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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/features/arts/search/sfl-enduval22jun22.story
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By Matt Schudel
Arts Writer
June 22, 2003
Edouard Duval-Carrié left his native Haiti more than 25 years ago, but Haiti
has never left him. Now settled in Miami, Duval-Carrié has studied and lived
all over the world, yet his troubled homeland in the Caribbean continues to
be the inspiration for his art.
He doesn't record the everyday events of Haiti in a documentary sense, and his
work is nothing like the simple, brightly colored scenes of peasant life that
have become numbingly familiar in recent years. Rather, Duval-Carrié searches
his own memory and imagination to create a private cosmography derived from
the Haitian experience.
The many forms of his vision can be seen in "Edouard Duval-Carrié: Endless Passage,"
through Sept. 7 at the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami. Organized
by the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona, this mid-career examination of Duval-Carrié's
achievement is the most extensive showing of his art so far in South Florida.
Despite its variety -- there are paintings, sculptures, lacquered wooden tiles,
modern-day altarpieces and reliquaries -- no one would ever mistake Duval-Carrié's
art for that of anyone else. There is nothing detached or ironic about it. His
aim is to preserve the soul of Haiti, no matter how tortured it may be. You
could call it a fixation or obsession, or you could call it a need to express
the longings, sorrows and hopes of his poor, blood-stained island nation.
One of the most impressive works in "Endless Passage" is a triptych in the form
of a classic altarpiece. The central panel of Trois Feuilles (Three Leaves)
shows a trio of figures from Duval-Carrié's personal pantheon. They rise one
above the other, in shades of blue, red and tan, sprouting leaves in place of
hair. Niches cut out of the surface of the altarpiece reveal tropical scenes,
masks, grimacing faces and images of hearts. Gold-painted palm trees are carved
into the side panels, and pointed objects (bullets, perhaps?) pierce the surface.
The precise meanings may not always be clear, but there's no mistaking the general
drift: Duval-Carrié has merged the pagan beliefs of Haitian voodoo (or vodou
or vaudou, as it's sometimes spelled) with the staid traditions of Western art.
As if to say that one system of faith isn't superior to another, he has made
a series of 16 bronze staffs with voodoo symbols that resemble the golden crosiers
of the Catholic church. In a series of eight bronze sculptures, he has given
the gods of voodoo as much stature as saints on stained glass windows.
A monumental series of four paintings that depict the indelible curse of slavery,
The Migration of the Spirits, invokes imagery that is somewhere between the
Bible and The Wizard of Oz. An elegant series of 12 lacquered floor panels from
2002, The True Story of the Water Spirits, is really a memorial to the souls
lost in the Middle Passage.
Like Haiti itself, Duval-Carrié's art is a colorful, ever-evolving blend of
European, African and Caribbean influences. He creates his own symbolic universe,
in which boats can be the instruments of either freedom or doom. Again and again,
he shows human figures -- sometimes with crosses or animal heads in place of
their faces -- sailing toward an uncertain destiny. Death, in the form of disguised
skeletons, is a constant companion.
Occasionally, Duval-Carrié lifts the symbolic veil and makes his meaning overt.
His Incident in a Garden (1993), in which seven military figures with piglike
faces stand over the decapitated heads of dissidents, is plainly an indictment
of the brutal Tontons Macoute militia that terrorized the nation. Mardi Gras
at Fort Dimanche (1992) refers to a notorious prison where Duval-Carrié's brother
was held in the 1980s as a subversive. In this scathingly satirical painting,
Haiti's onetime dictator, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, is dressed as a gun-toting
bride, surrounded by accomplices -- fashionably dressed women, a priest, a military
officer, and a mysterious figure in a suit -- all wearing dark glasses.
Duval-Carrié is a powerful artist with an original vision, yet he may not be
for everyone. If it's elegance, restraint, and sure-handed skill with a paintbrush
that you want, then you're looking in the wrong place. He's an artist who plays
endless variations on the same themes -- though it should be noted some of his
recent works, incorporating flowers, leaves and fruits with painting, seem to
have little to do with Haitian politics or history.
An artist should be appreciated for what he is, rather than for what he is not.
And what you need to remember about Edouard Duval-Carrié is that, no matter
how long he has been away from his homeland, he carries the wounded soul of
Haiti within his heart, and within his art.
Go back to previous page
Matt Schudel can be reached at mschudel@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4689.
Copyright © 2003, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
