‘Haitian Art’ and Primitivism: Effects, Uses and Beyond
‘Haitian Art’ and Primitivism: Effects, Uses and Beyond
This chapter examines primitivism within the context of ‘Haitian art’ and argues that European and North Atlantic academic and art institutions have relegated Haitian plastic arts to the Hegelian space of the anti-modern. It describes the historicization of the fine arts in order to establish the existence of distinct realms of plastic creation in a society born of colonization like Haiti. It also reflects on a personal experience of vulnerability to double-consciousness prompted by the silencing prejudgements of the Euro-North American anthropological gaze. The chapter suggests that the (neo-)primitivist paradigm is reliant on cultivated ignorance, unchanging stereotypes and exoticist understandings of Afro-ontology.
Keywords: primitivism, Haitian art, Haiti, plastic arts, fine arts, anthropological gaze, stereotypes, Afro-ontology, plastic creation
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