David Hartt: The Histories

With a rich, immersive design, this clothbound monograph reveals the fault lines of race, colonialism and empire that haunt the present

Borrowing its title from Herodotus’ fifth-century work, this publication documents a cycle of three works collectively titled The Histories, by artist David Hartt (born 1967). Focusing on the Americas and the Caribbean during the 19th century, Hartt explores real and imagined landscapes informed by the work of Martin Johnson Heade, Robert S. Duncanson, Michel-Jean Cazabon and Frederic Church. His contemporary interpretations use video, tapestry and sculpture alongside musical collaborations with Girma Yifrashewa, Van Dyke Parks and Stefan Betke. The first work, Le Mancenillier, sited in the Frank Lloyd Wright–designed Beth Sholom Synagogue, was filmed and photographed in Haiti and New Orleans. The second, Old Black Joe, in Trinidad and Ohio, and the final work, Crépuscule, commissioned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, was made in Jamaica and Newfoundland.

The Histories reveals the complex entanglement of peoples and cultures as place is explored.