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The Crane Arts Building
Indigo Arts' new gallery in the Crane Arts Building.
Haitian vodou flags in the new gallery.
African hair and trade signs in the new gallery.
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Moving!
After fourteen years in Old City, Indigo Arts Gallery is moving.
The gallery is moving twelve blocks north to the Crane Arts Building, a beautiful historic industrial building which has been reborn as one of Philadelphia's premier art studio and exhibition centers. The Crane Arts Building is located in the growing arts district in the Northern Liberties/South Kensington area of Philadelphia. For directions click here.
The gallery opened for a preview on Second Thursday, June 12th, from 5 to 8pm, and on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, June 14th and 15th, during the Art for the Cash Poor events. We will open for regular hours later in June, and will be open until 9pm on next Second Thursday, on July 10th.
Devi will continue to operate her business at the Old City location under the name Terra.
The new address is:
Indigo Arts Gallery
Crane Arts Building,
Unit 104
1400 N. American St.
Philadelphia, PA 19122
New telephone number: 215-765-1041
Same web address: www.indigoarts.com
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The Retablo Shop - detail of a retablo by Eleudora and Mabilon Jimenez
Claudio Jimenez
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Feature of the Month
A New Collection of Retablos from the Jimenez Family of Peru
We are pleased to offer a new collection of intricately crafted retablos - three-dimensional paintings set in boxes - from Peru.
Like the two-dimensional retablo paintings of Mexico, they originally served as shrines depicting saints and religious scenes. But the contemporary Peruvian retablista's art has grown to encompass a broad variety of scenes both sacred and secular. The retablos in our collection may depict a hat shop, weaving studio, bodega (grocery store), cantina (bar), bakery, flower harvest, mask shop or even retablo shop, as well as the nativity, crucifixion or various day of the dead scenes.
Most of our retablos are by members of the reknowned Jimenez family, originally of Ayacucho, Peru - Claudio Jimenez, son Mabilon, daughter Eleudora, and nephew Luis Huamani Rodriguez. Take a look at the selections in our Peruvian Retablo Gallery.
Click here to see Features from Previous Months.
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Woman Carrying Water
Paint on paper
Anak Chitrakar
IWest Bengal, India
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Feature
Water For People
We were pleased to offer one of our images, Woman Carrying Water, by the West Bengal, India patua artist Anak Chitrakar, for the use of a non-profit organization called Water for People. Chitrakar's painting was reproduced as part of a set of fundraising notecards featuring water issues in the developing world.
Water for people helps people in developing countries improve their quality of life by supporting the develoment of locally sustainable drinking water resources, sanitation facilities, and health and hygeine education programs.
Other cards in the series featured artwork from other Water for People program areas, such as Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras and Malawi. Click here for information about Water For People, their projects and the cards.
Click here for the Indian Painting and Scroll Gallery.
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La Sirene
Vodou Flag
Mireille Delice
Haiti
Spirits in Sequins: Vodou Flags of Haiti
Nancy Jacobson
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New Listings
We have added a chronological listing of our new postings to the site, in all categories -- paintings, sculpture, masks, jewelry, baskets, housewares etc., as we add them.
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Indigo Arts' new gallery in the Crane Arts Building
Indigo -
The Store
Indigo Arts
Gallery, 2000
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Welcome to Indigo!
Indigo has been in business for twenty-two years, located for the last ten years in a retail and gallery space in Phladelphia's historic Old City district, the gallery has now moved twelve blocks north to the Crane Arts Building, a beautiful historic industrial building which has been reborn as one of Philadelphia's premier art studio and exhibition centers.
At Indigo Arts Gallery we feature special exhibitions, including work by artists from Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico and Tibet. Look for more information on these and previous shows in the Exhibitions section below and in the ever-expanding Gallery section of this website.
