Hervé Télémaque

Hervé Télémaque (b. 1937 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti), Télémaque left for New York in 1957 entering an art scene dominated by Abstract Expressionism. In 1961, he moved permanently to Paris, associating with the Surrealists and later co-founding the Narrative Figuration movement in France with art critic Gérald Gassiot-Talabot and artist Bernard Rancillac. A reaction against the dominant trend towards Abstract art and the developing movement of Pop art in North America, Télémaque’s Narrative Figuration often results in works with a Pop sensibility that incorporate consumer objects and signs. The artist then inflects these images with an astute criticality, producing work in dialogue with current events, such as the Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis, US intervention in the Dominican Republic, and contemporary French politics. 

Télémaque has a vehement commitment to highlighting the histories and contemporary resonances of racism, imperialism and colonialism remains a constant throughout his career, with works that intimate the insidious ways that these structures continue to permeate our everyday lives. In later works, Télémaque refers more directly to his Haitian heritage and experience as part of the Caribbean diaspora.