New York City’s famed museum, the Cooper Union, will shine a spotlight on two Caribbean voices in their latest showcase: Haitian-born artist Jean-Ulrick Désert and St. Martin-born poet Lasana M. Sekou
The one-day special exhibit launches Saturday, October 26, 2019, at 4 p.m. with a live screening Désert latest video artworks “BLING” and “GLORIA.” The work will be screened at the college in Room 201/201A, at 41 Cooper Square, Manhattan. Poetry from “The Salt Reaper,” a book and CD by Sekou, will also serve as backdrop audio recording for the exhibit.
The Cooper Union showcase marks part of a larger exhibition and architectural conservation project due for presentation at the Venetian Biennale of Architecture. Rooted in Caribbean art, the project intends to “draw in art and artists from or critically inspired by the Caribbean ‘sea of islands’ and island-heritage, that have had their work ‘moored’ in Venice, which Sekou has called in one of his poems a ‘city of water and islands,’” explains exhibit coordinator, architect Margaret Matz.
Sekou and Désert “had previously presented in Venice at cultural fora: the international literary festival Incroci di Civiltà at Ca’ Foscari, and at exhibits at Casa Carlo Goldoni and the Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani,” said Matz.