I’m so uber proud and grateful to be part of the exhibition, Voces y Visiones: Gran Caribe at El Museo de Barrio; Curated by Rocío Aranda-Alvarado. I simply love everything about this place: the staff, building, colors, cafe…!

VOCES Y VISIONES: Gran Caribe
Drawn from El Museo del Barrio’s wide-ranging Permanent Collection, this exhibition features works that explore the vast diversity and complexity of the Caribbean basin, as an accompaniment to El Museo’s upcoming exhibition, Caribbean: Crossroads of the World, presented in collaboration with Studio Museum in Harlem and Queens Museum of Art.

The Caribbean has been both a subject and a source for visual expression prior to its relationship with Europe. This history, marked by a constant flow of people, objects, ideas, and images into and out of the region, has affected artistic development and practices in the Caribbean basin as well as in its counterparts in the Diaspora. This installation of Permanent Collection objects takes a narrative approach to some of the themes developed in the larger exhibition, exploring the connections between personal experiences and visual expressions. The works seen here explore the human need to move from one place to another, the urge to make epic narratives from personal stories, and the desire to share one’s love for a homeland with others. As the title implies, the islands, the coastlines and the waters that unite them are all part of this study.

The exhibition explores four related themes that focus on the connections between spirituality and daily life, the shifting of people into and out of urban spaces, the persistence of abstraction as a visual language, and the constant presence of the water. Among the featured works is a large-scale painting on hand-made paper by Puerto Rican artist Rossana Martinez. This work considers islands: small, golden, irregularly shaped forms that cover the rich cobalt blue of an endless sea. Other featured objects include a selection of Haitian paintings, featuring a work by Prefet Duffaut; Puerto Rican and Guatemalan masks; sculptures by Charles Juhasz -Alvarado and Federico Ruiz; photographs by Ana Mendietaand a trio of En Foco artists, Charles Biasiny Rivera, Roger Cabán and Felipe Dante; and a costume worn by Coco Fusco in a performance as Queen Isabella, created by Pepón Osorio.

Gran Caribe considers the significance of race and ethnicity, language and dialogue, affinities and differences throughout this part of the world. Artists for whom the Caribbean is both a point of departure and a homecoming are included, as are critical voices that explore new ways of thinking about how Caribbean bodies and voices are represented.

catalogue
exhibition images

The Weight of Jupiter
By Megan Dunn

The day of the opening the hue above the hills of Upper Hutt was apricot. The light diffused, faint as a Rothko. The sea a blue sliver of shining knifae. The students were graduating and I came out of the shop at lunch time and watched them walking along Lambton Quay in their black caps and capes, each degree a splash of colour. Pale pink for the arts. The bagpipes ushered the smiling students along. It was a day to reflect on success, a rite of passage. The future awaits and it doesn’t always come with a ribbon. Later, I trudged towards the exhibition opening in the dark of night, abandoning another day in retail and preparing for the satellite world of contemporary art.

Up the top of the narrow stairs the three works at Enjoy exhibited a lightness of touch, their meaning was vaporous, difficult to grasp. Planes of color – or its deficit washed over the walls. On the wonky wooden floorboards, 50 yards of bright green ribbon was curled into a nest. This work had so much kinetic potential. I wanted to drop a cat, wild of temperament and claw, into its midst. Once, years ago, I arrived home to my Fathers house to find reams of toilet paper curling along the corridor. My Father’s cat (the artist) sat at the end of this trail, licking its paws.

The ribbon was the most problematic work. Splashed on the floor the loopy green ribbon accentuated the pink blush of Lisa Benson’s nearby abstract photograph. These two works were clearly getting on well together. But how was I meant to respond to the ribbon? With delight or quiet outrage? Or perhaps just a cynical smirk? At the very least I managed not to step on it during the opening. That’s one of the many problems of installation art: you have to be careful not to put your foot in it. Sprawled on the floor like a drunken gallery goer, the ribbon was an organised mess. But who said contemporary art has to behave?

