Zombies! Graveyards! Skulls! Blood Sacrifices! Creepy Dead Dolls! Who would possibly want more from artworks suitable for Halloween?
If this floats your Charon boat, I recommend exploring, even purchasing Haitian art.
By coupling Halloween and Haitian art, one flirts with reinforcing the shoddy and uninformed sensationalism that has stereotyped Haiti and Haitian Vodou for 250 years. Nonetheless, many Haitian art traditions are deeply rooted in Vodou practice and iconography, some of which do involve corpses and cemeteries and simulated violence. Of particular relevance are works invoking the Gedes, the family of lwa (Vodou spirits) in charge of death. (You may remember the Baron Samedi character from the Bond Film Live or Let Die — he’s often considered the head of the Gede family, which is why Papa Doc Duvalier adopted the Baron’s persona.) Also appropriate for Halloween are works featuring imagery that Westerners have often considered diabolical, like the horned lwa Bossu or the serpent lwa Damballah.
In all seriousness, Haitian art is wonderful, and much of it is delightfully joyous (children playing, fantasy paradises complete with happy and peaceful animals, bountiful markets) — and still very affordable. Moreover, there are many free trade organizations that ensure the artists (often struggling to make a living in their impoverished, disaster-prone country) are not getting ripped off.
I’ve chosen to highlight ‘Halloweenish’ strands of Haitian art as an excuse to write about an art tradition and a religion that have interested me for many, many years. Because I do encourage you to consider buying Haitian art, I’ve included price ranges when I can.
Painting
Haitian painting is varied, vibrant and, for want of a better word, rhythmic. It’s been recognized on the international art scene for decades, but good new works by talented artists are available to purchase for under US$500. Typical subjects include markets, rural life, and animals; Vodou-themed paintings tend to be a bit more expensive, but still affordable. I own four, suitable for Halloween, price range (at purchase) fifty dollars to, well, more. The following examples are not mine, unfortunately.
Hector Hyppolite, ‘Magique Noire,’ c. 1947. The self-taught Hyppolite (d. 1948) is the original ‘old master’ who brought Haitian art into wide recognition. Among his admirers and promoters were Andre Breton and Truman Capote. Hippolyte was an hougan (Vodou priest); this painting shows a ceremony invoking Bossu, the bull-headed lwa of war and resistance. His works are rarely on the market and when they are, they’re extremely costly.
Wilson Bigaud, ‘Zombis,’ 1983 (?). Bigaud (d. 2010) was an internationally recognized artist, a second-generation ‘old master.’ Haitian zombis are not dangerous to others, as they’re basically robotic slaves; it’s the zombi-maker (here equipped with sacrificial offerings and deftly avoiding the church’s shadow) who is feared. Bigaud’s paintings sell for between three and ten thousand dollars (rough estimate).
Frantz Zepherin, ‘Gedes,’ 2007. Zepherin rose to fame as a ‘third-generation master’ rather recently (including having his paintings on New Yorker and Smithsonian magazine covers). The Gedes are the family of lwa associated with death, cemeteries, and (!) fertility. I think the Gede in the upper right is Jean-Bertrand Aristide, deposed in 2004 for alleged abuses of power and then exiled to South Africa. Or it could be Mobutu Sese Seko, Congo’s infamous dictator. Or a generic Tonton Makout (feared paramilitary enforcer). Zepherin paintings now also sell in the thousands.
Henri Jean-Louis, ‘Ceremonie,’ 2012. This charming little painting shows a procession to a country graveyard, where a goat will be sacrificed to honor or appease one of the Gedes. You can buy this painting today for $150 — which shows that high-quality Haitian art truly is affordable. Maybe you’ll discover the next Haitian master!
Sequin Arts
The most famous form of sequin arts is the drapo (Vodou flag). For centuries, decorative symbolic flags have been used in Vodou rituals; it was in the 1930s, when cheap plastic sequins became available in Haiti, that drapo began to be spangled in bling. These flags represent various lwa and, more recently, historical personages and events. They are also affordable — ones by well-known artists may cost up to $1000, but drapo by newer practitioners are available for as little as $100, a bargain considering the labor-intensive work involved. Below are examples of contemporary sequined flags.
Left: Drapo for Ezili Danto, lwa of fiercely protective and vindictive motherhood,
by noted flag artist Yves Telemaque.
Right: Drapo for the Gedes (probably Baron Samedi or Baron Cimitiere)
by increasingly collected flag artist Georges Valris.
Left: Drapo for Ayizan, lwa of religious tradition, here presenting the ason (sacred beaded rattle), by up-and-coming flag artist Roudy Azor.
Right: Drapo for Barrybamz, lwa of cool power, guaranteed to give your Republican acquaintances a real Halloween scare — by New York-born artist Sophie Sanders.
