In 2010, Giscard Bouchotte, current guest curator from Haiti, launched a project with artists and friends entitled “Connecting South”, the aim of which is to strengthen networks between the countries of the southern hemisphere. The project assumes that contemporary artistic expressions are universal and connect people. For the exhibition in the Salon Mondial, Giscard Bouchotte opens his archives and shows video works by two artists with whom he works repeatedly: Maksaens Denis (“Haiti Kingdom of this World”) and Michelange Quay (“The Ancestor”). In the compilation “Conspicious Invisibility”, twelve artists (Sergine André, Elodie Barthelemy, Mario Benjamin, Jean-Hérard Celeur, Maksaens Denis, Edouard Duval-Carrié, André Eugène, Frankétienne, Guyodo, Sébastien Jean, Killy, Tessa Mars, Pascale Monnin, Paskö, Barbara Prézeau, Roberto Stephenson, Hervé Télémaque) explore in their short works unspoken facts that determine current life in Haiti, although they have long since been forgotten – or have been made forgotten. The exhibition also features a painting series by Killy (Patrick Ganthier).
Giscard Bouchotte is an independent exhibition curator, critic, and social entrepreneur. In 2011, he curated the Haitian Republic’s first Pavillion at the Venice Biennale with the exhibition Haiti Kingdom of This World (France, Italy, USA, Martinique, Haiti). His most recent projects include Périféériques, a travelling project exploring new artistic and social practicies in peri-urban spaces (Benin, Senegal, Haiti), and the Nuit blanche in Port-au-Prince, a plea for artists to be engaged in urban initiatives. His essays have appeared in Holland (Who More Sci-Fi Than Us? exhibit) and the US (Smithsonian, Biennals and Art Practices in the Caribbean). In Haiti, he develops workshops and has curated photographs by emerging artists in the Comoros Islands, and Guyana. He works with international public and private institutions in the Caribbean. Bouchotte has also produced and directed three films, Africa Left Bank (2006), Sarah’s Dreamed Life, (2007) and Tap Tap Chéri (2017). He has assisted French filmmaker Claire Denis (and acted in her 2008 35 Rhums), and French filmmaker Charles Najman.
Giscard Bouchotte is currently taking part in the Davidoff Art Initiative’s Basel residency program in collaboration with the Art Institute and Atelier Mondial, following the artists Guillermo Rodriguez, Michael Linares and Yornel Martinez. An interview with Giscard Bouchotte is coming soon.
Connecting South – Open Archives with Haitian Artists. Atelier Mondial Exhibition, Curated by Giscard Bouchotte at Salon Mondial, Münchenstein (Basel, Switzerland). Vernissage, December 14, 2018.
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