In Extremis: Death and Life in 21st-Century Haitian Art

Focusing on artistic evocations of the irrepressible Gedes--an increasingly dominant family of trickster dieties--In Extremis examines the striking disjunction between social collapse and artistic flourescence in twenty-first century Haiti. It brings together the work of 34 artists, most of them living in Port-au-Prince, where they produce remarkable and controversial bodies of work in a variety of media while confronting on a daily basis the realities of Haiti's frustratingly slow recovery from the earthquake of 2010. Some of these artists have achieved acclaim on the international stage, but many receive new attention or reexamination here.

Donald J. Cosentino is professor emeritus of world arts and cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles. Other contributors include Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, Edwidge Danticat, Leah Gordon, Claudine Michel, Patrick A. Polk, Jean Claude Saintilus, Katherine Smith, and Stephen C. Wehmeyer.