Diaspora of an Artist
The artist Edouard Duval-Carrie is a Haitian artist living in the United States who uses symbols of the Vodou religion. Duval-Carrie represents many important aspects of art and religion of Haiti through reinvention of the religious symbols, connections to Africa through his travels and the reflections in his paintings, and his rootedness in Haiti while forced in exile due to political strife caused by colonial powers and domestic corruption. Duval-Carrie’s personal history mirrors many Haitian asylum seekers’, but differs in his access to resources.
Edouard Duval-Carrie’s Narrative
Edouard Duval-Carrie was born in 1954, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. At the age of ten he and his family moved to Puerto Rico to escape the Duvalier regime. He studied in Montreal and at the Ecole Nationale Superoeure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In an interview, Art Outside the Box describes his art as part self-taught and informed by the artists in Haiti and part not, because he took courses in Canada and France. He now lives and works in Miami, where he has found a thriving community of Haitians in a section of the city of Miami called Little Haiti. He has traveled to Haiti for short periods of time and, while studying in Montreal, Duval-Carrie had his work critiqued by Francine Murat at the Centre d’Art in Haiti. Centre d’Art was incredibly importance to Haitian art both globally and locally.
Centre d’Art
Centre d’Art set into motion a mix of painters that were influenced by international Modernism and local primitive or naïve artists of Haiti. Of course, primitive or naïve is a problematic term because the label creates a negative stereotype. The label implies a deficiency or a lacking and then excludes the ‘rich heritage from which this art grows’ (American Vision). The term originated to refer to the early Greek Art before the Greek ‘Golden Age’. Later the term was applied to artist Henri Rousseau and Grandma Moses due to the philosophy of the French philosopher Rousseau (Haitian Art). Rousseau philosophy romanticized the ‘noble savage’ and the primitive. Primitive art was romanticized and distained as childlike art with no Western skill set. Primitive or naïve are short hand for collectors, but these narrow labels cannot fully describe the nuances found in Haitian art.
In ‘Art and Kitsch’ Eva Pataki makes the mistake of claiming that these ‘amateur’ artists are primitive and kitsch, but his Modernist reading give a narrow definition of art. Amateur is a problematic term here since many of these Haitian artists made or are making a living with their work. Amateur implies a beginner or someone who dabbles in making art, but these artists put large amount of time and effort in many works. These artists are not making kitsch art, either, because their paintings are layered in content. A kitsch image only shows a surface meaning or illustrates a clear idea. The Haitian artists’ images are always layered with Vodou implicitly or explicitly. Many images are also filled with political implications through depicting an opposite utopian imagery to balance out the harsh realities of Haiti. Images so layered in meaning and understood as such by the intended Haitian viewer makes kitsch an implausible reading.
Some of the Centre d’Art members, and even Duval-Carrie and his contemporaries, have had their work described as Surrealism or Magical Realism, but these labels are also problematic. Surrealism is an art movement based on the dreams of artists who used Freudian and Jungian symbols. In order for the work to be Surreal, the artists have to be aware of these theories, which many are not. Duval-Carrie is likely aware of these theories, but his work does not reflect inspiration of dreams, but rather from the lwas (Vodou spirits) themselves. Magical Realism is more descriptive of the type of images coming out of Haiti, but this term also falls short because it describes art from all over Latin America. Such a vague term that describes so many styles and motivations of artists cannot be a helpful term to describe the vast styles and motivations of just Haiti. Artists that deal with Haiti and the lwas today might have to create their own terminology in order not to be defined by others outside looking in.
Founded in 1944 by DeWitt Peters, an American watercolorist, Centre d’Arts brought together artists like ‘Rigaud Benoit, Wilson Bigaud, Castera Brazile, Robert St. Brice, Lafortune Felix, George Liautaud, Jasmin Joseph, Murat Brierre and Hector Hyppolite’, who is compared in poetic vision to Chagall and Matisse by professor of African Art History, J. Kennedy at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. Jean-Claude Garoute and Maud Guerdes Robard founded the Saint-Soleil ‘post-naïve school of Haitian painting’ (American Visions).
Duval-Carrie’s exposure to Centre d’Arts at a young age, then one year as a teenager, while he was taking college courses, and his continuing return trips to Haiti has helped keep Duval-Carrie in touch with the art coming out of Haiti and, at the same time, has allowed him to step away from Haiti’s troubles. From such a rich tradition of artists, Duval-Carrie was able to draw from a well of influences.
Issues with Edouard Duval-Carrie
Duval-Carrie has had a few advantages that his Haitian counterparts do not. These advantages include his family wealth, his successful painting career, living and working in the United States, and his light skin color. In Haiti, the slaves took control of the island, so the mixing of races was different than in Cuba where slaves came in later and in fewer numbers, or Jamaica where the British were fearful of African and English mixing. However, colonialism still had a sociological effect on the former slaves and further generations of Haitians. To apply Homi Bhabha here, this prevented the needed in-between space to heal the ambivalence of the ruling classes. Western thought made clear binary systems of good and evil, slave and master, but the Africans worked outside of this system. Vodou does not have purely good or evil lwas, because good and evil is too stark a description for a lwa. The lwas do good or ill according to their ways and their wants and needs. With such a loose system forced into a Western binary system, an arbitrarily binary system such as Spanish and then French racial thoughts was bound to influence the psyche of the Haitian people. The lighter skin Haitians are given more advantages in this binary system.
One disadvantage or hurdle Duval-Carrie had to face was the sigma of an artist’s profession. In Haiti, the upper classes see painting and art in general as a peasant activity. Historically this is true. Most of the Centre d’Arts artists were from the working class poor. Some were Vodou priests. Duval-Carrie was discouraged from pursuing and creating art because of his family’s status. However, eventual acceptance of his trade has allowed him some privileges.
