Artist’s Conversation: Haitian Aesthetics and International Markets

Building on the exhibition’s title Imaginary City (Vilaj Imaginé), cultural critic Donette Francis engages artist Tomm El-Saieh in a conversation about imagery that has long animated the international art market’s interest in Haitian art. Drawing upon his disorienting abstractionist aesthetics as well as his lineage as a multi-generational gallerist (in Port-au-Prince and Miami), the discussion explores how El-Saieh creates space for more divergent Haitian artistic expressions.

Free.

Image: Tomm El-Saieh, Vilaj Imajiné, 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 72 x 48 in. (182.9 × 121.9 cm). Private Collection © Tomm El-Saieh; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and CENTRAL FINE, Miami Beach. Photo: Thomas Clark