Giscard Bouchotte

Port au Prince, Haiti

February 28 - March 30, 2019

In collaboration with Cultural Services of the French Embassy and French Art Associates as part of the Tout-Monde Festival

Curatorial Statement

Back in Haiti in 2013, after studying and living ten years in Paris (Master 2, Cultural Management at University Paris-Dauphine), Giscard Bouchotte has been working to built a sustained reflection on the power of chaos through his critical texts, exhibitions and artistic actions. Where politics fail, artistic action serves as a tool generating a bust of civic creativity. During the Nuit Blanche of Port-au-Prince he curate each year, he invite some international and local artists to transform the city half-destroyed by the earthquake into a playground.

For the past ten years, he has curating several exhibitions as an independent curator, which the most important, Haiti Kingdom of the World (Paris, 2010) has been the first Haitian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (Venice, 2011). Other multidisciplinary events include: the traveling biennale exhibition Périféeriques, the annual White Night of Port-au-Prince (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017). The last exhibition I curated, Invisibilité Ostentatoire (Fondation Clément, Martinique, 2017) shed light on the unspoken historical explanations regarding the lack of  international visibility of some artists and their works at fairs and major international artistic events. His research focus on the future of traditions, revisited by contemporary artists in the context of globalization.

Biography

Giscard Bouchotte, born in Haïti, has been working to build a sustained reflection on the power of chaos through his critical texts, exhibitions and artistic actions. For the past ten years, he has curating several exhibitions as an independent curator, significantly, “Haiti Kingdom of the World” (Paris, 2010) which was subsequently transformed into the first Haitian Pavilion at the 51th Venice Biennale (Venice, 2011) in the Fondazione Querini Stampalia. Bouchotte’s other multidisciplinary events include the annual “Nuit Blanche (Sleepless-night) of Port-au-Prince”, “Conspicious Invisibility” (Fondation Clément, Martinique in 2017). His research focusses on the future of traditions, revisited by contemporary artists in the context of globalization

Curatorial Links

Last talk : The Birth of Black Surrealism? (1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, London)
Last exhibition curated:  "Invisibilité Ostentatoire" (Fondation Clément, Martinique)
Last residencies:Curators Workshop: BBX Crit Session at 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art Berlin- Germany/ Perte de Signal(Montréal, Canada
Last lectures: Tilting Axis 4 (Dominican Republic), Université Syracuse et Macalester College (USA)
Last publication or review: Revolucion y creacion (Terremoto Magazine, Mexico), Africanah by Sasha Dees