With the help of his family wealth and his own success, Duval-Carrie has been able to travel extensively to places like Haiti, Europe and Africa. In 1992, he attended a convention of Vodou worshipers in the People’s Republic of Benin in the city of Ouidah. In the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History catalog titled, Divine Revolution, Duval-Carrie said he was inspired by the knowledge that the dead return to Africa and some spirits lose their way. In the Tracing of the Spirits, a catalog of Haitian art at the Davenport Museum of Art, interview, he explains that Haitians have been able to make a spiritual bridge to Africa, but most cannot afford to make a physical bridge to Africa through travel. In 2004, Duval-Carrie created an installation for the bicentennial anniversary of the declaration of Haitian independence. The instillation showed images of different Haitian leaders and Vodou lwas. In 2004, vast public acceptance of some of the past leadership being depicted and the images of Vodou was still controversial. The works were destroyed by an uprising of narco-bandits during Jean-Bertrand Arustide’s regime, including Duval-Carrie sculptures, installations, and paintings.
A potential problem of Duval-Carrie’s work is that he has spent little time in Haiti compared to his Haitian counterparts. Duval-Carrie’s imagery speaks of the spirits of the lwa reimaged in his paintings. He has not made it clear if he has been possessed or mounted by the lwas or if he is a voudoisant. His knowledge of the lwas seems to be more than academic, but his interviews seem to imply a more Western standoffish approach to representing the lwas.
This begs the question of how authentically Haitian Duval-Carrie’s work is. Does one have to be a voudoisant and living in Haiti to create authentic Haitian art? This augment goes back to the European binaries. Duval-Carrie is a product of the Diaspora. His flight from Haiti is a further flight from the rootedness of Haiti and of Africa. Duval-Carrie explains that he sees his home as Haiti and he is inspired by Africa. Wouldn’t this assertion make Duval-Carrie a transnational artist and not a Haitian artist, or can an artist be both?
Some of the key ideas of transnationalism plotted out in Alejandro Portes article, “The Study of Transnationalism: Pitfalls and Promise of an Emergent Research Field,” are immigrant adaptation, national development, social networks, technological development, and social capital. Duval-Carrie’s adaptation is to live in a Haitian community while helping his home country develop a national identity through his art displayed in Haiti. His connection to the art community in Haiti and the rest of the world is extensive through his shows across the globe. Phone and internet access is available to him and to Haitians, so he can see what Haitian artists are doing, and they can see what he is doing. Duval-Carrie is transnational, but essentially his focus is on the Haitian people. He envisions his work influencing Vodou practices, and he intends his work to be for the Haitian people. Being a transnational artist does not necessarily negate an artist being fixed to a place. The realities of Haiti make it hard for one to live and work, so his life, like other Haitians’, is a further Diaspora from their home in Haiti.
What are Lwas
To understand the symbolism Duval-Carrie uses, the viewer needs to know something about Vodou and the role the lwas play in the religion. According to Leslie G Desmangles in, “Face of the Gods”, lwas have the important function of revealing the ‘varying cosmic principles inherent in the universe.’ There are more than a thousand lwas, but there are important lwas that most worshipers recognize and invoke. These lwas can bring about life, health, fecundity, malevolence, and other facets of the ultimate Principle. This principle is in relation to a supreme god known as Bondye. If one does well, this increases Bondye’s power; if one acts badly, these decreases Bondye’s power. Bondye is given reverence to once a year through a celebration because it is believed that Bondye was the creator of all things. The lwas are under the power of Bondye, and these lwas are split into different pantheons. The lwas are also placed in categories of higher and lower in relationship to their good or mischievous actions. Lwas inhabit or pass through all objects, animals, and people. These spirits have individual personalities that are acted out when the lwas mount a possessed person. Lwas give people insight and advise people with questions.
Attracting a lwa to mount and possess a person is the main goal of Vodou ceremonies. A focal point like a pole or tree must be employed to open the gates to the spirit worlds. Legba, a lwa, holds the key to opening and closing the gates, so Legba is always invoked at the beginning and end of a Vodou ceremony. During a ceremony, other lwas are attracted to mount worshipers through objects that are attractive to a particular lwa, such as candles, music such as drumming, chanting, dancing, and white clothing. Sometimes costumes, resembling the lwa, are used, but more often the standard white clothes are an important part of the ceremony.
Edouard Duval-Carrie’s Images: Paintings
In many of Duval-Carrie’s paintings such as his 1996 oil on canvas painting, La traverse, he use several compositional elements found in Haitian Vodou flags, or drapo. Flags have a rich history in Haiti and Africa, and these flags were used for identity, military, and religious practices to represent the authority of the group baring the flag. Duval-Carrie is schooled in the history of the drapo, which is why his images often times reflect drapo. Haitian flags use bright colors, with a center composition representing a lwa, and a simple boarder. Duval-Carrie’s painting often times use this center composition of his representation of lwas and he makes his own colorful frames that seem to mirror the flag composition. These paintings differ to his American contemporary counterparts in that he does give importance to the frame element in many of his works. Most contemporary artists in the West edifices or eliminate the frame, so Duval-Carrie is getting his influence form the drapo rather from his contemporaries in the West. Duval-Carrie’s paintings are bright and colorful, mirroring the painting and flag traditions of Haiti. The bright colors imply richness and will attract the lwas to a Vodou gathering; also, the brightness of colors reflects the colors of the Caribbean or an ideal Haiti. This same color palate can be found in a broad range and style of artists from Haiti, because of the positive message that bright colors suggest to a viewer.
