current exhibition
I live a journey of a thousand years: Raphaël Barontini
On view March 7 through June 23
The exhibition 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.
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.
On view from March 7 through June 23, 2024.
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. He will soon be the artist-in-residence at Villa Albertine in New Orleans.
Raphaël Barontini, Marie-Catherine Laveau, 2024. Acrylic, inks, silkscreen, and glitter on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim (Chicago, Paris, Mexico City).
Raphaël Barontini, Queen Amina, 2023. Acrylic, inks, glitter, and silkscreen on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim (Chicago, Paris, Mexico City).
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).
upcoming exhibitions
past exhibitions
Archived material on past exhibitions can be explored further here, and recent past exhibition catalogues are available through the museum shop.
artist in residence
Our Artist-in-Residence (AIR) program invites artists to live and work at the museum. While in residence, artists consider the collection and community, and refresh our perspectives on the role of the museum. The program is central to the Currier Museum’s mission of connecting our audiences with art and creative thinking, whether of the past or the future. We hope to learn from our visiting artists – and be surprised by their perspectives.
Artists working in all media participate in the AIR program, which has three main components: 1) an open call to support emerging artists making socially engaged art; 2) an invitational through which artists are selected to develop special projects, commissions, or exhibitions; and 3) artist-led, community-centered public art projects in the city of Nashua, NH.
Open Call for Artist in Residence Applications
Our annual open call is currently live from October 1 – December 1, 2022. Artists who share the museum’s goal of positively impacting communities through the transformative power of art are encouraged to apply to this residency.