This March a career survey, “Myrlande Constant: The Work of Radiance,” will open at the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles.
The exhibit and its accompanying publication trace the evolution of Constant’s artistic vision, innovative techniques, and impact on art-making in Haiti and beyond; and situate her hand-beaded textiles within contemporary arts of Haiti and the African diaspora.
The NY Times highlighted the artist in a Jan 2023 article (link below), showcasing the upcoming Fowler show as well as a show at Fort Gansevoort in NY. The Fowler exhibition’s co-curators, Katherine Smith and Jerry Philogene noted that “Constant brought Vodou drapo out of the strictly ritual or ethnographic realm and turned it into a dynamic and sophisticated form of contemporary art, while also affirming women’s work in a typically male field.”
“She is the one who introduced historical narrative into the form,” said Smith, a lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a curatorial associate of Haitian arts at the Fowler, who has known the artist since 1999. “She changed the gender dynamic of the art form. She has transformed the genre into something new.”
Image: Myrlande Constant (b. 1968, Port-au-Prince, Haiti), Nègre Danbhalah Hwèdo, 1994–2019; sequins, glass beads, and silk on cotton; Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami; Museum purchase with funds provided by PAMM’s Collectors Council, with additional contributions provided by Karen Bechtel, Evelio and Lorena Gomez, Jorge M. Pérez, and Craig Robins; image © Myrlande Constant; photo courtesy of CENTRAL FINE; photograph by Armand Vaquer, 2020