Born in 1937 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Hervé Télémaque left for New York in 1957, when former president François Duvalier was elected to power, to study at the Art Students League under painter Julian Edwin Levi. Entering into an art scene dominated by Abstract Expressionism, Télémaque became interested in the approaches of artists like Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg, while simultaneously feeling limited by these early influences: “this thoroughly New York school seemed inadequate for me to express where I came from and who I was.” In 1961, Télémaque moved permanently to Paris, associating with the Surrealists and later co-founding the Narrative Figuration movement in France with art critic Gérald Gassiot-Talabot and artist Bernard Rancillac through the manifesto exhibition Mythologies quotidiennes at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1964. A reaction against the dominant trend towards Abstract Art and the developing movement of Pop Art in North America, Télémaque’s Narrative Figuration often results in works with a Pop sensibility combined with an astute criticality, producing work in dialogue with current events, such as the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, US intervention in the Dominican Republic, and contemporary French politics. As the artist states: “I employed signs and consumer objects, but I did so while attempting to introduce therein something fictional, a directed...critical narrative.” In 1964, Télémaque discovered the opaque projector, which enabled him to project images directly onto the canvas
and render them with acrylic paint. This “clear line” painting technique common within cartoon illustration, involving strong lines of similar width and minimal contrast, was a style that he appropriated from the Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The graphic and cartoon-like images that developed from this moment led to the production of works loaded with political messages that still resonate powerfully today. Throughout his career, Télémaque would continue to highlight the histories and legacies of racism and colonialism with works that intimate the insidious ways that these structures continue to permeate our everyday lives. From the late 1960s through to the 90s, Télémaque continued to develop an experimental practice, bringing together sculptural and collage elements with materials such as charcoal, salvaged wood, and coffee grounds. In the 2000s, his works began to incorporate more explicit references to Haiti, his position as part of the Caribbean diaspora within France, and his African heritage. This was triggered by an interest in the literary movement of Négritude, which began among French-speaking African and Caribbean writers living in Paris in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s as a protest against colonial rule. This movement is often characterized by a self-affirmation of Black consciousness amongst the thinkers who define it. By drawing upon notions of home, returning and belonging as it relates to the African continent, several writers of the Négritude movement highlight the significance of a grounded sense of being amongst people who identify as part of the African diaspora across the world. These themes are explored in several
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