Duval-Carrie uses both square shaped canvas and rectangular shaped canvas. The rectangular shape of the paintings differs from the sacred square flags, and the flags are generally sewn and decorated with beads. His rectangle-shaped paintings follow some of the shapes of flags meant for the tourist trade. These flags are meant to hang on walls like tapestry and are not meant for religious practices. These tourist flags cannot be placed on poles and used during services. One could argue that Duval-Carrie’s paintings also focus on the tourist and outside collectors of Haitian work, rather than a domestic Haitian audience. However, in his interview Tracing the Spirits, Duval-Carrie said that some Vodou flag makers have appropriated his imaged images of the lwas. His painting might not fully mirror the sacred, but his imagery of the lwas has entered Vodou worship consciousness.
In his painting, Azaka, Agro Rex, Duval-Carrie made a triptych of the Vodou spirit of agriculture. Azaka Medeh has no petwo, but there is still a tension with Azaka’s role because of the poor state of Haiti agriculture. Dual-Carrie depicts this in his reimaged image of the lwa. His Azaka is wearing plantation-owner clothes, and is in a luscious, overgrown landscape. According to Tracing the Spirits, usually Azaka is depicted as a down-to-earth lwa and as one to give advice to cut through nonessential or superficial things. Duval-Carrie is using a Western concept of irony here to depict the lwas’ role in Haiti. Where the lwas are ‘just are’ in Vodou, Duval-Carrie sees this lwa, in particular, to be contradicting his role. In the painting, Azaka is depicted with a goofy face sitting on a horse with a foolish expression. For a lwa like Azaka to have such a face when he is supposed to cut through foolishness shows that Duval-Carrie believes the lwa is saying one thing to his followers, but doing another thing for the nation of Haiti. The background is telling in his use of irony as well. In many paintings by Haitian artists, a lush countryside is really a balance to the reality of the stripped and spent soil of the Haitian landscape. Duval-Carrie is not using the landscape as a balance here, but as an ironic commentary on Azaka’s ability to create a climate for sustainable agriculture. The depiction of Azaka is framed between two paintings of a palm tree on the sea shore with a snake climbing. These two tree paintings represent the Legba on the shore of Africa and the shore of Haiti. Both lands are connected through the spirit world. Lwas rise out of the sea, and Duval-Carrie chose to do a series of paintings depicting lwas in boats.
The boat symbolism has several meanings. Returning to the La traverse painting, the main pantheon of lwas are piled inside a boat in the open sea, and this boat of lwas represents the passage of Vodou from Africa to Haiti or from Haiti to other parts of the Americas. The painting La traverse shows a small and crowed boat like the boats that flee Haiti during times of unrest. The boat is also crowed like the slaves were crowed during their forced exodus to Haiti. This symbol could also have a personal meaning in that he also lives away from Haiti, over the water. From the symbolic clues in the paintings, the likely lwas in the boat are Legba, Ayizan, Bawon, and six other lwas that a trained eye might be able to identify. He uses some of the colors and images associated with the lwas, but these lwas are not based on Western Catholic iconography, but on a more reimaged and new Vodou iconography. These new icons are seen by Duval-Carrie as potential future images of the Vodou religion. In several interviews Duval-Carrie has proclaimed that he wants to create a great Vodou temple in Haiti. He believes this would unify the people of Haiti. Haiti has a high illiteracy rate and much of the population gets it cues on behavior, history, and news from the images being made by the artists. Duval-Carrie is creating new imagery to be acted out, worn, and used on ceremonial objects. The new images could further reshape the Vodou worshiper’s ceremonies. This reinvention of the lwas is nothing new to Vodou.
Vodou is an unorganized religion, yet organized around common themes and common understandings of the lwas. The nature and stories of the lwas change, because the stories are often kept in an oral tradition and only anthologists have attempted to record the natures of each lwa. As Kyrah M. Daniels must have found, these listed characteristics change from house to house, and the lwas are not completely predictable. The further removed Haitian community in Miami, of which Duval-Carrie is a member, is likely to have different understandings of each lwa than their Haitian kin.
The Youtube Local News report out of Miami about Vodou worship showed that many Americans see Vodou worship as very sinister, and this mistrust of Vodou drives the worship underground, whereas the worship in Haiti is more mainstream. As the articles about Santeria point out, a religion driven underground also changes the organizational structures and meanings of objects. Miami Voudoisants will adapt to their environment, but this will take Miami Vodou in a different direction than Haitian Vodou.
Matt Schudel of the Miami Sun-Sentinel reviewed an altarpiece ‘Endless Passage,’ as having Catholic and Vodou elements and as being equal systems of faith. But the use of these symbols in the context of Vodou is more complex that Schudel understood as separate religions on equal standing. As the Leslie Desmangles article points out, Haiti is both Catholic and Vodou, and the symbols are not a binary one to one matchup, but interchangeable and used as needed. This syncretism of religions comes together and merges, but both religions also play separate roles for the Haitians.
It is clear that Duval-Carrie is informed by what Brown coins the Creole Taste. His work continues to be inspired by Africa, while it is clear he has had training in the West, and he has be exposed to the history of Haitian art and culture. Creole Tastes are partly informed by a surrounding of bright sunshine, a taste for the perceived riches of the West and of the African kings, a sense of community with hierarchical structures, and equality. Duval-Carrie’s works reflect the Creole Tastes in some of his grandiose displays. At the Figge Art Museum, his paintings and sculpture were displayed in stage settings that filled the room and walls. Each painting and sculpture related to each other in the room by theme and color. The displays all reflected a kind of scared space. The displays resemble the icons and altar in a Catholic church. The rich display, with a spirited color palate, plus the style resembling a drapo composition, all played a role in reflecting Creole Taste.
