“Van Lévé. Sovereign Visions from the Creole and Maroon Caribbean and Amazonia: Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane, and Haiti”

Van Lévé. Sovereign Visions from the Creole and Maroon Caribbean and Amazonia: Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane, and Haiti is an intergenerational and transhistorical exhibition organized from a uniquely Caribbean perspective. The first presentation of an ambitious multi-faceted curatorial project, Van Lévé at the Alain Locke Gallery brings together internationally acclaimed artists with connections to territories in the Americas formerly under French colonial rule, placing them in dialogue with landmark historical works. It provides a historical grounding and artistic genealogy that amplifies a renaissance of Creole, Maroon, Caribbean, and Amazonian voices. As France continues to reckon with its involvement in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and colonial slavery on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Taubira Law recognizing both as crimes against humanity, Van Lévé asks: how do artists, connected by their fraught past and present connections with France, deploy critical inquiry and aesthetic elaboration to forge emancipatory dreams that can be transformed into tangible sovereign visions?

Curated by Clair Tancons, founder and director of EXTEMPORA.

Participating artists include: Mathieu Abonnenc, Franky Amété, Raphaël Barontini, Minia Biabiany, Ernest Breleur, Jean-Marc Bullet, Ronald Cyrille, Gaëlle Choisne, Kenny Dunkan, Gwladys Gambie, David Gumbs, Fabiola Jean-Louis, Clémence Lollia Hilaire, Louisa Marajo, Manuel Mathieu, Tessa Mars, Jimmy Robert, Cédrine Scheidig, and Hervé Télémaque.

Van Levé. Sovereign Visions from the Creole and Maroon Caribbean and Amazonia: Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane, and Haiti is presented with the support of Villa Albertine.