Current and Upcoming Exhibitions
Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich: Too Bright to See (Part I)
April 13, 2023–January 7, 2024
Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich (b. 1987) is a filmmaker and artist whose work blends narrative and documentary traditions to explore stories and experiences of Black women in the Americas. Hunt-Ehrlich’s experimental narrative artwork Too Bright to See (Part I) draws on her extensive research on the legacy of Suzanne Roussi-Césaire, a writer and anticolonial and feminist activist from Martinique who, along with her husband, Aimé Césaire, was at the forefront of the Négritude movement during the first half of the 20th century. Roussi-Césaire would also become an important Surrealist thinker, influencing the likes of painter Wifredo Lam and writer André Breton. However, despite her critical contributions to Caribbean thought and Surrealist discourse, until recently much of her work was overlooked.
Too Bright to See (Part I) weaves archival materials with cinematic narrative scenes filmed with an unconventional and modern cast. Drawing inspiration from Caribbean aesthetics and Surrealist artwork, this film installation brings attention to new aspects of Roussi-Césaire’s legacy that are undocumented in the public arena, while addressing the broader question of the continued erasure of women from historical accounts.
Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich: Too Bright to See (Part I) is organized by Iberia Pérez González, Andrew W. Mellon Caribbean Cultural Institute Curatorial Associate, in the Bank of America Gallery. Ongoing support for PAMM’s project galleries from Knight Foundation is gratefully acknowledged.
Click here to read “Working Toward Suzanne: A Conversation between Terri Francis and Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich” where they discuss the vision and form behind the creative construction of Too Bright to See (Part I).
Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich’s Too Bright to See (Part I) has also been featured in Seen, a journal of film, art, and visual culture, dedicated to rigorous writing by and about Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. Click here to read “Acts of Camouflage: On Suzanne Roussi Césaire” written by Yasmina Price.