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:: “WORLDPAINTING”, Vaudou-art, and/or Neo-baroque – Art of Edouard Duval-Carrié ::
Paris, France 1989: Three painters (One French, one Senegalese and one Haitian) all three from nations which in olden times participated in the infamous triangular slave trade. All -working for an exhibition celebrating the French Revolution Bicentennial held at the Musee des Arts Africains et Oceaniens. Edouard Duval-Carrie, the Haitian contributes a quite uncatholic altarpiece commemorating the victims of the slave trade.
Monterey, Mexico 1992: For the five hundredth anniversary of the arrival of Columbus in the Caribbean, the Marco Foundation organizes a retrospective of Duval-Carrie's work where he presents a new altarpiece entitled "Breve Relacion de la Destruccion de las Indias" after Bartolome de las Casas and a triptych representing the "Sacred Forest" surrounded by sculptures.
Ouidah, Benin 1993: At the "Premier Festival des Cultures Vaudou" - the first Vaudou Culture Festival, the Haitian artist paints the walls in the compound of the highest spiritual figure of Vaudou, the Dagbo Hou Non. He also installs there a large group of sculptures entitled Spirit Catchers.
Atlanta, Georgia 1996: To embellish the cultural program on the periphery of the Olympiads, the Haitian artist installs, instead of Greek divinities, a group of 30 bronze heads entitled "The Vaudou Parthenum". At first sight these made a stimulating contrast to the classical architecture of the southern capital.
The year 2000: Duval-Carrie enters into the prestigious Oxford History of Western Art as one of ten artists chosen to represent Africa and the Caribbean in the chapter devoted to "alternative centers".
After the enumeration of these creations -which subvert the modes of representation of old religions, no one a should be surprised to see the art of Edouard Duval-Carrie associated with the spirituality of his country of origin. Duval-Carrie is an exemplary representative of a group of artists inscribed in the mode of the western art markets, yet due to their references to little known mythologies, they bring an "alternative" touch to what is produced in these places which are traditionally associated with innovative esthetic movements. It is in this manner that these artists are incorporated into what is considered avant-garde currents that have dominated the esthetics of the latter part of the last century. To state that this Haitian artist looks seriously at the popular culture of his country of origin may suggest that his art is "more authentic". The existing plurality of "centers" reflects the reality of what is considered a global market and in a sense it integrates the heterogeneity of cultures, serving as a basis of inspiration in the commercialization of what is considered "Western Art".
It is both an esthetic and economic position that the artist playfully designates in a neologism borrowed from the musical domain: "Have you heard of World Music? There is World Painting now and I think I'm playing the part quite well!" Whether one refers to "alternative centers" or "world painting", both terms point to an antagonism between, in one part, regional authenticity, ethnic or/and social (when talking of the imaginary landscape) versus the dominant, capitalist, metropolitan culture (when speaking of commercialization). This is only to point that the works of Edouard Duval-Carrie reflect, through subversive images, on the actual modes of production and also on esthetic concerns.
Contrary to the orthodox ways of most monotheist religions, Vaudou has no qualms about its origins which are bathed in syncretism. The image of the "return to Africa" by a voyage underwater is an essential paradox to the understanding of the spiritual experience of a migrant. Duval-Came illustrates this transitory and dangerous position in most of the paintings in this exhibition by his incessant use of the spirit-laden boats. This mythic voyage between worlds is certainly more unstable than the nostalgia of the "paradise lost" dear to the Judeo-Christian culture. In the world of this artist, looking back has its hazards; to reach Duval-Carrie's paradise depicted here in a garden, one has to go through the monster's mouth. Connoisseurs of European art will appreciate the reference to Bomarzo's garden in Italy where there is a real risk of encounters with voracious crocodiles.
The cultural baggage brought by his boat people, who do not have the luck of being on the good political side like their Cuban counterparts, contains nevertheless a symbol with a double significance: the Royal Palm. It represents the "Poteau Mitan" the central post, pivotal to vaudou ceremonies and also the tree of liberty for the Haitian people. It -will always remind Haitians that the Republic of Haiti was the first state to realize the liberty for all slaves, equality for all it's citizens and the fraternity of all races in the New World.