Most of the pieces shown on the site are available for purchase (Click on the image or caption and you will find price and other information on the blow-up). To order items you find on our site, or to see photographs of these and more works, please click the Contact/Visit Us icon above, email us directly at indigofamily@indigoarts.com, call 215-765-1041 or our toll-free phone number at 1-888-INDIART
Our hours are:
Wednesday - Saturday: 12 PM to 6:00 PM
Sunday - Tuesday: by appointment or by chance.
Open late (9:00 PM) on the Second Thursday of every month.
We are happy to accept Mastercard, Visa, Discover and American Express cards, and PayPal. Please phone or fax us with this information. We generally ship by UPS or US Postal Service. Because shipping/handling costs are seldom less than $8, we do not ship orders of less than $35.
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New in the Web-Site!
June 29, 2008
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Yina Figure
(Papua New Guinea)
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Antique Yoruba
"Ibeji" Twin Figures
(Nigeria)
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African Art Gallery
The Africa gallery includes pages devoted to masks and sculptures of the Bamana, Dogon, Igbo, Yoruba, Kran, Lega and other peoples. We have also added pages featuring textiles from the Kuba, Ewe and Fon people. Our newest additions are a collection of aluminum relief sculptures by the late great Yoruba artist Asiru Olatunde and family, paintings by Nigerian artists Twins Seven-Seven, Jinadu Oladepo and others, a wonderful group of beaded dolls from South Africa, and a collection of books about African art. More pages are added regularly.
Click here for the African Art Gallery.
Updated 4/23/2008.
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Antique Mexican
Dance Mask
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Mexican and Guatemalan Masks
We have opened a gallery of fine antique and contemporary dance masks from Mexico and Guatemala. The collection includes masks carved for such festivals as Carnaval, and the Dias de los Muertos (Days of the Dead), as well as traditional dances such as the Dance of the Conquest, the Dance of the Tigers and the Dance of the Moors and the Christians.
Click here for the Mexican and Guatemalan Mask Gallery.
Updated 11/27/2007.
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"El Gallo con Mazorcas y Luna"
Jose Garcia
Montebravo (Cuba)
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Cuba Gallery
We have expanded the Cuba Gallery section, with new pages devoted to the work of Cuban self-taught artists Fito, Abel Perez Mainegra, José Garcia Montebravo, Pelly, Rivera, Luis "El Estudiante" Rodriguez, Sanfiel, Wayacon and others. We have added many new pieces from our August 2001 trip to Cuba, recently exhibited in our Cuban Self-Taught show. New artists include Arnaldo Garcia, Reina Ledon, Roberto Torres Lameda and prints by the famous Afro-Cuban master, Manuel Mendive. To read more about our experience in Cuba, with photographs of Cuba and of several of the artists read our Notes from Cuba from our March 2000 visit.
Click here for the Cuba Gallery.
Updated 4/23/2008.
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"Marasa" Haitian
Vodou Banner
Antoine Oleyant. 1991
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Haiti Gallery
The Haitian Gallery section features new pages devoted to the work of painters Montas Antoine, Alberoi Bazile, Wilson Bigaud, St. Louis Blaise, Gelin Buteau, G. E. Ducasse, Gerard Fortuné, Alexandre Gregoire, Jorelus Joseph, Dieuseul Paul, Manno Paul, Andre Pierre, Denis Smith, Gerard Valcin. Pierre-Joseph Valcin, Jacques Valmidor, Wagler Vital and many others. We have also added pages of vodou banners by George Valris, Clotaire Bazile, Myrlande Constant, Sylva Joseph, Maxon Scylla and others; steel-drum sculpture by Gabriel Bien-Aime, Serge Jolimeau, Janvier Louis-Juste and others; and wonderful papier maché sculpture from the southern city of Jacmel.
Click here for our Haitian Art Gallery.
Updated 6/29/2008.
