Slog

News & Arts

Line Out

Music & the City
at Night

« Too Early For Interior Design? Curr… | "The SF Weekly is absolutely not go… »

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Visual Art Currently Hanging: Haitian Paintings at SAM

Posted by Jen Graves on Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 9:49 AM

Hector Hyppolite, Clermelle: Sea God (ca 1945-48), oil on board

Sandra Jackson-Dumont does not fit in with the slow-moving bureaucracy of a large museum.

She's education director at Seattle Art Museum, but she could care less about the traditional divide between education and curating—when she has a good idea for a show (remember Black Art?), she hangs it.

And now, in a little gallery that's sitting empty between exhibitions on the third floor, she's hung a handful of almost never seen Haitian paintings that have been in the museum's collection since the 1950s. For Jackson-Dumont, Haiti is a personal place. The love of her life is from there; Jackson-Dumont recently co-organized a fundraiser that took in almost $6,000 in a single night at the Crocodile. (It was a great dance night with SunTzu Sound, and Josephine Howell—when this woman sings, you give money; here she is doing "Precious Lord" at Mt. Zion recently.)

The little art show is called To Haiti With Love. I have no idea when it closes; it didn't have an opening and isn't even listed on the museum's exhibitions page.

But it's a gem. I'm embarrassed to say I don't know enough about Haitian art to place the paintings in context. But I know I like looking at them.

Castera Bazile, Fish (ca 1950), oil on board

Castera Bazile's Fish pictures a fish on a table, but the table is tipped toward the viewer so that it takes up the entire room it's in. The room, meanwhile, wraps tightly around the table, like it would hold everyone in. Two paintings hang on the walls above the prepared meal. It's pre-celebration, the quiet, almost stage-set moment before the party arrives.

There are fewer than 10 paintings in the show and they are joined by an invitation to write love letters to Haitians, with pencil and paper. The museum will send the letters. Don't miss this one.

S. Bernadel, Serpent Ritual (ca 1950), oil on board

Fernand Pierre, Man Chasing Rats in a Cashew Tree (ca 1950), oil on board

Comments (1) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

For anyone thinking of traveling to Haiti for humanitarian or other reasons: Haiti's artists are concentrated in Jacmel. You can get some great art amazingly cheap.

Posted by keshmeshi on March 10, 2010 at 10:57 AM