The new book Création plastique d’Haïti. Art et culture visuelle en colonie et postcolonie, by Carlo A. Célius, is now on the shelves! This book opens the launch of Amérique(s)—a new series by Éditions Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (MSH). [Many thanks to Thomas Spear for bringing this item to our attention.]

Description: This book studies the universe of visual creation in Haiti over time, since the arrival, in 1492, of the first Spanish conquerors on this territory, the western third of the island which they had renamed Hispaniola. To conduct his investigation, Carlo A. Célius questions, goes beyond, and reverses the discourses and representations expressed from Western Europe, which have continuously qualified and classified all non-European artistic creation using criteria specific to the Fine Arts field.

The history of the modes of figuration proposed here is also that of the monopolization, exploitation, and transformation of a territory, a history of migrations, as well as the subjection and extermination of populations. It is a story of struggles, liberation, and societal reconfigurations, a history of images and imaginations, and of their exchanges and their confrontations.

In this long-term historical exploration—which borrows in turn from the history of art, aesthetics, anthropology, and sociology—the author offers us a plural approach to figuration in the colony and post colony, which, beyond solely the fine arts, considers a continuum of visual culture. From portraits to Vodoun ritual drawings and Catholic iconography, from illustrations published in the press to scarification marks on the bodies of enslaved African captives, this study highlights the complexity and challenges of the visual, the conflicts that it generates, and the phenomena of appropriation and reappropriation.

Carlo A. Célius is a historian and art historian, CNRS research director at IMAF (l’Institut des mondes africains). His research focuses mainly on Saint-Domingue / Haiti and explores visual creation and culture, from the colonial period to the present day, as well as the history of ethnology. Carlo A. Célius is the author of Langage plastique et Énonciation identitaire. L’invention de l’art haïtien (Presses de l’Université Laval, 2007) and he has coordinated several collective publications.

The America(s) collection aims to encourage original work on the broader area of the Americas in the fields of human and social sciences. The collection is committed to the translation of important works that are missing in the field of Francophone studies.

Création plastique d’Haïti. Art et culture visuelle en colonie et postcolonie 33 € 582 pages | 18 × 27 cm 978-2-7351-2864-8

For more information, see https://www.fmsh.fr/parutions/creation-plastique-dhaiti

For more details on the publisher, see http://www.editions-msh.fr/livre/?GCOI=27351100129380