I live a journey of a thousand years: The Currier premieres
new and recent work by French artist Raphaël Barontini
Exhibition dates: March 7 – June 23, 2024
Exhibition venue: Currier Museum of Art, Manchester (NH)
Exhibition curator: Lorenzo Fusi, Chief Curator
Raphaël Barontini, La Bataille de Vertières (lower); Solitude (upper left); Triomphe de Toussaint (upper
right), 2023, installation view, Panthéon, Paris. Courtesy the artist and Mariane Ibrahim (Chicago, Paris,
Mexico City).
January 22, 2024 – Manchester, New Hampshire – The Currier Museum of Art is
delighted to announce I live a journey of a thousand years, a new exhibition of the work
of French artist Raphaël Barontini (b. 1984, Saint-Denis, France) opening in March
2023. The title paraphrases a passage from the poem Calendrier lagunaire, published in
1982 by the late Martinican author and politician Aimé Césaire, which reads: “I dwell in
a thousand-year journey.” This is a journey that Barontini feels he is living, alongside
those whose life experiences result from uprooting and displacement, and whose
identities have been forged by encounters with other cultures through processes of
creolization. These processes were described by Martinique-born French philosopher
Édouard Glissant as a complex entanglement of different cultures forced into
cohabitation, as in the case of the Antilles and other countries in the Caribbean.
Barontini’s mother hails from the French West Indies, and so he is himself the product of
such entanglement, which is further complicated by his European heritage. His work is
an endless journey of self-discovery and historical excavation. Suspended between
multiple fractured identities, Barontini continuously attempts to blur these lines –
culturally, geopolitically, and historically. His work often surfaces the silenced stories of
militants and freedom fighters, whom he celebrates as heroes mimicking and infiltrating
the Western art canon and its representational and ceremonial modalities.
“I work daily with history and its past visual manifestations,” says Barontini. “These
materials provide me with a framework. My practice is centered on storytelling and
opening a dialogical space for interrogating our past […] The era of the triangular trade
has interested me for a long time, because it is a pivotal moment in history. Its impact on
the geopolitical, economic, and cultural relations between Europe, Africa, and the
Americas persists. This painful historical juncture is also the breeding ground for an
exceptional creolized culture, which turned the arts upside down. My work addresses
these issues – but is primarily concerned with imagination.”
The resulting imagery combines diverse references in a visual collage that perfectly
exemplifies Glissant’s definition of the term “creole”: a cultural hybrid that is a blending
of different cultural, linguistic, and social elements in a region. Similarly, Barontini’s work
combines multiple references, resulting in images that are both familiar and arrestingly
novel. His mixed-media technique and practice are equally layered and complex.
The exhibition comprises about twenty works and is Barontini’s largest presentation to
date at a US institution. Closely following the commission entitled We Could be Heroes
at the Panthéon in Paris – part of the Carte blanche series organized by France’s
National Monuments Center – the exhibition at the Currier features La Bataille de
Vertières (2023) as its centerpiece, a monumental 65-foot-wide painting that first
premiered inside the Panthéon and will be on view in the US for the first time. The work
is complemented by recent work from US private collections and several new pieces
created specifically for the Currier Museum.
This exhibition is generously supported by M. Christine Dwyer and Michael Huxtable.
About the Artist
Raphaël Barontini was born in 1984 in Saint-Denis, France, where he still lives and
works. Barontini’s combination of photography, silkscreen printing, painting, and digital
printing results in a style of painting in movement that offers a new perspective on
history, whilst simultaneously asking questions about the very status of painting in a
museum or public space.
His work has been exhibited in institutions all over the world, including MAC VAL
(Vitry-sur-Seine, France), MO.CO (Montpellier, France), the Museum of African
Diaspora (San Francisco), New Art Exchange (Nottingham, UK), and the Museum of
Arts and Design (New York). He has also taken part in the international biennials in
Bamako (Mali), Casablanca (Morocco), Lima (Peru), and Thessaloniki (Greece). He will
soon be the artist-in-residence at Villa Albertine in New Orleans.
About the Currier Museum of Art
The Currier Museum is an internationally renowned art museum located in Manchester,
New Hampshire. The museum features paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, and
photographs, including works by Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keeffe,
Edward Hopper, and Andrew Wyeth. It presents exhibitions, tours, art classes, and
special programs year-round. The museum also owns two houses designed by Frank
Lloyd Wright.
CURRIER MUSEUM MEDIA CONTACT
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EXTERNAL MEDIA CONTACT
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Evergreen Arts
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Currier Museum of Art
150 Ash Street
Manchester, NH 03104
