The Diplomat
With the support of the Embassy of Haiti, last week the photographic exhibition La música antes que todo, by the Haitian Daniel Pierre, was presented at the Centro Riojano in Madrid.
“Before words, it was rhythm. Before reason, vibration. Before art, music.” This is how Daniel Pierre defines the message of this photographic exhibition.
Music first of all is an exhibition that invites us to look at the invisible: the presence of music beyond sound. Through paused images, this exhibition explores how music leaves its mark on bodies, objects, spaces and emotions. Here one does not hear, one contemplates. And yet everything resounds.
Music has this power to take us to a level of joy, of sadness with the same words only to change the melody or the way of singing the song.
In this exhibition, Daniel Pierre wants to emphasize 3 points:
1- The Haitian music KONPA, a richness and vibrant cultural force that reflects the history, the resistance, the identity of its Haitian people. Daniel used very old images of famous Haitian and foreign singers in the Haiti scene from 2013, including a photograph of RARA with bamboo trumpets (vaksin), recycled metal trumpets (kone or klewon), percussion instruments and a photo of Haitian folklore dance to see the body transformation through music.
2- The most recent urban or outdoor music in different countries such as Spain, Portugal, Italy, Slovenia, Germany, Dominican Republic, Panama, Colombia, USA, France, etc. The artist wants to show the connection of the singers with their environments, tourists or local people to earn money, mostly, and before being, some, famous.
3- In tribute to Roberto Antonio Pérez Herrera. Known as Rubby Pérez, lost his life in April 2025 singing to Santo Domingo, that reminded me the photographer also the great Haitian singer Mikaben, who died in October 2022 on the scene of the Arena de Paris. Rest in peace also the Belgian singer Claude Barzotti. “They are still alive in us through their musical works,” says David Pierre.
Each photograph is a question about how we hear the world. “Listening with our eyes and feeling with memory. Because first of all, there was music. And there it is.”
Daniel Pierre was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on 18 March 1986. University degree in applied linguistics, film actor in 2005, television publicist since 2006, photographer since 2010. He has exhibited his works in Haiti, the Comoros Islands, the Dominican Republic and Spain, and was, for two years (2014-2016), official photographer of a magazine in Miami. He has also given photography workshops in Brooklyn, New York and Haiti.