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"A la Orilla del Rio
(River's Edge)"
Santiago Crespin
(Nicaragua)
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"Angel Azul" (detail)
Rodolfo Morales
(Oaxaca, Mexico)
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Balinese Demon Mask
"Tigerl"
Montu Chitrakar
(West Bengal, India)
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"Boeing 707"
Barbershop Sign
(Ghana)
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African Barbershop Signs
Another addition to the Gallery section is Bon Coiffure: Barber Shop Signs from West Africa, with a selection of barber and hairdresser's signs from Ghana, Benin, Burkina Faso, Togo and the Ivory Coast. Our signs were featured in the January 2002 issue of Lucky magazine. Don't miss seeing this exciting urban folk art!
Click here for the African Barbershop Sign Gallery.
Updated 6/17/2008.
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O Pegador de Onca
José Francisco Borges
(Brazil)
Milagre ex-voto foot
Unknown artist
(Ceará, Brazil)
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Kuba
Pillows
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Hand-crafted Jewelry
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Telephone Wire
Baskets
Picture-frames and Boxes
Made in India from recycled glass bangles
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Recycled Art and Toy Bazaar!
We continue to add more pages of art, artifacts and toys made from recycled materials to the Store section. These include baskets woven of telephone-wire in South Africa and Zimbabwe and cars, trucks, bikes, suitcases and more made of recycled tin-cans in Kenya, Tanzania, Mali, Cuba, Vietnam, and brightly colored picture-frames and boxes covered by a mosaic of pieces of traditional Indian glass bangles..
Our recycled products were featured in the March 2005 issue of Sky magazine. The article, Bags, Bottle Caps and Tin Cans: Craftspeople from Around the World Create from Recycled Materials tells the story of our long fascination with people's resourceful use of discarded materials:
Philadelphia gallery owner Tony Fisher grew up in Africa. Traveling the continent, his family would often see children playing with homemade toys—creations like cars of scrap wood with shoe-polish cans for wheels, or dolls sewn from shreds of fabric. In homes, he saw kerosene lanterns made from repurposed cooking-oil cans and storage containers made from pieced metal.
This Third World ingenuity still operates today, but what Fisher first saw done to supply things for the home is now also done as marketable folk art. American and European collectors are going to Indigo Arts Gallery, the store Fisher and Devi Cholet launched in 1986, as well as to museum stores and other specialty shops, to buy baskets, home décor, tote bags and toys—all made from surplus or recycled materials...
One of our baskets was also featured in the May 2005 issue of Upscale magazine (page 94).
Click here for the Recycled Art and Toy Bazaar.
Updated 6/29/2008
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Samburu
Beaded baskets
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Samburu Beaded Baskets
These gorgeous Samburu beaded baskets and containers are handmade by the Samburu people in northern Kenya. Using wire and authentic Czech beads - the original beads brought to Kenya by European traders - women create products that exhibit vibrant patterns and styles. A Fair Trade project.
Click here for our Samburu beaded baskets.
Updated 12/17/2007
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Flying Hindu God and Goddess
Ornaments
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Hindu God and Goddess Ornaments!
The Store section also features our collection of painted wood flying Hindu gods and goddesses from India - Krishna, Shiva, Parvati, Ganesh, Brahma, Durga and Hanuman. Wonderful ornaments for the holidays or year-round!.
Click here for the Hindu God and Goddess Ornaments.
Updated 11/29/2007
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Holiday Ornaments
from around the World!
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Holiday Ornaments from around the World!
The Store section now features our ever-changing collection of ornaments from India, Peru, Mexico, South Africa and around the world. Wonderful ornaments for the holidays or year-round!.
Click here for our Holiday ornaments.
Updated 11/25/2007
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Indigo Arts Cards
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Indigo Arts Cards
We now have a complete online catalog of our popular line of Indigo Arts Cards. We offer an eclectic and international line of notecards and postcards featuring popular, folk and contemporary arts from Africa, Asia and the Americas. The line is sold in fine stores, galleries and museum shops all over the country as well as abroad. We welcome both retail and wholesale card orders.
Click here for the Indigo Arts Cards catalog.
