May 20th, 2009
”Kibri a Kulturu”
Marcel Pinas; teaching the former motherland…
‘Un de ete’ (We are still here), 72.000 spoons and wire, 2009
There is still a lot left unsaid about the history that lies between the Netherlands and their former colony Surinam. Let alone that in Holland one often speaks of the Maroon people that live deep in the forests of the interior. The Municipality Museum of The Hague invited Surinam artist Marcel Pinas (b.1971) for an exhibition in their satellite space called ‘Gemak’ in the center of the residential city of the Netherlands. As a member of the Maroon community, the Ndyuka from the Eastern parts of Surinam, Marcel Pinas seems to be on a mission to tell the world about his culture, his people and his view on the distressing situations they have been through.
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May 20th, 2009
“Yes we did”
Buffalo Soldiers
The émigré community of Little Haiti, located in the city of Miami is home to the largest population of Haitian immigrants of anywhere in the nation, many of whom – despite the U.S. government’s discriminatory immigration laws – escaped abject poverty, political anarchy and ravaged conditions in their homelands to reside in America, only to face a more perplexing case of racial and social inequality. Those who were fortunate enough to dodge deportation and become citizens; flocked to the voting booths during last year’s election in hope of a change to the double standard that have victimized them for over 50 years Read the rest of this entry »
May 18th, 2009
CRY SURINAM
In 1992 the Curacao born artist Felix de Rooy made the assemblage ‘Cry Surinam’. It comprises a cream coloured (glowing) oil stove with a book about Surinam on top of it, on top of that is a large bone and the head of a black Surinamese with widely gaping mouth. He is crying out. A parody of the Surinamese leaving the warmth of his own country for the chilliness of the Netherlands. A work that can stand, unintentionally, as a symbol for art in Surinam.
Why does contemporary art play such a modest role in the former Dutch colony? Why are there no Surinamese artists (with a few exceptions) to be seen at international exhibitions? Why is almost nothing written about it? Why are they hardly ever included in the collections of the major Dutch museums?
Is there any Surinamese art or does the art there not want to be Surinamese? Why is the colonizer’s culture still the dominant culture?
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May 18th, 2009
Shades by Caroline “Bops” Sardine
“Every Island is Different – Every Island is the Same”
by Therese Hadchity
“Every Island is Different – Every Island is the Same” is presented as a collaboration between Caroline Sardine, or Bops (as she prefers), and Philip Nanton. Perhaps it is more precisely described as an ongoing relay, which started with Nantons lively interpretation of Bops’ painting ‘Sunnii-side-up’ for the group-exhibition “Words on Paintings” in 2008. Nanton followed up by inviting Bops, in turn, to design a cover for, and subsequently comment – in painting – on each of the mono- and dialogues he launched later that year as a CD titled ‘Island Voices’. It is a collaboration which, of course, prompts the viewer to ask whether the two artists have anything other than their Vincentian origins in common, and – if not, whether their interaction has been meaningful nonetheless.
Zemicon Gallery, Bridgetown, Barbados, March 15th – 31st 2009. Read the rest of this entry »
January 20th, 2009
En Route . . . Of Bridges and Barriers
Marlon Darbeau at Alice Yard, Port of Spain, Trinidad
December 10-13, 3008
click on the image to go to enRoute flickr folder
Logic and careful organization are seldom ingredients found in response to a particularly frustrating or aggravating situation. But last December graphic artist Marlon Darbeau pulled off such a feat with En Route . . . Of Bridges and Barriers—a social commentary via installation mounted at Alice Yard in Woodbrook, Trinidad.
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January 11th, 2009
Click here or on the graphic for link
Popopstudios Center for the Visual Arts is an independent art studio and gallery dedicated to the preservation and advancement of alternative Bahamian visual culture. The goal is to educate, expose, and defend new and challenging developments in contemporary art in the Bahamas. Popopstudios exists to harbor both seasoned and developing artists interested in new media and mixed media processes, while projecting these efforts to a national and international audience.
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January 11th, 2009
Click on the image to visit the site and to download the magazine.
Draconian Switch is a monthly Art and Design eMagazine originating from Trinidad and Tobago.
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December 24th, 2008
“SOCIETY”
The place of the object in my work has manifested itself in many ways over the last few years. Objects both organic and synthetic have largely informed my approach to painting and seeing the environment. These 3D symbols have become central to the narrative in this work, which is a bit less literal and more metaphoric.
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December 24th, 2008
Meditation: Costa Del Alma
video link and still
Makeda Thomas in collaboration with Panu Kari
Costa Del Alma (2008)
Large projection / 7 minutes 14 sec. / Lighting: Camal Gaiby/Music: “Om Mani Padme Hum” by Yungchen Lhamo
“She who knows she cannot speak of them without speaking of herself, of history without involving her story, also knows that she cannot make a gesture without activating the to and fro movement of life.”
-Trinh T. Minh-ha, Not You/Like You
Costa del Alma is a meditation of overlapping metaphors in which there are multiple planes of time, place and space. This work is at once a study in video, a remembrance of a 2008 visit to Costa do Sol and of my paternal grandmother (whose name is Alma), and an interplay between Portuguese, Spanish and English words.
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