Politics, like everything in Haiti, cannot be decoupled from Vodou, and Duval-Carrie is very aware of this fact. In the Figge Art Museum show, he did not shy away from politics. The work Mardigras au Fort Dimanche shows the dictator Dimanche, who drove his family to flee Haiti, dressed in a wedding dress and brandishing a gun. Dimanche is surrounded by sunglass-wearing, richly dresses aristocrats, military, and clergy in jail. A lwa appears to have a hand on Dimanche’s neck. Is Duval-Carrie taking his revenge for his forced exodus from Haiti, or is he following in the rich tradition of Haitian historical paintings with political commentary? Haiti wears its politics on the walls of the cities. Mural artists are everywhere, resisting injustice and reminding the people of the corrupt through their images. Duval-Carrie noted this in the Tracing the Spirit interview. But Duval-Carrie is not only interested in the politics of his home country, but also of his adopted country of the United States. In another painting at the Figge Museum show, Ogun is shown in a tank fighting in the dessert with stars rising in the background, and Ogun is missing two arms that have been replaced by weapons. This image likely references the US intervention in Iraq.
Edouard Duval-Carrie’s Images: Sculptures
Duval-Carrie’s sculptures blend Western installation art; Vodou influenced worship areas, Catholic Church tabernacles, and a reference to parade floats. Many Western installation artists fill a museum with objects. These objects tell stories or follow a theme or idea. By placing his work in a museum, Duval-Carrie is placing his work in the installation art history continuum. Vodou and Catholic Churches place relics and important objects to attract favor. Duval-Carrie mirrors these worship arrangements in his work. He supplies simulated worship space in the museum, but with the intent of further display in his home country of Haiti. Some of the sculptures are lifted high or hanging on wires. This simulates the parades floats done during important duel celebrations. Duel is meaning doubling of celebrating Catholic holidays and Vodou holidays. Or the Duel event can be a Haitian state celebration with a Vodou holiday.
Other sculptures are direct representations of the lwas. These sculptures take single roles as new symbols showing some known characteristics of a lwa. Recreated metal trees are another type of work Dual-Carrie makes. These recreated trees are gateways for the lwas as well as part of the Caribbean foliage.
Edouard Duval-Carrie
Edouard Duval-Carrie finds himself adrift from Haiti and Africa. He lives and works in the United States because of such the harsh living standards and constant turmoil in Haiti, but he is keen to surround himself with Haitian refugees. This uprooted life he must lead is also the experience of many of Haitians across the Americas, but this does not make these people any less Haitian or, many would argue, any less African. Duval-Carrie’s advantages in the ability to travel helps him experience the life of Haiti on the ground. Some might argue he is going more as a tourist, but a tourist doesn’t ever really identify with the people of their visited country. Identity and pride in Haiti is Duval-Carrie’s connection to Haiti. A place where your heart is can still inform an artist’s work, and Duval-Carrie’s heart is in Haiti – and in Haiti’s heart is Vodou.
Bibliography
Bianco, Adriana, Art Outside the Box, Americas, 03790940, Jun 2008, Vol. 60, Issue 3
Bhabha, Homi, ‘Location of Culture,’ Routledge, NY 1994
Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick and Claudine Michel, ‘Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth, and Reality,’ Introduction 2006
Cosentino, Donald J., Divine Revolution, Los Angeles, CA 2004
Daniels, Kyrah M, Appendix: Table of Haitian Lwa
Desmangles, Leslie G., ‘Faces of the Gods,’ Historical Setting: The Shaping of Two Religions in Symbiosis, University of North Carolina Press, 1992
Duval-Carrie, Edouard, Artist Statement, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami, FL
Kennedy, J, Haitian Art Inspired by Vodou, American Visions, 08849390, June 91, Vol. 6, Issue 3
Olmos, Fernandez, ‘Creole Religions of the Caribbean: An Introduction,’ Vodou, or the Voice of the Gods, New York University Press, NY, NY, 2003
Pataki, Eva, Haitian Painting: Art and Kitsch, Adams Press Chicago, Illinois, 1986
Portes, Alejandro, The Study of Transnationalism: Pitfalls and Promise of an Emergent Research Field, Fields 1990
Robinson, Michelle, Edouard Duval-Carrie: Migration of the Spirit, Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa, 2005
Roberts, Kevin, ‘The Yoruba Diaspora in the Atlantic World’, The Influential Yoruba Past in Haiti, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN 2004
Schudel, Matt, Haitian Artist Edouard Duval-Carrie Exhumes Memories of His Homeland, Sun-Sentinel, June 22, 2003
Stebich, Ute, Haitian Art, The Brooklyn Museum, NY 1978
The artist Edouard Duval-Carrie is a Haitian artist living in the United States who uses symbols of the Vodou religion. Duval-Carrie represents many important aspects of art and religion of Haiti through reinvention of the religious symbols, connections to Africa through his travels and the reflections in his paintings, and his rootedness in Haiti while forced in exile due to political strife caused by colonial powers and domestic corruption. Duval-Carrie’s personal history mirrors many Haitian asylum seekers’, but differs in his access to resources.
Edouard Duval-Carrie’s Narrative
Edouard Duval-Carrie was born in 1954, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. At the age of ten he and his family moved to Puerto Rico to escape the Duvalier regime. He studied in Montreal and at the Ecole Nationale Superoeure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In an interview, Art Outside the Box describes his art as part self-taught and informed by the artists in Haiti and part not, because he took courses in Canada and France. He now lives and works in Miami, where he has found a thriving community of Haitians in a section of the city of Miami called Little Haiti. He has traveled to Haiti for short periods of time and, while studying in Montreal, Duval-Carrie had his work critiqued by Francine Murat at the Centre d’Art in Haiti. Centre d’Art was incredibly importance to Haitian art both globally and locally.