Updated 9/14/2005
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Recent Exhibitions
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Paisaje de Lapas Nicaraguenses
José Ignacio Fletes Cruz
Leon, Nicaragua, 2006
Nicaraguan painter Ignacio Fletes Cruz
at Indigo Arts. February 2nd, 2007
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Ignacio Fletes Cruz:
Nicaraguan Primitivista Painter
Noted Nicaraguan Primitivista artist, José Ignacio Fletes Cruz returned to Indigo Arts Gallery during the months of February and March,2007. Fletes Cruz was on hand for a reception at Indigo Arts Gallery on First Friday, February 2nd, from 5 to 9:30pm and at the gallery on saturday afternoon, February 3rd , to demonstrate and discuss his work. While the show ended on March 31st, a small selection of his work remains on display at Indigo Arts.
While in Pennsylvania, Fletes Cruz was also commissioned to paint two murals, at the Lancaster Theological Seminary in Lancaster, PA, and the University of Pittsburgh.
Nicaraguan painter Ignacio Fletes Cruz instructs a young artist at Indigo Arts. February 2nd, 2007
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Gallo con Platano
José Garcia Montebravo
Cienfuegos, Cuba, 2003
Una Tarde de Mayo
Fernando Olivera
Oaxaca, Mexico, 2005
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José Garcia Montebravo:
Cuban Self-Taught Painter
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Prints from Oaxaca:
Masters of the Mexican Tradition
Marking its 20th year of exhibiting international folk and contemporary art in Philadelphia, Indigo Arts Gallery offers two shows featuring the arts of Latin America: José Garcia Montebravo: Cuban Self-taught Painter and Prints from Oaxaca: Masters of the Mexican Tradition.
The first exhibit focuses on the visionary work of self-taught Cuban artist José Garcia Montebravo.
The second includes aquatints, lithographs, serigraphs, woodcuts and linoprints by artists from Oaxaca, Mexico, including Modesto Bernardo, Enrique Flores, Abelardo Lopez, Eddie Martinez, Leovigildo Martinez, Lorena Montes, Felipe Morales, Fernando Olivera, and the late master, Rodolfo Morales.
Indigo Arts is a community partner for the two fall shows at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Tesoros/Treasures/Tesouros: The Arts of Latin America, 1492-1820, and Mexico and Modern Printmaking: A Revolution in the Graphic Arts, 1920-1950.
The exhibit opened with a reception on First Friday, October 6th, from 5:00 to 9:30 pm. It continues on display through the month of January, 2007.
See our full selection of José Garcia Montebravo andArt from Oaxaca in our Oaxaca Gallery.
Note: At this writing Oaxaca appears to emerging from the turmoil it has been in since May 2006. It has been very painful to see such conflict in a place we have come to know and love over the last twenty years. We hope for the safety for our many friends there, for wisdom for both the government and its opponents, and a quick return to peace and reconciliation for Oaxaca. |
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Untitled (La Luna)
Fernando Olivera
Oaxaca, Mexico, 2005
Claro de Luna
Lorena Montes
Oaxaca, Mexico, 2002
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De la Tierra de los Sueños
From the Land of Dreams:
Art from Oaxaca, Mexico
Prints and Paintings by Modesto Bernardo, Enrique Flores, Abelardo Lopez, Eddie Martinez, Leovigildo Martinez, Lorena Montes, Felipe Morales, Rodolfo Morales, Fernando Olivera, Filemon Santiago & others.
The exhibition includes paintings and prints by Modesto Bernardo, Enrique Flores, Abelardo Lopez, Eddie Martinez, Leovigildo Martinez, Lorena Montes, Felipe Morales, Fernando Olivera, Filemon Santiago, and Oaxaca’s late master, Rodolfo Morales.
The exhibit opened with a reception on First Friday, May 5th, from 5:00 to 9:30 pm. It continued on display through September, 2006.
