to emerge. Rodman contends that the latest revelation is a group that comes from Saint-Soleil, whose “dominant magician” is Prospere Pierre-Louis.
His Children of the Sun, drawn as a series of lines that seem to vibrate with color, is an arresting image.
Wooden and metal sculptures also are included in the show, including one by artist George Laratte, who is living in exile in Miami, and four works by Georges Liataud who was the first artist to make sculptures from oil drums (Haiti’s version of found objects).
A highlight of the show are the voodoo flags, cloth sewn with sequins and beads, which feature both African and Catholic gods, demonstrating how Haitians mixed the two religions to come up with their own. Out of deference to the saints, artists often use chromolithographs (faces painted on paper) rather than the colored beads to depict their faces.
In contrast to the small, intricately detailed paintings of the Haitian artists that tell stories, Trevor Bell’s large abstract canvases (also on view at the Museum of Art through May 28) evoke moods. A retrospective of the works of this English artist shows his experimentation with shaped canvases and the effects of color moving through it.
Bell, in Fort Lauderdale for the opening last week, said he was pleased with the way the show was arranged, given that the task was made more difficult because it includes a variety of periods, some of which are more overpowering than the others.
The dark, small canvases were influenced by the somber colors of England, whereas the bolder, more open paintings come from the artist’s self-described Florida period (influenced, he says, by the Challenger launches, and the heat rising off asphalt in the dead of summer).
The museum has given Bell’s paintings the space they need, and created just the right mood with the dim lighting that allows the sponged-in colors to leap out. There’s nothing avant-garde about this work. Kenneth Noland worked with shaped canvases in the 1960s and Helen Frankenthaller has used color in a similarly expressionistic fashion. It’s interesting to move through the exhibit, though, for the pure sensuality these works evoke.
— “Where Art is Joy: Haitian Art, the First Forty Years” and “Trevor Bell: 1962-1988” run through May 28 at the Museum of Art, 1 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale. Admission $3.25 for non-members, seniors $2.75, students $1.25. Museum hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Call 1-305-525-5500.