Centre d’Art
Centre d’Art set into motion a mix of painters that were influenced by international Modernism and local primitive or naïve artists of Haiti. Of course, primitive or naïve is a problematic term because the label creates a negative stereotype. The label implies a deficiency or a lacking and then excludes the ‘rich heritage from which this art grows’ (American Vision). The term originated to refer to the early Greek Art before the Greek ‘Golden Age’. Later the term was applied to artist Henri Rousseau and Grandma Moses due to the philosophy of the French philosopher Rousseau (Haitian Art). Rousseau philosophy romanticized the ‘noble savage’ and the primitive. Primitive art was romanticized and distained as childlike art with no Western skill set. Primitive or naïve are short hand for collectors, but these narrow labels cannot fully describe the nuances found in Haitian art.
In ‘Art and Kitsch’ Eva Pataki makes the mistake of claiming that these ‘amateur’ artists are primitive and kitsch, but his Modernist reading give a narrow definition of art. Amateur is a problematic term here since many of these Haitian artists made or are making a living with their work. Amateur implies a beginner or someone who dabbles in making art, but these artists put large amount of time and effort in many works. These artists are not making kitsch art, either, because their paintings are layered in content. A kitsch image only shows a surface meaning or illustrates a clear idea. The Haitian artists’ images are always layered with Vodou implicitly or explicitly. Many images are also filled with political implications through depicting an opposite utopian imagery to balance out the harsh realities of Haiti. Images so layered in meaning and understood as such by the intended Haitian viewer makes kitsch an implausible reading.
Some of the Centre d’Art members, and even Duval-Carrie and his contemporaries, have had their work described as Surrealism or Magical Realism, but these labels are also problematic. Surrealism is an art movement based on the dreams of artists who used Freudian and Jungian symbols. In order for the work to be Surreal, the artists have to be aware of these theories, which many are not. Duval-Carrie is likely aware of these theories, but his work does not reflect inspiration of dreams, but rather from the lwas (Vodou spirits) themselves. Magical Realism is more descriptive of the type of images coming out of Haiti, but this term also falls short because it describes art from all over Latin America. Such a vague term that describes so many styles and motivations of artists cannot be a helpful term to describe the vast styles and motivations of just Haiti. Artists that deal with Haiti and the lwas today might have to create their own terminology in order not to be defined by others outside looking in.
Founded in 1944 by DeWitt Peters, an American watercolorist, Centre d’Arts brought together artists like ‘Rigaud Benoit, Wilson Bigaud, Castera Brazile, Robert St. Brice, Lafortune Felix, George Liautaud, Jasmin Joseph, Murat Brierre and Hector Hyppolite’, who is compared in poetic vision to Chagall and Matisse by professor of African Art History, J. Kennedy at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. Jean-Claude Garoute and Maud Guerdes Robard founded the Saint-Soleil ‘post-naïve school of Haitian painting’ (American Visions).
Duval-Carrie’s exposure to Centre d’Arts at a young age, then one year as a teenager, while he was taking college courses, and his continuing return trips to Haiti has helped keep Duval-Carrie in touch with the art coming out of Haiti and, at the same time, has allowed him to step away from Haiti’s troubles. From such a rich tradition of artists, Duval-Carrie was able to draw from a well of influences.
Issues with Edouard Duval-Carrie
Duval-Carrie has had a few advantages that his Haitian counterparts do not. These advantages include his family wealth, his successful painting career, living and working in the United States, and his light skin color. In Haiti, the slaves took control of the island, so the mixing of races was different than in Cuba where slaves came in later and in fewer numbers, or Jamaica where the British were fearful of African and English mixing. However, colonialism still had a sociological effect on the former slaves and further generations of Haitians. To apply Homi Bhabha here, this prevented the needed in-between space to heal the ambivalence of the ruling classes. Western thought made clear binary systems of good and evil, slave and master, but the Africans worked outside of this system. Vodou does not have purely good or evil lwas, because good and evil is too stark a description for a lwa. The lwas do good or ill according to their ways and their wants and needs. With such a loose system forced into a Western binary system, an arbitrarily binary system such as Spanish and then French racial thoughts was bound to influence the psyche of the Haitian people. The lighter skin Haitians are given more advantages in this binary system.
One disadvantage or hurdle Duval-Carrie had to face was the sigma of an artist’s profession. In Haiti, the upper classes see painting and art in general as a peasant activity. Historically this is true. Most of the Centre d’Arts artists were from the working class poor. Some were Vodou priests. Duval-Carrie was discouraged from pursuing and creating art because of his family’s status. However, eventual acceptance of his trade has allowed him some privileges.
With the help of his family wealth and his own success, Duval-Carrie has been able to travel extensively to places like Haiti, Europe and Africa. In 1992, he attended a convention of Vodou worshipers in the People’s Republic of Benin in the city of Ouidah. In the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History catalog titled, Divine Revolution, Duval-Carrie said he was inspired by the knowledge that the dead return to Africa and some spirits lose their way. In the Tracing of the Spirits, a catalog of Haitian art at the Davenport Museum of Art, interview, he explains that Haitians have been able to make a spiritual bridge to Africa, but most cannot afford to make a physical bridge to Africa through travel. In 2004, Duval-Carrie created an installation for the bicentennial anniversary of the declaration of Haitian independence. The instillation showed images of different Haitian leaders and Vodou lwas. In 2004, vast public acceptance of some of the past leadership being depicted and the images of Vodou was still controversial. The works were destroyed by an uprising of narco-bandits during Jean-Bertrand Arustide’s regime, including Duval-Carrie sculptures, installations, and paintings.
A potential problem of Duval-Carrie’s work is that he has spent little time in Haiti compared to his Haitian counterparts. Duval-Carrie’s imagery speaks of the spirits of the lwa reimaged in his paintings. He has not made it clear if he has been possessed or mounted by the lwas or if he is a voudoisant. His knowledge of the lwas seems to be more than academic, but his interviews seem to imply a more Western standoffish approach to representing the lwas.