See our full selection of Art from Oaxaca in our Oaxaca Gallery. |
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The Wheel of Life
Tibetan Thangka painting
Karma Tsering Lama
Nepal
Dragon Village
Binod Moktan
Nepal
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Sky Above and Earth Below, which opened at Indigo Arts Gallery on December 2nd, 2005, features the work of three Tibetan artists. Karma Tsering Lama and Nima Gyamcho Lama are masters of the intricate Tibetan Buddhist devotional paintings known as Thangkas. Binod Moktan, also skilled a painter of thangkas, applies his talents to painting the Himalayan landscape of his memory.
The exhibit opened with a reception on First Friday, December 2nd, from 5:00 to 9:30 pm. It continues on display through the month of April, 2006.
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The Gods Give Life to the Sacred Places of the Earth - Huichol Yarn-Painting
by José Benitez Sanchez, Nayarit, Mexico
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Visions to Heal the World:
Huichol Art by José Benitez Sanchez, Maximino Renteria de la Cruz & others
Visionary yarn-paintings from Mexico's Sierra Madre
The exhibition which opened at Indigo Arts Gallery on October 7th, 2005 featured a collection of visionary artworks from the Huichol Indians of Mexico’s remote Sierra Madre Occidental region. It centered on the nierika yarn paintings by the celebrated shaman/artist, José Benitez Sanchez, as well as other Huichol artists. Benitez was the subject of Mythic Visions: Yarn Paintings of a Huichol Shaman, the dazzling 2003 show at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The paintings reflect the visions of the Huichol shamans - their religious stories and mythology, their peyote-enhanced visions and their determination to heal themselves and their world through communication with the deities.
The exhibit continued through November 27th, 2005. We also hosted a lecture at Indigo Arts on October 15th (3 to 5pm) by Michele Belluomini, who has studied with the Huichol for nearly twenty years.
Click here for our Huichol Art Gallery.
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"Milagre" Ex-voto Head
Ceará, Brazil
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"A Mulher Que Botou O Diabo Na Garrafa (The Woman who put the Devil in a Bottle)"
José Francisco Borges
Bezerros, Pernambuco, Brazil
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Mysteries and Miracles:
Folk Art from Brazil's Northeast
The exhibition which opened at Indigo Arts Gallery on April 1st featured two distinct folk arts from Brazil’s Northeast: the folheto tradition of wood-cut prints, represented by the work of José Francisco Borges and others, and the carved wooden ex-votos called milagrés.
We have greatly expanded our collection of Brazilian Folk Art, with the acquisitiuon of many more wood-cut prints by the "Master of the Brazilian Backlands", José Francisco Borges. Described by the New York Times as "one of Latin America's most celebrated folk artists", his work has been exhibited at the Louvre and the Smithsonian Institution, as well as the International Museum of Folk Art in Santa Fe. Living in the village of Bezerros, Pernambuco state, in Northeastern Brazil, Borges chronicles the life and legends of rural Brazil with empathy and humor. To his work we have added a selection of the other many talented Brazilian wood-cut artists, including other members of the Borges family: Amaro Francisco Borges, Ivan Borges and José Miguel da Silva.. The New York Times recently carried an excellent article on the cordel tradition, featuring Borges and others, "The Traveling Troubadors of Brazil's Backlands" (June 14, 2005).
To balance this view of Brazilian life we have also been fortunate to acquire a significant collection of hand-carved wooden milagre (miracle) ex-votos from the states of Ceará and Pernambuco. Don't miss this unusual folk art!
Click here for the Brazilian Folk Art Gallery.
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News, Events and Travels
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Oñí pa´ Ochún
Acrylic on canvas
Javier Gonzalez Gallosa
Cienfuegos, Cuba
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The International Caribbean Art Fair
Indigo Arts Gallery was pleased to participate in the first International Caribbean Art Fair held at the Puck Building in SoHo, New York, from November 1st through November 4th, 2007.
The International Caribbean Art Fair is a first-of-its-kind expo exclusively featuring artworks by Caribbean artists—either living in or outside of the Caribbean islands. It brought together more than 40 distinguished galleries and artists representing the best in Caribbean Art.
