Exhibition opening ‘The Earth, The Fire, The Water, and The Winds – For a Museum of Errantry with Édouard Glissant’, the first US exhibition of the Martinican poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant’s (1928–2011) personal art collection.
Exhibition reveals a lesser-known dimension of Glissant’s life: his vision for a museum. He conceived of it not as a monument, but as a space capable of holding art, memories, and intertwined histories without reducing them to colonial frameworks.
Errantry, central to Glissant’s thinking and this vision for a museum, is movement, encounter, and reinvention. It unfolds through the crossing of borders—geographic, linguistic, and historic—and resists the pull toward singular origins or stories. Glissant imagined both the world and the museum as an archipelago: a constellation of islands that live side by side, exchanging while remaining distinct.
Assembled across six decades, Glissant’s personal art collection traces both the beginnings of this museum and the breadth of his intellectual friendships and collaborations. In post-occupation France, particularly through the Surrealist scene and Galerie du Dragon (1955–1995), Glissant encountered artists from Africa, Europe, and the Americas who approached art as a journey of displacement, renewal, and solidarity. He gathered these works not for ownership, but in the spirit of the commons, imagining them as the beginnings of a living archive attentive to relation and difference.
At CARA The Center for Art, Research and Alliances, New York (US).
225 W 13th St, New York, NY 10011, USA
From February 28th (vernissage) through May 10th, 2026.
Free entrance.
With 22 artists:
. Victor Anicet (Martinique / FR, 1938)
. Victor Brauner (RO / FR, 1903-1966)
. Ernest Breleur (Martinique / FR, 1945)
. Agustín Cárdenas (CU, 1927-2001)
. Gerardo Chávez (PE, 1937-2025)
. Manthia Diawara (ML / US, 1953) – Member of EGAF Scientific Committee
. Melvin Edwards (US, 1937) – Member of EGAF Scientific Committee
. M. Emile (HT)
. Öyvind Fahlström (BR / SE, 1928-1976)
. José Gamarra (UY / FR, 1934)
. Serge Hélénon (Martinique / FR, 1934)
. Wifredo Lam (CU / FR, 1902-1982)
. Roberto Matta (CL / IT, 1911-2022)
. Paul Mayer (FR, 1922-1998)
. Gabriela Morawetz (PL, 1952-2023)
. Irving Burnell Petlin (US, 1934-2018)
. Cesare Peverelli (IT, 1922-2000)
. Pancho Quilici (VE / FR, 1954)
. Antonio Seguí (AR / FR, 1934-2022)
. Sylvie Séma Glissant (Martinique / FR, 1958) – Founding Member of EGAF
. Eduardo Zamora (MX, 1942-2023)
. Enrique Zañartu (CL / FR, 1921-2000).
Curators: Manuela Moscoso and Marian Chudnovsky, in collaboration with Paulo Miyada and Ana Roman.
Exhibition based on an initiative of ITO – Instituto Tomie Ohtake (BR), co-organized by MACTe – Mémorial ACTe (Guadeloupe), EGAF – Edouard Glissant Art Fund (FR / Martinique) and ITM – Institut du Tout-Monde (FR).
Photo copyrights: Exhibition design by The Center for Art, Research and Alliances and Instituto Tomie Ohtake. Logo EGAF by Arthur Francietta / Bureau Blindé, based on an original drawing by Édouard Glissant.
