Frantz Zéphirin
in The Integrated Global Creative Economy
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Curation
CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
Matrix Page
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Name:
Frantz Zéphirin
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City/Place:
Port-au-Prince
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Country:
Haiti
Life & Work
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Bio:
Frantz Zephirin was born in Cap-Haitien on December 17, 1968 to an architect father and a mother who was a nurse. Frantz was raised by his grandmother, an embroiderer. ”When I was very young, I already drew models and flowers” consequently in 1973 he began painting with his uncle, the painter Capois Antoine Obin. Having grown up in an artistic universe, he learned to read at the same time he started painting. At the age of 7, he sold his landscapes and small paintings to cruise ship tourists visiting Cap-Haitien. In 1983 he left his family in Cap-Haitien and moved to Port-au-Prince to continue his classical studies and dedicate himself entirely to painting. At that time he joined the Monnin Gallery. From 1988 he came to the Center d'Art and developed his own theme, his own style.
His paintings are inspired by history, politics, the environment, the Bible, and Haitian Creole culture, and Haiti voodoo. His work is immediately recognized by characteristics of bright colors with complex patterns that are highly compressed compositions of human figures with the heads of wild or domestic animals, mystical figures, and parallel worlds. Frantz Zephirin makes the world ironic by caricaturing men from the country's ruling class. Not without cynicism, he describes himself as a "historical animalist" and with a wry smile says ”Look closely in every man there is an animal; a fox, an ape, a cat, usually reflected as a characteristic in an individual”.
In 1994 he received the Swiss Prize and the Europe Prize for Modern Primitive Painting, at Kasper Pro Arte, Morges, Switzerland. In October 1996 he received the gold medal at the third biennial of Caribbean and Central American painting at the Museum of Modern Art in the Dominican Republic: Zephirin was one of the five Haitians participating in the V Biennial of Cuenca, Ecuador. He also participated in the "Sacred Arts of Haitian Voodoo" exhibition, which toured the United States between 1997-1998.
In 1999, his painting appeared on the cover of Bob Shacochis's book entitled, The Immaculate Invasion, a New York Times bestseller. His work appeared in two major exhibitions at the American Museum of Visionary Art, "Today H20", in 2004-2005 and "Home & Beast" in 2006-2007. Frantz Zephirin's paintings are part of the collections of international museums such as the Afrika Museum, Berg-en-Dal, the Netherlands; and the Waterloo Museum. In September 2010, his painting was featured on the cover of Smithsonian magazine, reporting on the rescue of Haitian cultural property after the January 12, 2010 earthquake. His paintings have also been included in other prestigious magazines including: Le Temps, New York Times, The World, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Times of London, The Guardian and the BBC, including their websites. His painting "The Resurrection of the Dead" was the selected image chosen for the cover of the New Yorker magazine for their January 25 edition.
In 2013-2014, he participated in the exhibition Aquatopia the Imaginary of the Ocean Deep, at the Sahm workshops in Brazzaville as part of an artist residency. During the second edition of the International Plano festival in 2018, Frantz Zephirin's painting gave a second life to the Pleyel piano at the Residence de France in Haiti, destroyed during the 2010 Earthquake.
Frantz Zephirin is a voodoo priest who has a studio in his temple, "the Temple of the Seven Virgins", high on a mountain overlooking Mariani, outside of Port-au-Prince.
Due to the political strife in his homeland Frantz is currently painting in the Dominican Republic and opened a gallery in Santo Domingo in 2021 and in 2022 combined his efforts with long time friend and gallerist Frank Giannetta to establish D’Zephirin/Giannetta Galleries.
Frantz had two pieces selected and are currently exhibited at the 2022 Venice Biennale, that runs through November 27, 2022.
He is currently working on a new project interconnecting aspects of earth and the cosmos.
Clips (more may be added)
Few people know that the Bay of All Saints was final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. And few people know the transcendence these people, and their descendents, wrought. That's where this Matrix begins...
Wolfram MathWorld
The idea is simple, powerful, and egalitarian: To propagate for them, the Matrix must propagate for all. Most in the world are within six degrees of us. The concept of a "small world" network (see Wolfram above) applies here, placing artists from the Recôncavo and the sertão, from Salvador... from Brooklyn, Berlin and Mombassa... musicians, writers, filmmakers... clicks (recommendations) away from their peers all over the planet.
This Integrated Global Creative Economy (we invented the concept) uncoils from Brazil's sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix... expanding like the canopy of a rainforest tree rooted in Bahia, branches spreading to embrace the entire world...
Recent Visitors Map
Great culture is great power.
And in a small world great things are possible.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix, then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC (I've lived here in Brazil for 32 years now) I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Salvador is our base. If you plan to visit Bahia, there are some things you should probably know and you should first visit:
www.salvadorbahiabrazil.com
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