Less well known but equally fabulous are bedazzled shrines and other ritual objects. The artist Pierrot Barra (d. 1998) worked out of the Iron Market in Port-au-Prince, using scraps and found objects to create his visionary art. He often incorporated discarded dolls in his work, giving them a distinctively eerie aura. Because he was a member of the secret (and feared) Bizango society, his iconography can differ from standard Vodou representations. The image that heads this essay is a detail from a Barra shrine to the Marassa Twa (children-lwa of blessings and mysteries: they are twins, but one and one equals three). Barra also made smaller objects, like offering bottles and the little coffins used in Bizango ceremonies. These are quite affordable, when you can find them.
Gallery Installation of Pierrot Barra’s work. I can’t positively tell the subjects from this photo, but the lower left may be an aspect of Damballah (creator lwa associated with snakes}; the sculpture in the foreground is Agwe (lwa of the ocean) with his boat and consort. The crosses in the two large sculptures indicate that they may represent one of the Gedes; I have no idea about the cabbage-patch doll-headed shrine on the upper left, except that it’s somewhat disconcerting.
Ritual coffins (sekey madoule) by Pierrot Barra. The middle one has a plastic window through which you can view the occupant, a very dead looking baby doll (see the insert, lower left). These coffins, carried on one’s head during nighttime processions, are done in the Bizango society’s signature colors of red and black.
You can also buy sequined bottles and paket kongo (embellished bags for charms and spells) for well under $100. By the way, I’m estimating prices based on purchasing Haitian art in the United States; obviously, it’s less expensive if purchased in Haiti.
Clockwise from left: a bottle for the Gedes, a paket kongo invoking Ezili Frida (lwa of seduction and love — it’s not very Halloweeny, but it shows how paket can be sequined), a paket invoking the Gedes, and pakets probably invoking Bossu in his three-horned (most powerful) aspect.
A sorcerer’s paket to call upon Kafou (lwa of the crossroads, another deathly Gede). Larger than most pakets, this object not only incorporates the cross (cemeteries, death, crossroads); it also incorporates eating utensils, suggesting the power of this lwa to consume his enemies. Its colors imply ties to the Bizango society, which — as dispenser of rough justice in rural Haiti, supposedly including the ultimate punishment of zombification — was metaphorically connected to human sacrifice, even cannibalism (particularly in the Western media).
Metal Art
Cut and often repoussé metal art is widely available, attractive, eco-friendly, and very affordable. Nice big pieces cost under $100, smaller ones a lot less. Hand-crafted from recycled steel drums and other scrap metal, metal artworks take a lot of time and skill to make. If placed outside, they will rust; if you don’t like the look of ‘naturally’ aged metal, coat the sculpture with spray enamel about once a year.
The best known type is the wall sculpture, often of pleasant subjects like birds, angels, and the tree of life. More recently, metal artists include functional objects (mirrors, candle holders, hooks, bowls, house numbers) in their repertoire, and brightly painted works are becoming more popular.
Now primarily a tourist art (not necessarily a bad thing), metal sculpture began as a Vodou art form, centered in the village of Croix des Bouquets. Its founding father is Georges Liautaud (1899 -1991), who made crosses for the communal cemetery and sculptures for the local Vodou temple. His disciples Serge Jolimeau and Gabriel Bien-Aime, also from Croix des Bouquets, have continued to produced vodou-themed metal art as well as purely decorative pieces.
Now primarily a tourist art (not necessarily a bad thing), metal sculpture began as a Vodou art form, centered in the village of Croix des Bouquets. Its founding father is Georges Liautaud (1899 -1991), who made crosses for the communal cemetery and sculptures for the local Vodou temple. His disciples Serge Jolimeau and Gabriel Bien-Aime, also from Croix des Bouquets, have continued to produced vodou-themed metal art as well as purely decorative pieces.
Left to right: A magically metamorphosing Damballah by Georges Liautaud; a cheerfully diabolical Damballah by Serge Jolimeau; a sorcerer with snakes by Gabriel Bien-Aime.
Left to right: Mermaids (actually Lasiren, the lwa of the sea, its riches and dangers) are popular motifs, although most Westerners are unaware of their religious significance — this contemporary one has a distinctly serpentine tail, linking her to Damballah; this piece is a bit older and has obviously been outside — it depicts a Vodou sacrifice like the one that inaugurated the Haitian Revolution; an example of a contemporary painted metal sculpture — evidently a Damballah/Bossu hybrid.
New Developments
Andre Eugene, “Military Glory.” The coil phallus is a direct reference to the Gedes, who often brandish huge phalluses (phalli?), as well as to mythologies of masculine power.
Jean-Herard Celeur, “Gede Triptych.” Is this a nursing home or a motorcycle race in Hell?
The Atis Rezistans also create smaller works which are probably affordable if one happens to be in the junkyard section of Port-au-Prince, where group members have their studios. I don’t know the names of the artists of these pieces. One can certainly see the influence of sorcerers’ pakets kongo in the figure in the left foreground and the influence of Pierrot Barra’s sekey madoule in the figure on the right.
"Nou Met Led Me Nou La!"
(We May Be Ugly, But We Are Here!)
—Haitian Proverb
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