Victor Anicet

Victor Anicet’s (1938, Le Marigot, Martinique) ceramic works are a continuous exercise in restoring the testimonies of the Martinican people. His father, a fisherman, and his mother, a worker at the sugar mill of a habitation (an extension of the colonial production regime based on slave labor), allowed Anicet his first contact with the ceramics of the Amerindian Arawak people when he was a child, while assisting with the archaeological excavations organized by Father Pinchon at the Adoration site in Le Marigot, in the north of Martinique. Years later, while studying in Paris, he visited the Musée de L’Homme and realized how far he and his people had distanced themselves from their history, which had remained in the hands and voices of the colonizers. Anicet returned to Martinique in 1967 and has since been addressing the lack of space for exhibiting contemporary art there. His exhibition Soleil Noir [Black Sun] of black and white paintings on wood was installed outdoors in 1970. Since then, his work has taken place both inside and outside the studio, whether by joining with other artists interested in debating Caribbean aesthetics to found the group FWOMAJE (1984), by dedicating himself to fostering an institutional space for Martinican art, or by creating public works.