This begs the question of how authentically Haitian Duval-Carrie’s work is. Does one have to be a voudoisant and living in Haiti to create authentic Haitian art? This augment goes back to the European binaries. Duval-Carrie is a product of the Diaspora. His flight from Haiti is a further flight from the rootedness of Haiti and of Africa. Duval-Carrie explains that he sees his home as Haiti and he is inspired by Africa. Wouldn’t this assertion make Duval-Carrie a transnational artist and not a Haitian artist, or can an artist be both?
Some of the key ideas of transnationalism plotted out in Alejandro Portes article, “The Study of Transnationalism: Pitfalls and Promise of an Emergent Research Field,” are immigrant adaptation, national development, social networks, technological development, and social capital. Duval-Carrie’s adaptation is to live in a Haitian community while helping his home country develop a national identity through his art displayed in Haiti. His connection to the art community in Haiti and the rest of the world is extensive through his shows across the globe. Phone and internet access is available to him and to Haitians, so he can see what Haitian artists are doing, and they can see what he is doing. Duval-Carrie is transnational, but essentially his focus is on the Haitian people. He envisions his work influencing Vodou practices, and he intends his work to be for the Haitian people. Being a transnational artist does not necessarily negate an artist being fixed to a place. The realities of Haiti make it hard for one to live and work, so his life, like other Haitians’, is a further Diaspora from their home in Haiti.
What are Lwas
To understand the symbolism Duval-Carrie uses, the viewer needs to know something about Vodou and the role the lwas play in the religion. According to Leslie G Desmangles in, “Face of the Gods”, lwas have the important function of revealing the ‘varying cosmic principles inherent in the universe.’ There are more than a thousand lwas, but there are important lwas that most worshipers recognize and invoke. These lwas can bring about life, health, fecundity, malevolence, and other facets of the ultimate Principle. This principle is in relation to a supreme god known as Bondye. If one does well, this increases Bondye’s power; if one acts badly, these decreases Bondye’s power. Bondye is given reverence to once a year through a celebration because it is believed that Bondye was the creator of all things. The lwas are under the power of Bondye, and these lwas are split into different pantheons. The lwas are also placed in categories of higher and lower in relationship to their good or mischievous actions. Lwas inhabit or pass through all objects, animals, and people. These spirits have individual personalities that are acted out when the lwas mount a possessed person. Lwas give people insight and advise people with questions.
Attracting a lwa to mount and possess a person is the main goal of Vodou ceremonies. A focal point like a pole or tree must be employed to open the gates to the spirit worlds. Legba, a lwa, holds the key to opening and closing the gates, so Legba is always invoked at the beginning and end of a Vodou ceremony. During a ceremony, other lwas are attracted to mount worshipers through objects that are attractive to a particular lwa, such as candles, music such as drumming, chanting, dancing, and white clothing. Sometimes costumes, resembling the lwa, are used, but more often the standard white clothes are an important part of the ceremony.
Edouard Duval-Carrie’s Images: Paintings
In many of Duval-Carrie’s paintings such as his 1996 oil on canvas painting, La traverse, he use several compositional elements found in Haitian Vodou flags, or drapo. Flags have a rich history in Haiti and Africa, and these flags were used for identity, military, and religious practices to represent the authority of the group baring the flag. Duval-Carrie is schooled in the history of the drapo, which is why his images often times reflect drapo. Haitian flags use bright colors, with a center composition representing a lwa, and a simple boarder. Duval-Carrie’s painting often times use this center composition of his representation of lwas and he makes his own colorful frames that seem to mirror the flag composition. These paintings differ to his American contemporary counterparts in that he does give importance to the frame element in many of his works. Most contemporary artists in the West edifices or eliminate the frame, so Duval-Carrie is getting his influence form the drapo rather from his contemporaries in the West. Duval-Carrie’s paintings are bright and colorful, mirroring the painting and flag traditions of Haiti. The bright colors imply richness and will attract the lwas to a Vodou gathering; also, the brightness of colors reflects the colors of the Caribbean or an ideal Haiti. This same color palate can be found in a broad range and style of artists from Haiti, because of the positive message that bright colors suggest to a viewer.
Duval-Carrie uses both square shaped canvas and rectangular shaped canvas. The rectangular shape of the paintings differs from the sacred square flags, and the flags are generally sewn and decorated with beads. His rectangle-shaped paintings follow some of the shapes of flags meant for the tourist trade. These flags are meant to hang on walls like tapestry and are not meant for religious practices. These tourist flags cannot be placed on poles and used during services. One could argue that Duval-Carrie’s paintings also focus on the tourist and outside collectors of Haitian work, rather than a domestic Haitian audience. However, in his interview Tracing the Spirits, Duval-Carrie said that some Vodou flag makers have appropriated his imaged images of the lwas. His painting might not fully mirror the sacred, but his imagery of the lwas has entered Vodou worship consciousness.
In his painting, Azaka, Agro Rex, Duval-Carrie made a triptych of the Vodou spirit of agriculture. Azaka Medeh has no petwo, but there is still a tension with Azaka’s role because of the poor state of Haiti agriculture. Dual-Carrie depicts this in his reimaged image of the lwa. His Azaka is wearing plantation-owner clothes, and is in a luscious, overgrown landscape. According to Tracing the Spirits, usually Azaka is depicted as a down-to-earth lwa and as one to give advice to cut through nonessential or superficial things. Duval-Carrie is using a Western concept of irony here to depict the lwas’ role in Haiti. Where the lwas are ‘just are’ in Vodou, Duval-Carrie sees this lwa, in particular, to be contradicting his role. In the painting, Azaka is depicted with a goofy face sitting on a horse with a foolish expression. For a lwa like Azaka to have such a face when he is supposed to cut through foolishness shows that Duval-Carrie believes the lwa is saying one thing to his followers, but doing another thing for the nation of Haiti. The background is telling in his use of irony as well. In many paintings by Haitian artists, a lush countryside is really a balance to the reality of the stripped and spent soil of the Haitian landscape. Duval-Carrie is not using the landscape as a balance here, but as an ironic commentary on Azaka’s ability to create a climate for sustainable agriculture. The depiction of Azaka is framed between two paintings of a palm tree on the sea shore with a snake climbing. These two tree paintings represent the Legba on the shore of Africa and the shore of Haiti. Both lands are connected through the spirit world. Lwas rise out of the sea, and Duval-Carrie chose to do a series of paintings depicting lwas in boats.