Indigo Arts exhibited work by Cuban and Haitian artists, including Javier Gonzalez Gallosa, José Garcia Montebravo, Pierre-Joseph Valcin, George Valris and others. Click here for more information about the ICA Fair.
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"La Sirene"
Haitian Vodou flag by Myrlande Constant
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Vodou Flag Trunk Sale!
Direct from the Finest Sequin Artists in Haiti.
Presented with Nancy Josephson – Artist, musician, student of Haitian Vodou, and author of the upcoming book on Vodou Flags
Doubtless the most spectacular Haitian art form is the sequin-covered Drapo Vodou or "Voodoo Flag". Vodou banners derive directly from the practice of the Vodou religion. Vodou is a syncretism of the traditional African religions brought to Haiti by slaves, with the Catholicism of their former masters. The banners are traditionally the work of practicing vodou priests and their followers. They are displayed in the vodou sanctuaries and are carried at the commencement of a ceremony. Each flag depicts the vévé symbol or image of the loa to which it is devoted. The flags are made of shiny silk fabrics to which have been sewn a brilliant mosaic of sequins and beads. A full-size banner typically contains 18,000 to 20,000 sequins and may take ten days to complete.
Among the more traditional practitioners of the art are Sylva Joseph, Clotaire Bazile, and Yves Telemac. Other important sequin artists include Maxon Scylla, George Valris and Myrlande Constant.
Nancy Josephson brought work by these and other current sequin artists to Indigo Arts for a two day sale on November 19th and 20th, 2005. Nancy is a woman of diverse talents. Widely known as a visionary artist, her installation pieces were featured in the recent exhibit at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Holy H2O: Fluid Universe. Both as an artist and as a student of vodou, she has worked and studied with Haiti’s best sequin artists. She is currently completing a book on vodou flags for Schiffer Press. You may also have heard her as a member of the David Bromberg Band and most recently, the Angel Band.
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Twins Seven-Seven opens African Visions at Indigo Arts Gallery
on November 5th, 2004
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Twins Seven-Seven Named
UNESCO Artist of Peace!
Indigo Arts wishes to congratulate Nigerian-born Philadelphia artist Prince Twins Seven-Seven on his naming as UNESCO Artist for Peace for 2005. The award was presented by the Director-General of UNESCO, Koichiro Matsuura at a ceremony in Paris on May 25th, 2005. The ceremony was attended by His Excellency Olusegun Obasanjo, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Chairperson of the African Union. 2004 Nobel Peace Prize-winner Wangari Maathai of Kenya also received a UNESCO award at the ceremony.
In making the award, the Director-General said:
"Your outstanding career as a painter, teacher and musician and your contribution to the promotion of dialogue between cultures through artistic development have been widely and internationally recognized. Indeed your manifold artistic initiatives resonate with many of UNESCO's objectives and values. It is therefore with great pleasure that I have decided to designate you as UNESCO Artist for Peace.
Your ability to shape new artistic paradigms and your capacity to move beyond conventional norms of proportion and perspective have been hallmarks of your genuine artistic approach leading to understanding, appreciation and tolerance among peoples. Your work underlines the notion that diversity is an asset."
Prince Twins Seven-Seven was one of the original artists of the famed Oshogbo School (named for the city of that name), which arose in the newly independent Nigeria of the early 1960’s. Seven-Seven rapidly achieved international fame, with major exhibitions in Europe, Japan and Australia as well as the United States. His work is now in museum and private collections around the world, including the Smithsonian Institution.
Indigo Arts Gallery has shown the work of Twins Seven-Seven since 1994, most recently in our recent African Visions show. One of Twins Seven-Seven’s paintings was featured in the Philadelphia Museum of Art show, African Art, African Voices, He is also a very talented musician, as he and his band (consisting of his wife and five children) demonstrated with a thrilling concert at Indigo Arts on November 5th 2004.
