In the Vodou spirit

Overcrowded freeways, prisons and schools describe life in California, where too many commuters, convicts and children are crammed into an infrastructure built for a much smaller population. Museums occasionally face similar situations, but only when blockbuster exhibitions pack busloads of visitors into galleries jampacked with masterpieces. For the most part, too many viewers is not a problem for museums. Too much art is.

Most major institutions display a small fraction of their collections. The rest of the art gathers dust in storage.

The simplest -- and least expensive -- solution is to crowd more art into each gallery. Sometimes this makes for displays so chockablock with mismatched objects that they resemble high-end thrift stores or an eccentric aunt’s overstuffed living room. At other times, it works well, doing no disservice to the works while giving visitors a chance to see pieces they’d otherwise miss.

At the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, “Saluting Vodou Spirits: Haitian Flags From the Fowler Collection” falls into the second category. The informal show, organized by guest curator Donald Cosentino, is not a full-dress exhibition that includes a catalog, results from years of research and produces original scholarship. It’s a bonus -- an added attraction to any visit to the two comprehensive exhibitions at the Fowler. It’s also a prelude to an October survey of works by Haitian American artist Edouard Duval Carrie, also organized by Cosentino.

Thirty ritual flags, or drapo, have been handsomely installed in the arched walkway at the perimeter of the building’s open courtyard. Made of sequins, beads and pictorial appliques stitched to satin, velvet and rayon rectangles, the flags are adorned with decorative fringes and tassels. Their brightly colored fabrics and various bits of metal, plastic and glass shimmer and sparkle in the sunlight.

Straightforward wall labels sketch the historical back story. Since no new scholarly arguments are put forth by the show, the labels are not burdened by arcane details. They give uninitiated viewers just enough information to enhance their enjoyment of the fabulous flags, which capture the imagination of anyone who ever flew a banner from a tree fort or fantasized about founding a nation.

That’s what happened in Haiti 200 years ago, when it was still known as Saint-Dominique. In 1804, after a 13-year war with France, Gen. Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaimed Haiti’s independence.

Inside the main entrance, a 1995 painting by Madsen Mompremier illustrates the event. In Pop-Surrealist style, it depicts soldiers, priests and spirits, known as lwa, looking on with wide eyes as the white section of the French flag is cut away so that the blue and red sections can be sewn together to form the background of the Haitian flag.

Hung flat on the walls in open wood frames, the 30 flags make Betsy Ross look like the prim Puritan that she was. Today, the costumes worn by Vegas showgirls would more closely resemble the Haitian flags.

You don’t need a doctorate in sociology to see that religion and politics mix promiscuously in Haiti. And although politics and religion intermingle in some branches of our own government, they are mixing with none of the joyous vitality or bawdy verve evident in the Haitian flags.

Those featured are dedicated to the five lwa most commonly associated with the Haitian revolution: Ogou, a.k.a. Sen Jak (or St. Jacque), the generalissimo of all Haitian armies, human and divine; Danbala, the snake patriarch; Ezili Danto, the Black Madonna; Ezili Freda, the Creole muse; and Gede, the eternal trickster. Think of the flags as the portable, Caribbean equivalent of the stained-glass windows of European churches.

Ten depict Sen Jak, either symbolically, as a sword or pair of crossed flags, or figuratively, as an invincible warrior astride a white stallion.

The oldest ones were sewn in the 1940s. Made with fewer sequins and beads than the new ones, they leave large expanses of fabric bare and often are faded and frayed from years of use. The silhouettes of some figures are so roughly stitched that they nearly become abstract patterns and disappear into the background, especially when the giant-size sequins reflect light at just the right angle.

The sequins and beads on the old flags are irregularly shaped and not as brightly colored as those on the new ones, which appear to be handmade from mass-produced materials. The newer flags are more uniform and tidied up than the funky old ones, their surfaces completely covered with sequins and beads stacked atop one another, overlapping like fish scales or laid out like the lines of an etching.

Despite the variety of backgrounds, types of sequins, styles of lettering and levels of artistry, the figure of Sen Jak remains remarkably consistent. That’s because most were based on the same source: a popular chromolithographic print portraying the Catholic saint James Major imperiously riding over the bodies of a defeated army of Moors.

The eight flags dedicated to Danbala represent him as a snake, a tree or a snake wrapped around a tree. They also depict him as Moses, peering portentously into the distance or defiantly clutching the Ten Commandments, or as St. Patrick, famous for chasing the snakes out of Ireland.

Vodou, or “voodoo,” as it’s often spelled, is the most common religion in Haiti and a way of life for the vast majority of Haitians. Overcrowding is built into the nation’s history. Its lwa made their way to the island in the minds and on the shoulders of enslaved Africans. Initially, the lwa survived by piggybacking on a mix-and-match cast of characters that included Catholic saints, Masonic ritual masters, phantasmagorical beasts from European folk tales and heroes from Haiti’s indigenous Taino culture. Now they rival the gods of the ancient Greeks, especially in terms of their down-to-earth humor.

The remaining 12 flags invoke three lwa who are even more complicated and personable than the first two. Ezili Danto, the Black Madonna, appears as a hardworking, fiercely protective mother goddess who holds her daughter Anais. Their faces and hands are appliques that look like color photo reproductions. They are surrounded with a riot of sequins and beads.

Mistress Ezili Freda, a flirtatious Creole woman who adores fine clothes, jewelry and perfume, is the lwa of love and luxury. Despite her army of lovers, including Ogou, she cries constantly over her inability to find true love. She is often represented symbolically, as a Valentine-shaped heart that’s sometimes pierced by a long knife.

Finally, there’s Gede, the god of sex, death and regeneration. On one flag, the shameless trickster wears a top hat, purple smoking jacket and broken glasses as he dances, like a night-loving leprechaun, alongside a skull, crossbones and candle. On another, he looks like the patron saint of bachelor excesses gone wrong -- his pants around his knees yet not a trace of embarrassment on his face.

Not bad for a hallway. Or a museum overcrowded with art.

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‘Saluting Vodou Spirits’

Where: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, UCLA Campus, Sunset at Westwood boulevards

When: Noon to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays and until 8 p.m. Thursdays. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays

Ends: Dec. 12

Price: Free admission, parking $7

Contact: (310) 825-4361