Now That It's Summertime, Go Local

Finally there's Glexis Novoa and Edouard Duval-Carrié. They both tackle political power between present and past. And though at times there's a tendency for big gestures, they manage to realize their art with deliberate refinement. Using his now-favorite medium, marble, Novoa painstakingly depicts different variations of the tower as a detached symbol of control -- that of a submarine, ship, and medieval castle. Each is filled with a strident mismatch of archaic and new gear: kites and banners flying from iron turrets; medieval spires loaded with radars, transmitters, and satellite dishes; slender masts, lightning rods, and a wacky crowd of chimneys, flags, cords, battle axes, and balloons on a tall iron platform.

Duval-Carrié's piece is an installation of a painting flanked by two tall and solemn head sculptures (lit from within) in red and blue. Executed probably upon layers of glazes, Sous Marine depicts a part-fish, part-human, black-featured goddess painted in green, graciously swimming underwater amid a lush milieu of coral, sea foliage, jellyfish, stars, and phosphorescent anemones. This is handsome art combining fantasy and reality, sacred and profane, with a colorful, unencumbered, direct flair. Duval-Carrié has developed a wealth of images taken from the most eclectic sources of history and mythology from his mother country, Haiti. But he also borrows from elsewhere throughout the black diaspora. In fact I think Duval-Carrié's work has more of a Latin American influence than people are ready to comment on. I think his work borders on Magical Realism, and there are plenty of suggestions in his recent work: power represented by the figures of Haitian dictators; his account of history; his references to political violence; themes of fantasy versus reality, et cetera. All this brings his work near to Alejo Carpentier's world in El Reino De Este Mundo, his famous 1949 novel, where "the savage is part of the everyday; where echoes of the drums of war ricochet on larger-than-life military insignias and the embroidered miters of deceitful priests."