Creole World: Photographs of New Orleans and the Latin Caribbean Sphere
Louisiana is known for its distinctive Creole heritage—evident in its food, architecture, and people—but it is part of an entire family of Latin Caribbean cities that forged new identities from their colonial histories.
Richard Sexton
FEBRUARY 13 - APRIL 23, 2016
Shotgun houses...vibrant street scenes...grand villas and mansions...colorful facades—they’re all part of a historically rich, interconnected Creole world. Photographer Richard Sexton has been intrigued by this Creole world since he first traveled to Central and South America as a young man. For him, the architectural and urban similarities among Creole cities compose a visual theme supported by endless variations both grand and humble, old and new, carefully curated and wonderfully slapdash.
With more than two hundred stunning full-color photographs of Cuba, Ecuador, Argentina, Colombia, and Haiti, as well as New Orleans, Sexton gives readers a taste of everything the Creole world has to offer. Every aspect of Creole World—from its lively, unpredictable images to its bursts of color and movement—conveys the excitement of discovery in lands both foreign and familiar.
More than five hundred years ago, as Europeans encountered what, for them, was terra incognita, the Creole world acknowledged in this exhibition began to take shape. In places that became known as Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Haiti, Panama, and Louisiana, colonial trade and agriculture brought together diverse populations: native people, enslaved Africans, and Europeans. As the colonies evolved, each population shaped the local architecture, language, cuisine, and urban environment—cultural traits that still share a resemblance across many miles and amalgamations. This is the Creole world.
Richard Sexton’s fascination with the Creole world is a longstanding one, initiated in a 1974 automobile trip from Georgia through Central and South America to Bolivia and back, with a memorable stop in New Orleans along the way. The gallery’s monitor presents a selection of black-and-white photographs made during that first trip. Photographs on the walls present more recent work, accomplished between 2006 and 2013. A tablet has a few short videos made from the more recent trips, as well as an interview with Sexton on the making of Creole World.
On one level, the notion of a Creole world and the photographs made in it argue that overlapping histories among disparate places still transmit and imprint common cultural patterns in the present day. But an opposite, even paradoxical, view is also manifest: each of the places depicted is unique, a singular expression of its particular forebears in the wide Creole world.
Hace más de 500 años, cuando los europeos se encontraron con lo que para ellos era terra incognita, el mundo criollo del que se trata esta exposición apenas comenzaba. En lugares más tarde conocidos como Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Haití, Panamá y Luisiana, el comercio colonial y la agricultura unieron a diversas poblaciones: pueblos indígenas, africanos esclavizados y europeos. A medida que las colonias evolucionaban, cada población formó su propio estilo arquitectónico, idioma, gastronomía y ambiente urbano; son éstas las características culturales queaun hoy se asemejan a través de muchas millas y amalgamas. Este es el mundo criollo.
La fascinación de Richard Sexton con el mundo criollo nace en 1974 durante un viaje automovilístico que emprendió en Georgia atravesando Centro y Sudamérica y llegando a Bolivia, antes de regresar a Estados Unidos y hacer una parada memorable en Nueva Orleans. El monitor en la galería presenta una selección de fotos en blanco y negro que él tomó durante ese primer viaje. Las fotos en la pared representan obras más recientes, tomadas entre el 2006 y el 2013. La tableta muestra varios videos cortos realizados durante viajes más recientes, así como una entrevista con Sexton sobre la creación del Mundo criollo.
El concepto de un mundo criollo y las fotografías hechas en él proponen que las crónicas de los distintos lugares aun trasmiten patrones culturales comunes en la actualidad. Sin embargo, un punto de vista contrario y hasta paradójico manifiesta que cada lugar retratado es único, la singular expresión de sus antepasados en este amplio mundo criollo.
This exhibition was organized by the Historic New Orleans Collection.
The Meadows' exhibition is additionally supported by the Provost and Dean of Centenary College to be presented in English and Spanish.