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Chickens made from recycled plastic bags
South Africa
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Bags, Bottle Caps and Tin Cans
Our recycled products were featured in the March 2005 issue of Sky magazine. The article, Bags, Bottle Caps and Tin Cans: Craftspeople from Around the World Create from Recycled Materials tells the story of our long fascination with people's resourceful use of discarded materials:
Philadelphia gallery owner Tony Fisher grew up in Africa. Traveling the continent, his family would often see children playing with homemade toys—creations like cars of scrap wood with shoe-polish cans for wheels, or dolls sewn from shreds of fabric. In homes, he saw kerosene lanterns made from repurposed cooking-oil cans and storage containers made from pieced metal.
This Third World ingenuity still operates today, but what Fisher first saw done to supply things for the home is now also done as marketable folk art. American and European collectors are going to Indigo Arts Gallery, the store Fisher and Devi Cholet launched in 1986, as well as to museum stores and other specialty shops, to buy baskets, home décor, tote bags and toys—all made from surplus or recycled materials.
Click here for the Recycled Art and Toy Bazaar.
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Havana, November, 2003
Abelito Mainegra with George Bush
Trindad, Cuba. November, 2003 |
Cuba 2003
In November, 2003, as the deadline approached for the expiration of nearly all licenses for Americans to travel there legally (see below), Tony made a trip to Cuba. The Havana Biennial, an immense exhibition of international contemporary art was in full swing. More than ever, it was an experience both gratifying and as it turned out, deeply disturbing.
Tony was generously received by artists and people of the arts, both old friends and new, in Havana, Cienfuegos and Trinidad, including José Basulto, Javier Gallosa, Alicia Leal, Abelito Mainegra, José Montebravo, Omar Castellanos, Jorgé Sanfiel, Elio Vilva and Wayacon. The artists of Cuba continue to produce extraordinary work. We will be putting a new selection of this work on the website in the coming weeks. Unfortunately new barriers to free travel and artistic exchange are being raised on both sides. We hope to be able to return, and to continue to share tthe art of Cuba with the United States and beyond.
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Previous News, Events & Travels
For a chronology of more past events at Indigo Arts Gallery over the last few years click here.
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Sign the Petition to Protect Your Right to Travel to Cuba
At Indigo Arts we have travelled to Cuba and brought Cuban artists here legally. We believe you should be able to do so too. But recent changes in regulations by the Bush administration have outlawed virtually all legal travel to Cuba! A web-based petition drive to force President Bush to reverse his misguided efforts on US policy toward Cuba was initiated by www.cubacentral.com, an Internet site sponsored by the Center for International Policy (CIP), the Latin America Working Group (LAWG), and Global Exchange. The petition calls the Bush initiative "a mistake of historic proportions," and says to the President "rather than repeating the failed policies of the last forty-two years ... you should follow President Carter's example and heed his advice: end the embargo. Stop the ban on travel. Promote real reconciliation between people of the United States and Cuba." The full text of the petition can be found on www.cubacentral.com. Sign the Petition! Visit www.cubacentral.com/petition/,
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In Memoriam
Several last pieces of news which we regret to report. In the last few years we have lost several fine artists; four grand old masters, Rodolfo Morales from Oaxaca, Mexico and Alexandre Gregoire, Louisiane St. Fleurant, Andre Pierre and Pierre-Joseph Valcin from Haiti, and Gelin Buteau and Julien Valery, two rising Haitian artists who have left us far too soon. We have also lost two pivotal figures in Haitian art: American-born art historian, writer, poet, promoter, and dealer, Selden Rodman; and Port-au-Prince art dealer Issa el Saieh.
Since September 11, 2001, tragedy and brutality on a mind-boggling scale have overcome our country and the world. Our hearts go out to the many innocent and brave souls who have lost their lives - friends, friends of friends and equally the many others we never knew. We pray for wisdom for our leaders who wield so much power, and for peace and justice in this ever more fragile world. We urge all people who believe in peace and justice to make your voices heard.
