Myrlande Constant (Haitian, born 1968), Agoueh To croix I La Zanguille Negre Coroon Bleu Negre Del Fau Salee , circa 2000, Beads and sequins on fabric, 47 x 57 inches, ©Myrlande Constant. Courtesy of Fort Gansevoort, New York
Through Sunday, May 4
Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second Street, Davenport IA
With the exhibition's originator revered for creating Vodou flags known as drapo for more than 35 years, as well as for pushing the boundaries of this traditional Haitian art form, Myrlande Constant: DRAPO will be on display in the Figge At Museum's fourth-floor gallery through May 4, the artist's escalating interest in expansive proportions finding some of the 17 works in the exhibition spanning more than seven feet.
Constant was born in Port-au-Prince in Haiti where, as a teenager, she learned the art of beading while working with her mother in a Port-au-Prince factory making wedding dresses. Once she quit that job, she moved on to be one of the most celebrated artists for making Vodou drapo. Constant has taken part in the revolution in the art of drapo-making over the last two decades, and has been making flags since the 1990s. Since that era, there was an abrupt shift in drapo-making, which was primarily a male art form. There are several new designers who are women now, one of them being Constant, who has frequently witnessed calamities in her nation. After the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, the artwork Myrlande made represented the collectivistic society through what was being experienced at the time, and her piece of the 2010 Haiti earthquake apocalypse was recognized as an immediate potential for becoming one of the 2011 Ghetto Biennale Exhibition in New York's most extreme and powerful artistic visions.
In 2014, her work was exhibited along with André Eugène, Adler Guerrier, Pascale Monnin, and others in a group show co-curated by Herns Louis Marcelin and Kate Ramsey titled Transformative Visions: Works by Haitian Artists from the Permanent Collection that was held at the University of Miami Lowe Art Museum. In 2018, Constant was one of the participating artists in the group show PÒTOPRENS: The Urban Artists of Port-au-Prince at Pioneer Works, co-curated by Haitian-American artist and curator Edouard Duval-Carrié and British artist and curator Leah Gordon. In 2019, along with 22 fellow artists, her work was exhibited in The Last Supper-themed Faena Art Festival in Miami. Pushing the boundaries of the form, the largest of Constant's flags measured 10 by seven feet. Meanwhile in 2022, a retrospective of her work was held at the Fowler Museum at UCLA, with the artist's work Negra Danbala Wedo (1994-2019) featured in the collection of the Pérez Art Museum Miami.
Myrlande Constant: DRAPO will be on display in the Davenport venue's fourth-floor gallery through May 4, with regular museum hours 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays through Saturdays (10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursdays) and noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays. Museum admission is $8-14, and more information is available by calling (563)326-7804 and visiting FiggeArtMuseum.org.
