Decolonizing Refinement: Contemporary Pursuits in the Art of Edouard Duval-Carrié

This project is a collaboration between Miami artist Edouard Duval-Carrié, a Haitian-born painter and sculptor, and co-curators Dr. Paul B. Niell, Art History, Dr. Michael D. Carrasco, Art History, and doctoral candidate Lesley A. Wolff, Art History. An academic symposium and catalogue, both under the direction of Dr. Paul B. Niell, will accompany the exhibition.

Dr. Paul Niell (Art History), co-curator of the Spring 2018 exhibition at MoFA writes:

Whether sculpture, painting, or multimedia installation, Edouard Duval-Carrié’s work navigates the historically rich and culturally complex traditions that comprise a uniquely Caribbean perspective. Duval-Carrié’s recent works attend to themes of water, travel, and Francophone culture. For this artist, water becomes both a symbolic passage and a barrier—the means by which enslaved Africans were brought to the Caribbean and modern-day Haitians migrate to the United States. Both circumstances have been driven by capitalism, a force that occupies the artist’s work materially and iconographically. This exhibition of Duval-Carrié’s art engages themes associated with the history of North Florida and the southeastern United States, including plantation agriculture, race, slavery, historical events such as Florida statehood, and such contentious historical figures as Andrew Jackson. Edouard’s exhibited works will be accompanied by displays of plantation artifacts loaned from State of Florida collections, including a portion of a nineteenth-century sugar mill and iron crosses made for cemeteries of enslaved workers.”

Image credit: El extraño mundo de los zombies; Edouard Duval-Carrié