The boat symbolism has several meanings. Returning to the La traverse painting, the main pantheon of lwas are piled inside a boat in the open sea, and this boat of lwas represents the passage of Vodou from Africa to Haiti or from Haiti to other parts of the Americas. The painting La traverse shows a small and crowed boat like the boats that flee Haiti during times of unrest. The boat is also crowed like the slaves were crowed during their forced exodus to Haiti. This symbol could also have a personal meaning in that he also lives away from Haiti, over the water. From the symbolic clues in the paintings, the likely lwas in the boat are Legba, Ayizan, Bawon, and six other lwas that a trained eye might be able to identify. He uses some of the colors and images associated with the lwas, but these lwas are not based on Western Catholic iconography, but on a more reimaged and new Vodou iconography. These new icons are seen by Duval-Carrie as potential future images of the Vodou religion. In several interviews Duval-Carrie has proclaimed that he wants to create a great Vodou temple in Haiti. He believes this would unify the people of Haiti. Haiti has a high illiteracy rate and much of the population gets it cues on behavior, history, and news from the images being made by the artists. Duval-Carrie is creating new imagery to be acted out, worn, and used on ceremonial objects. The new images could further reshape the Vodou worshiper’s ceremonies. This reinvention of the lwas is nothing new to Vodou.
Vodou is an unorganized religion, yet organized around common themes and common understandings of the lwas. The nature and stories of the lwas change, because the stories are often kept in an oral tradition and only anthologists have attempted to record the natures of each lwa. As Kyrah M. Daniels must have found, these listed characteristics change from house to house, and the lwas are not completely predictable. The further removed Haitian community in Miami, of which Duval-Carrie is a member, is likely to have different understandings of each lwa than their Haitian kin.
The Youtube Local News report out of Miami about Vodou worship showed that many Americans see Vodou worship as very sinister, and this mistrust of Vodou drives the worship underground, whereas the worship in Haiti is more mainstream. As the articles about Santeria point out, a religion driven underground also changes the organizational structures and meanings of objects. Miami Voudoisants will adapt to their environment, but this will take Miami Vodou in a different direction than Haitian Vodou.
Matt Schudel of the Miami Sun-Sentinel reviewed an altarpiece ‘Endless Passage,’ as having Catholic and Vodou elements and as being equal systems of faith. But the use of these symbols in the context of Vodou is more complex that Schudel understood as separate religions on equal standing. As the Leslie Desmangles article points out, Haiti is both Catholic and Vodou, and the symbols are not a binary one to one matchup, but interchangeable and used as needed. This syncretism of religions comes together and merges, but both religions also play separate roles for the Haitians.
It is clear that Duval-Carrie is informed by what Brown coins the Creole Taste. His work continues to be inspired by Africa, while it is clear he has had training in the West, and he has be exposed to the history of Haitian art and culture. Creole Tastes are partly informed by a surrounding of bright sunshine, a taste for the perceived riches of the West and of the African kings, a sense of community with hierarchical structures, and equality. Duval-Carrie’s works reflect the Creole Tastes in some of his grandiose displays. At the Figge Art Museum, his paintings and sculpture were displayed in stage settings that filled the room and walls. Each painting and sculpture related to each other in the room by theme and color. The displays all reflected a kind of scared space. The displays resemble the icons and altar in a Catholic church. The rich display, with a spirited color palate, plus the style resembling a drapo composition, all played a role in reflecting Creole Taste.
Politics, like everything in Haiti, cannot be decoupled from Vodou, and Duval-Carrie is very aware of this fact. In the Figge Art Museum show, he did not shy away from politics. The work Mardigras au Fort Dimanche shows the dictator Dimanche, who drove his family to flee Haiti, dressed in a wedding dress and brandishing a gun. Dimanche is surrounded by sunglass-wearing, richly dresses aristocrats, military, and clergy in jail. A lwa appears to have a hand on Dimanche’s neck. Is Duval-Carrie taking his revenge for his forced exodus from Haiti, or is he following in the rich tradition of Haitian historical paintings with political commentary? Haiti wears its politics on the walls of the cities. Mural artists are everywhere, resisting injustice and reminding the people of the corrupt through their images. Duval-Carrie noted this in the Tracing the Spirit interview. But Duval-Carrie is not only interested in the politics of his home country, but also of his adopted country of the United States. In another painting at the Figge Museum show, Ogun is shown in a tank fighting in the dessert with stars rising in the background, and Ogun is missing two arms that have been replaced by weapons. This image likely references the US intervention in Iraq.
Edouard Duval-Carrie’s Images: Sculptures
Duval-Carrie’s sculptures blend Western installation art; Vodou influenced worship areas, Catholic Church tabernacles, and a reference to parade floats. Many Western installation artists fill a museum with objects. These objects tell stories or follow a theme or idea. By placing his work in a museum, Duval-Carrie is placing his work in the installation art history continuum. Vodou and Catholic Churches place relics and important objects to attract favor. Duval-Carrie mirrors these worship arrangements in his work. He supplies simulated worship space in the museum, but with the intent of further display in his home country of Haiti. Some of the sculptures are lifted high or hanging on wires. This simulates the parades floats done during important duel celebrations. Duel is meaning doubling of celebrating Catholic holidays and Vodou holidays. Or the Duel event can be a Haitian state celebration with a Vodou holiday.
