The History of Haitian Photography from Within and Without
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FROM WITHIN AND WITHOUT THE HISTORY OF HAITIAN PHOTOGRAPHY UPC FROM WITHIN AND WITHOUT THE HISTORY OF HAITIAN PHOTOGRAPHY FROM WITHIN AND WITHOUT: THE HISTORY OF HAITIAN PHOTOGRAPHY TABLE OF CONTENTS is exhibition is organized by the NSU Art Museum Art Fort Lauderdale Curator: Edouard Duval-Carrié with the assistance of Maggie Steber June 21 – October 4, 2015 © 2015 NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale One East Olas Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any other information storage or retrieval system, or otherwise without written permission from the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale Foreword Editor: Barbara Buhler Lynes Copy Editor: Sue Henger Essays Designer: Suissa Design, Hollywood, FL Edouard Duval Carrié: Introduction ISBN: 9780990506348 Laurent Dubois: Power and Martrydom LOC: 2015945528 Edward Sullivan: Artists Before the Lens: Painters and Photography in Haiti is exhibition was generously made possible in part by Funding Arts Broward, Inc. Additional funding was provided with grants from the Green Family Emilie Boone: A Hidden World of Images: Marilyn Houlberg and Haitian Studio Photography Foundation, e Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance, Lisa and Steven Smith/SMITH Manufacturing, Wells Fargo and the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this exhibition do not necessarily Kimberly Green: Alan Lomax and Haiti represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities. Media Partner: Miami Herald Media Company Donald Cosentino: Voudou Made Visible Exhibitions and programs at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale are made possible in part by a challenge grant from the David and Francie Horvitz Family Margaret Mitchell Armand: e Place of Vodou from Within and Without Foundation. Funding is also provided by Nova Southeastern University, Broward County Board of County Commissioners as recommended by the Broward Maggie Steber: How Two Newspapers in Dade and Broward Counties Cover Haiti Cultural Council and Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture. NSU Art Museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Alfredo Rivera: rough a Contemporary Lens Edwidge Danticat: My Misery is Mine! Contemporary Artists Biographies Bibliography Credits Copyrights: © Andrea Baldeck, ©Stephane Kenn de Balinthazy, © Pablo Butcher, © David Damoison, © Mario Delatour, ©Maksaens Denis, ©Antoine Desért, ©Patrick Farrell/ Miami Herald , ©Antoine Ferrier, ©Phyllis Galembo, ©Leah Gordon, ©Adler Guerrier, ©Carl Juste/ Miami Herald , ©Michael Laughlin/ Sun- Sentinel , © Gary Monroe, © Daniel Morel, Philome Obin this is coming from Milwaukee , ©Frank Polyak, ©Selden Rodman Collection, ©Chantal Regnault, ©Maggie Steber, ©Mike Stocker/ Sun-Sentinel , ©Roberto Stephenson, © Fundação Pierre Verger, ©Paolo Woods All best efforts have been made to contact court-related recipient of copyrights. If copyright has been violated, it happened involuntarily and unintention - ally. Legitimate claims in this respect will of course be honored according to standard prices, in the same way as if copyright had been obtained in advance. From Within & Without FOREWORD Q is exhibition is the first to present a comprehensive history of essential guidance and research and Alfredo Rivera for his out - Haitian Photography, from the mid-nineteenth century until standing participation. We thank the artists in the exhibition and 2012. e exhibition includes both photographers “within Haiti” the collectors who so generously loaned us their works. e mu - and those considered outsiders. To a certain extent all photogra - seum's staff played an exceptional role in all aspects of the exhi - phers present their own personal perspective of their subject. bition and catalogue, and I especially thank Dr. Barbara Buhler erefore, although this exhibition includes over 350 photographs Lynes, the museum’s Sunny Kaufman Senior curator, Luke Jenkins, and the work of more than 100 anonymous and known photog - Exhibitions Designer, Chief Preparator, Eddie Guardin, Museum raphers, we recognize we have only scratched the surface. is is Technician, Diana Blanco, Exhibitions Registrar, and Benjamin only the first exhibition to address this subject, and we hope there Smith, Curatorial Assistant, for their outstanding efforts to ensure will be many more to build on the original research presented in the success of this project. the exhibition and its scholarly catalogue. We are very grateful for the generous support received for the World-renowned Haitian-American artist Edouard Duval-Carrié exhibition