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Andre Pierre at his easel
Croix-des-Missions, Haiti, 1991
Photo by Anthony Fisher, copyright 1991
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André Pierre 1916-2005
André Pierre, one of the giants of Haitian art, has joined the spirits. A houngan or vodou priest in the village of Croix-des-Missions, he became one of Haiti's greatest painters, considered by many the artistic heir to the houngan master painter, Hector Hyppolite. He was a farmer and an active vodou practitioner before being introduced to the Centre d'Art in the late 1940's by film-maker Maya Deren, who had admired his temple wall paintings and decorated gourd bowls. He devoted his painting career to visualizing and honoring the loas of the vodou pantheon
We visited André in his houmfor (vodou temple) in the village of Croix-des-Missions in 1991. He gave us a tour of the shrines devoted to each of the loas, and talked to us while he painted. As protocol dictated, we left him with a bottle of powerful clairin "for the spirits".
You may read a more complete biography and remembrances of Andre Pierre on the Haitian Art Society website.
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Issa el Saieh and grandson, Victor, ca. 1991
Photo by Bill Bollendorf, copyright 1991
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Issa el Saieh 1919-2005
Issa was not a painter himself (although he was a very talented musician and bandleader), but nevertheless was one of the most important figures in Haitian art over the last fifty years. Starting in the early fifties he sold Haitian art out of a restaurant, a department store, a gallery and finally his Port-au-Prince home.
We last visited him in his art-packed house in 1995 and remember him for his stories, his vast knowledge of Haitian art, his kindness to visitors, and his sense of humor. You may read a much more complete biography and remembrance of Issa on Bill Bollendorf''s Galerie Macondo website.
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Alexandre Gregoire
(Haiti)
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Alexandre Gregoire 1922-2001
Perhaps the last great master of Haitian "primitive" art (the other being P.J. Valcin, below), Alexandre Gregoire passed away at his home in Jacmel, Haiti on July, 28, 2001. You may read a more extensive obituary published by the Haiti Support Network (click to read the obituary). We were fortunate to visit Gregoire in his Port-au-Prince studio on several occasions, and have shown his work for the last ten years.
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Rodolfo Morales
(Oaxaca, Mexico) at Indigo Arts, 1997
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Rodolfo Morales 1925-2001
One of the great masters of 20th century Mexican art, and a dear friend of ours, Rodolfo Morales passed away in January of 2001. His obituary was published in the New York Times (click to read the obituary) on February 6, 2001. We have been privileged to show Rodolfo's work for twelve years, to meet him many times, to visit him in his Ocotlan, Mexico studio, and in 1997 to host him in his visit to Indigo Arts Gallery in Philadelphia. We will miss him. Indigo Arts mounted a memorial show of the work of Rodolfo Morales in June through August 2001.
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Pierre-Joseph Valcin
(Haiti)
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Pierre-Joseph Valcin 1925-2000
Pierre-Joseph Valcin, one of the last great masters of Haitian "primitive" art, passed away in February of 2000. His profoundly humanistic work lives on.
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Gelin Buteau
(Haiti)
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Gelin Buteau 1954-2000
Gelin Buteau, a rising star of Haiti's current generation of self-taught artists, passed away in July of 2000. We will miss his brilliant, fantastic and often disturbing vision.
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Espwa Bel Viv
Hope for a Better Life in Haiti
We at Indigo are pleased to support Fonkoze, a seven year old organization devoted to promoting development from the grassroots up in Haiti. At a time when so much of the news from Haiti is discouraging, Fonkoze is making solid progress in improving the lives of many Haitians. Fonkoze provides support to farmers, Ti Machann street vendors and small entrepreneurs with micro-credit loans, secure local banking, training in literacy and business skills and other programs.
"Here at Fonkoze, we believe that economic democracy can be an avenue to true political democracy, especially when development comes from the base, and encompasses broad grassroots participation." Father Joseph Phillippe - Coordinator, Fonkoze
To learn more about Fonkoze visit their web-site: www.fonkoze.org
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