Other sculptures are direct representations of the lwas. These sculptures take single roles as new symbols showing some known characteristics of a lwa. Recreated metal trees are another type of work Dual-Carrie makes. These recreated trees are gateways for the lwas as well as part of the Caribbean foliage.
Edouard Duval-Carrie
Edouard Duval-Carrie finds himself adrift from Haiti and Africa. He lives and works in the United States because of such the harsh living standards and constant turmoil in Haiti, but he is keen to surround himself with Haitian refugees. This uprooted life he must lead is also the experience of many of Haitians across the Americas, but this does not make these people any less Haitian or, many would argue, any less African. Duval-Carrie’s advantages in the ability to travel helps him experience the life of Haiti on the ground. Some might argue he is going more as a tourist, but a tourist doesn’t ever really identify with the people of their visited country. Identity and pride in Haiti is Duval-Carrie’s connection to Haiti. A place where your heart is can still inform an artist’s work, and Duval-Carrie’s heart is in Haiti – and in Haiti’s heart is Vodou.
Bibliography
Bianco, Adriana, Art Outside the Box, Americas, 03790940, Jun 2008, Vol. 60, Issue 3
Bhabha, Homi, ‘Location of Culture,’ Routledge, NY 1994
Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick and Claudine Michel, ‘Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth, and Reality,’ Introduction 2006
Cosentino, Donald J., Divine Revolution, Los Angeles, CA 2004
Daniels, Kyrah M, Appendix: Table of Haitian Lwa
Desmangles, Leslie G., ‘Faces of the Gods,’ Historical Setting: The Shaping of Two Religions in Symbiosis, University of North Carolina Press, 1992
Duval-Carrie, Edouard, Artist Statement, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami, FL
Kennedy, J, Haitian Art Inspired by Vodou, American Visions, 08849390, June 91, Vol. 6, Issue 3
Olmos, Fernandez, ‘Creole Religions of the Caribbean: An Introduction,’ Vodou, or the Voice of the Gods, New York University Press, NY, NY, 2003
Pataki, Eva, Haitian Painting: Art and Kitsch, Adams Press Chicago, Illinois, 1986
Portes, Alejandro, The Study of Transnationalism: Pitfalls and Promise of an Emergent Research Field, Fields 1990
Robinson, Michelle, Edouard Duval-Carrie: Migration of the Spirit, Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa, 2005
Roberts, Kevin, ‘The Yoruba Diaspora in the Atlantic World’, The Influential Yoruba Past in Haiti, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN 2004
Schudel, Matt, Haitian Artist Edouard Duval-Carrie Exhumes Memories of His Homeland, Sun-Sentinel, June 22, 2003
Stebich, Ute, Haitian Art, The Brooklyn Museum, NY 1978
10 comments:
The blog is wonderful but I think we need to wacht pictures to have a real idea about this artist.Sincerely,Walter.
Your right, here is painting 'Azaka, Agro Rex'. One of the works I talk about in the article.
If I were a feminist art critic, I would point out how very much the palms on either side look like legs, and the image in the middle looks like a vagina. If I were a feminist art critic
Well, your point of view about how erotic would be a painting is not so far about the fact that in the caribbean identity, properly, of Dominican Republic-Haiti, based on the expression of uncounciusness in the relation poetry-plastic, appears for first time in american area-Canada to Patagonia- the cultural gender based on sex rol,I considered, (Ref: Dr. Jhon Money, Kinsey) like in the ancient Greece appears in Safo of Lesbos and not more in the West world until Goethe,(Ref: "Paideia", Jagger). You can have and idea what I said reading my thesis in the book "Ensayos sobre la poesia de Victor Villegas",Marino Wilson Jay, Gualterio Nunez Estrada, Mediabyte, 2000, Republica Dominicana, ISBN 10: 9993433012
ISBN 13: 9789993433019, Now, I am writing the second edition with the vinculation of a cuban naif painter with the uncounciusness symbols in the poetry where I found the sex rol in Dominican Republic(the same area). We are not talking about erotic art, properly, we are talking about map's love inside the plastic and poetry, two side of the same cuestion because they are expresion of uncounciusness, then, sex is present(Freud-Jung), I considered.
Another point in this painting show that haitian are far from the mental set of the west grecolatine with bilateral simetry, has happens with cubans, for example, haitian show more develop of the logic in the composition as happens with the photografy in Germany compared to the rest of the world, haitian, in the architecture, are more close to the fuzy logic and the way of meaning of asian than, grecolatine, that means more integration and correspondence of the element,so they can afford "a own language in the plastic over the other one that have the tendency to copy europeans models or angloamerican-canadians. Like critic, is a more "useful art" in the sense of the social impact, if we take in account everything that is considered by Arnold Hauser, the germany profesort of Art History and Estetic.Haitian painter are very "clean and clear about they want to took, about the discurse of metodology, they are more cartesian than french artist today, very influenced by the kish from transnationals and the market wich we are not going to anywhere in the next twenty years.
You make some great points and I need to do more research and I need to travel there to get a better viewpoint. This paper was for an art history class in my MFA program, so I have not revisited the paper to flush out some of the ideas and make corrections that are likely informed my cultural bias and not on understanding the culture on the ground. The paper needs so work and thank you for getting me to think about a better angle to approach the subject. I will look for your book. Thanks.
Hello,
I am working as iconograph for UNESCO for a special edition of the "UNESCO Courier" about Haiti. I'm a looking for Edouard Duval-Carrie's contact because I would like like him to participate to this edition with one of his painting? Can you help me ??
Thank you in advance
Danica Bijeljac
danica.bijeljac@gmail.com
Hello
Can I link to this post please?
Link away! Thank you.
Hello
Great share, thanks for your time
Post a Comment