and catalogue from Funding Arts Broward, Inc. Addi - has a long association with NSU Art Museum. As the museum’s first tional funding was provided by grants from the Green Family artist in residence, he created the installation, Indigo Room or is Foundation, e Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance, Lisa and Steven Memory Water Soluble , in our lobby in 2004 to celebrate the bicen - Smith/SMITH Manufacturing, FOKAL (Fondation Connaissance tennial of Haiti’s independence. e Indigo Room or is Memory Water et Liberté/Fondasyon Konesans Ak Libète), Wells Fargo and the Soluble brings to life the story of the historical and contemporary Florida Humanities Council with funds from the National Endow - Haitian experience, incorporating vintage photographs as a key el - ment for the Humanities, and the David and Francie Horvitz Fam - ement. e exhibition Within and Without was begun five years ago ily. As always, I wish to thank the museum’s Board of Governors, during the tenure of my predecessor Dr. Irvin Lippman, but the chaired by David Horvitz, as well as Nova Southeastern Univer - exhibition, which presents a pictorial history of Haiti, could not be more sity’s President and CEO, George L. Hanbury II, Ph.D., for their timely. Its opening has coincided with a crisis in the Dominican Re - continued support and encouragement. public, in which residents of Haitian descent face mass deportation. I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Duval-Carrié for Bonnie Clearwater his dedication to this historically important and moving project. Director Our thanks as well to photographer Maggie Steber, who provided NSU Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale 4 From Within & Without INTRODUCTION Q Edouard Duval Carrié is exhibition is an overview, though far from exhaustive, of vi - colonial tutors, the French went further in establishing the mod - sual representations of the Republic of Haiti through the medium ern concept of the “rights of man.” of photography, not a travel brochure to some exotic destination While the topic of slavery was overlooked in the American Rev - in the Caribbean. From its invention in the mid-19th century, olution (1775-83), it was central to discussions taking place in photography provided various discourses for the island nation, Paris from the French Revolution (1789-99) onwards. From these from the abject to the exceptional. It became a tool for elites, po - discussions, the liberation of the slaves of Saint Dominque as well litical leaders, occupying forces, ethnographers, journalists, and as that of French holdings in the New World were declared in 1794 the masses (figs. 1-3). with great pomp, only to be recanted less than a decade later by Taken from the curatorial perspective of an artist, this exhibi - self-declared Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821). tion places the artistry of photography in direct dialogue with its His ambitions of propagating the precepts of the French revolu - more documentary and popular forms, as well as with the work tion—Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité--to the rest of Europe went awry. of photojournalists, and a number of contemporary photogra - To remediate and replenish the coffers of the French state, phers and Haitian artists. Looking at Haitian photography and art Napoleon sold its French-North American holdings of the (Within), and photographs of Haiti made by others (Without), Louisiana territory to the newly-formed United States (1803). He this exhibition asks how Haiti is imagined from behind the camera also attempted to reinstate slavery in the vastly prosperous island lens and in art. of Saint Dominque, forcing the newly-freed slaves of that colony We could not approach such a visualization of Haiti (formerly to embark on a fierce resistance that resulted in the liberation of the French colony, Saint Domingue), without considering the the territory now called Haiti (January 1, 1804). geopolitical contexts in which the Caribbean island nation devel - In this battle against the greatest military might of the time, a oped--within a discourse of colonialism whose roots have grown ragtag force of former slaves managed the impossible, which was deep through the centuries. Following on the gamble of the North to liberate the island of the Napoleonic scourge. Hundreds of American colonists, who began to demand more rights from their thousands perished in this violent revolt, leaving the island’s 2. Antoine Ferrier (b. 1941; Haitian) Untitled, 1970-75. Inkjet print. 24 x 20 in. Courtesy of Edouard Duval-Carrié 6 From Within & Without 5. means of production totally destroyed and devoid of any sem - rent Dubois highlights in his essay for