Outdoors | Visual Art
A Return: Liberation as Power
BAM sign at the corner of Lafayette and Flatbush Avenues
Haitian visual artists offer a meditation on liberation in this new public installation on the BAM sign, presented as part of DanceAfrica 2021. Inspired by Haiti’s legacy as one of the first independent nations in the Western Hemisphere, BAM Curator at Large Larry Ossei-Mensah invites these artists—and the Brooklyn community—to reflect on and draw strength from Haiti’s groundbreaking history in the midst of today’s calls for justice, equality, and liberation.
A Return: Liberation as Power features work by Delphine Desane, M. Florine Démosthène, Mark Fleuridor, Adler Guerrier, Kathia St. Hilare, and Didier William. The installation will be presented on the BAM sign at the corner of Lafayette and Flatbush Avenues.
French-born painter and sculptor Delphine Desane lives and works in New York City. She graduated from Studio Berçot in Paris and recently had a solo show at Luce Gallery in Turin, Italy. Her work has been shown in exhibitions at Canada in New York, Taymour Grahne Projects in London, and Penske Projects in Los Angeles, and she has an upcoming show at MoMu in Antwerp, Belgium. Her work was featured in Vogue Italia in January 2020.
US-born, Port-au-Prince-raised artist M. Florine Démosthène has exhibited extensively in the US, Caribbean, UK, Europe, and Africa, with recent solo shows at Mariane Ibrahim Gallery in Chicago and Gallery 1957 in Accra, Ghana. She is the recipient of a Wachtmeister Award, a Tulsa Artist Fellowship, an Arts Moves Africa Grant, and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. She has participated in residencies in the US, Caribbean, UK, Slovakia, Ghana, and Tanzania, and her work can be seen at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the University of South Africa (UNISA), the Lowe Art Museum, and in various private collections worldwide.
Mark Fleuridor is a Haitian-American artist born and raised in Miami. He uses painting, quilting, and collage to explore his own personal history and familial experiences. Fleuridor has completed artist residencies at Vermont Studio Center and the Oxbow Artist Residency in Michigan and is currently attending Oolite Artist Residency in Miami. His work has been exhibited at Oolite Arts and Prizm Art Fair.
Port-au-Prince-born artist Adler Guerrier lives and works in Miami. His work engages the poetics of place and landscape. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions at California African American Museum, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Hunter East Harlem Gallery, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Guerrier is a member of the board of directors of Oolite Arts and Locust Projects.
Miami-based artist Kathia St. Hilaire draws upon Haitian Vodou culture and her upbringing in a South Floridian Caribbean community in her interdisciplinary practice. Using relief printing techniques and oil-based and metallic ink on sugar packaging and box braid packs, she elevates these discarded objects into meaningful materials, reflecting on the notion of beauty products as luxury commodities. She is the recipient of the Jorge M. Perez Award and her recent group exhibitions include the Tang Museum, Half Gallery, Blum & Poe, and Derek Eller Gallery.
Port-au-Prince-born artist Didier William has exhibited his work at the Bronx Museum of Art; the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, CA; the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; the Carnegie Museum of Art; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; and the Figge Art Museum. He is represented by James Fuentes Gallery in New York and M+B in Los Angeles. William did an artist residency at the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation in Brooklyn and is the recipient of a Rosenthal Family Foundation Award and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. He is currently an assistant professor at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.
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