The NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale is set to showcase a stunning collection of Haitian artworks from the 1950s to the 2000s in an upcoming Cosmic Mirrors exhibition. Beginning May 26, the exhibition will feature a wide range of contemporary artists, including Serge Jolimeau, Pascale Monnin, and Frantz Zéphirin, as well as some of the most notable masters of the Haitian Renaissance, such as Roland Dorcely, Néhémy Jean, Louisiane Saint Fleurant and Ismael Saincilus. These artists have significantly shaped the country’s modernist aesthetic through their ateliers, movements, and markets. The exhibition is curated almost entirely from the museum’s extensive collection of over 160 Haitian artworks.
The exhibition is mounted in dialogue with the Museum’s concurrent show, Kathia St. Hilaire: Immaterial Being, the first solo museum presentation by the South Florida-born artist. As the child of Haitian émigrés, St. Hilaire combines found objects that symbolize the Black American experience, such as packaging from hair relaxers and skin-lightening creams, with visual and material references to Haitian culture. These combined elements visually represent St. Hilaire’s identity formation, growing up within the diasporic Afro-Caribbean community in Florida.
The NSU Art Museum’s Cosmic Mirrors exhibition offers a unique opportunity to view some of the museum’s most significant artworks connected to Haiti’s rich culture. Through an arrangement of work by 27 artists, viewers are thematically guided across facets of Haiti’s political history and creative abundance. The exhibition showcases depictions of the nation’s founding, spiritual syncretism, and lush terrain, all presented in a romantic and pastoral idyll. Additionally, Cosmic Mirrors showcases a selection of recently donated gifts to the museum’s collection, which enriches its representation of Haitian culture and aligns with the Museum’s mission to reflect and engage with the culture and communities that define our region.
For more information, please visit NSUartmuseum.org.