But Edouard Duval-Carrie conscientiously avoids the pitfalls of a paradisiacal vision of the "revolutionary" past. The play on words "Crocs and Ladders" is far from being a joke. The substitution of "snakes" by "crocs" sends us back to the founding myth of the Haitian nation - the so-called "Ceremonie du Bois Caiman". In the two paintings "Crocs and Ladders" and the "Apparition dans un Jardin", a black man's face surrounded by sparring symbols is evident. The ladders of course lead nowhere. Like other symbols, the crocodiles/caimans symbolize an idyllic usage of the past and of course produce no identity for the central figures. To these heads surrounded by unintelligible symbols corresponds the empty but mutilated background of the painting "Passage pour le Hero". The myth of the hero, which was lavished on the revolutionary generals, has only served to enlarge the role of the Haitian army and it's glorious past. The reality though is far from glorious. Since the independence of that nation, the Haitian army has relentlessly exploited the people they liberated.
The alternative added by Duval-Carrie to the avant-garde movement is not solely reduced to the mere fact that he is a Haitian. The artist can also be situated in the Ibero-American tradition. The numerous exhibitions of his work in that part of the world underline the interest in his art in these "alternative centers". It is important to be noted in passing that the discovery in New York of what is now referred to as the "first generation" of so-called Haitian naives is not uniquely the product of the joint efforts of the pope of the European avant-garde - Mr. Andre Breton with the American founder of the Centre D'Art in Port au Prince - Mr. Dewitt Peters, but also through the active support of Cuban artists, in particular Wilfredo Lam. The works of Duval-Carrie render in images the cultural message that the Cuban intellectuals, Lezama Lima and Severo Sarduy had designed in the theoretical concepts of the Latin-American baroque.
The works "Democratic en Marche" and "La Reine Des Ambaglos" are representations of women whose bodies are engraved -with symbols, as if they had been tattooed with the Veve, arcane signs representing the vaudou spirits. But in Duval-Carrie's case the signs are not those sacred symbols. Thus the "Reines des Ambaglos", queen of the under water spirits loses her identity, and in the process, the support she provides the migrants becomes rather dubious. The proliferation of signs and dots over the allegory of democracy serves only to hide the emptiness that is the basis of what she represents. More so, the writing on the painting proclaims movement, but she remains an immutable statue sustaining those words. What moves in this particular work are the rebelling slaves led by the infamous Baron Samedi, the Vaudou spirit of Death. And all is set in a lush tropical landscape. The viewer is thus led to believe that the artist's vision is only that of a bitter realization that two centuries of struggle were empty of the ideal of Democracy for his homeland. This is very true of the Baroque tradition which puts in question the functioning of the allegory generalizing the messages of this image. In his writings on the Baroque, Severo Sarduy points out that the exuberance of tattoos paradoxically expresses the disappearance of the bearer's body. Thus, by analogy, the supposedly Haitian scene depicted in that particular work is no more than another episode of the evacuation of any allegory in the history of the globalization which has continued for the past five hundred years.
In his famous conference cycle given in 1957 at the Centro de Altos Estudios del Institute Nacional de la Habana, published later as "La Expresion Americana", Jose Lezama Lima underlines the highly subversive character of the colonial art of Spain's empire. According to this brilliant essayist of the neo-baroque there was an Amerindian of the so-called Cuzco school, named Kondori. His production would best illustrate the deep desire to transgress the conceptual limits imposed by European "how-to" manuals designed for overseas artists. His ornaments and friezes for altarpieces and his decorative elements for church portals are invaded by Inca symbols and other depictions of local flora and fauna. In this way, what was purported to glorify the mysteries or the heroes of the Christian faith are transformed to a form of syncretism, which illustrates the confrontation between the different signs and symbols conditioning the new colonial society. In the New World the art of the European Counter Reform was thus transformed in an art of the Counter Conquest.
All of Edouard Duval-Carries paintings are quite lavishly framed in wood covered with a large gamut of different materials. The work "Crocs and Ladders" demonstrate clearly how the painter inverted the process established by his precursors. There is no more a delimitation between the painting and it's frame. What could be interpreted as an affirmation of liberty achieved by contemporary art in opposition to any type of rules, could now be read as a deep disillusionment, another baroque concept, vis a vis symbols devoid of sense.
The eclecticism, paired with the "world painting" concept that characterizes Duval-Carrie's work is not a gratuitous exercise. Duval-Carrie has subverted all iconic elements used in his work. The feast of color and motifs he brings us reveals, contrary to what could be thought as evident, two very unsettling messages: the piercing emptiness of his canvases which are covered -with contradictory signs and the solitude of depicted individuals whose eyes are looking in vain for sense in those symbols. The universality conveyed in those symbols guaranties that solitude should not be read as an exclusive experience of his black men's heads. These worldly paintings point out squarely that it was the slaves who had the scary privilege to have been forced first into a migration which has become today a global phenomenon.