I considered the artist, Rossana Martinez, in her moment of play, like the cat, working freely with her materials. The forces that drove her were probably mostly sub-conscious. Later I found out the artist emailed the gallery a set of instructions from New York. The ribbon was hard to find, eventually located in a bridal shop in the depths of Palmerston North – via cyberspace. Martinez requested that her work be arranged in a hill formation – a homage to New Zealand, home of many hills and paintings about hills! A volunteer had stood on a ladder and looped the bridal ribbon into a mound. This seemed a satisfying conclusion for the ribbon, freed at last from the bridesmaid’s skirt.

Lisa Benson’s photographic work on rice paper was that touch of early morning Rothko I glimpsed over the glittering lights of Petone. This was a delicate work, pink hued and pretty but not in a Katy Perry kind of way. The lines of colour were at once reminiscent of Wellington sunrises, frequently salmon over a metallic wedge of sea. Yet, there was also a futuristic angle at work – the palette and planes of Logan’s Run. There was a quiet confidence here and the process was subtle too: the artist’s materials consisted of gathered light. John Hurrell has called Lisa Benson ‘the most exciting photographer’ working in NZ today. Trawling her website, I’m not surprised to find photographs of sparkling snowscapes, decidedly lunar in appearance.

The long and large wall painting by Zoe Rapley was hard to see at the opening. People were standing in front of it, wine or beer in hand – white shoes worn with panache, a whiff of corduroy. Rapley’s work was slightly buckled like a massive piece of a house coming away. For an ant this work could have been the surface of the moon. My first instinct was that I’d like to look at the painting (is it a painting?) lying on the floor. This would also have been easier for the ant. Intricate charcoal swirls covered the right hand corner. The gases of Jupiter? The doodles of an obsessive day dreamer? Or the topography of a map taken from a satellite suspended in the depths of space? The work emitted a sense of melancholy. It felt distant. Although I was told the artist’s studio is in Lyall Bay. This seemed apt. Lyall Bay has always been a windswept place, the houses along the beach are battered and worn by the onslaught of sand and sea. I could imagine the wind howling off the shore as Rapley, rolled her paint. She had presented us with a panoramic view of the surface: but what do we see?

Just what is the weight of Jupiter – 50 yards of green bridal ribbon? When is a photograph like a vapor? The hands of the artists dipped in and out of each work. Erica van Zon, the curator, wanted the exhibition to touch on the sublime. Enjoy is a gallery that supports these strange migrations into the mind. On earth we like to look at the solar system and marvel at the planets as though we are something apart. Back down on the ground in Wellington, the national Budget was about to be announced, and it wasn’t going to be pretty. Somewhere underneath Jupiter’s surface of gases there must be a solid crust…

You Can Sing Me Anything, 2011
Installation at Enjoy Public Art Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand
Green ribbon
Photos: Lance Cash

You Can Sing Me Anything was part of a three person exhibition entitled The Weight of Jupiter in Wellington, NZ. The exhibition, curated by Erica Van Zon, included work by Lisa Benson and Zoe Rapley.

For the installation, I wanted to create a hill of green with the simplest materials. The idea was to convey my experience visiting New Zealand in 2007. During my visit, I made a note about how the landscape, shapes and colors reminded me of the Caribbean — where I grew up. But at the same time, I noticed how different the types of trees, hills and green hues are found in New Zealand to those found in the Caribbean. This connection to me represented the perfect balance of nature.

Hope you’re all having a great summer. Here are some of my summer thoughts after having a wonderful time with family and at my favorite place: the beach.

It pleases me immensely to see how my boy loves the ocean. He was born in NYC, but his blood is Caribbean…and I truly love that!

Fruit and vegetable stands, surf shops and Rex Cream’s Ice Cream are my kind of places.

<3 running barefoot on the beach. I know I’ll be fine in a couple of days, but it was hard to run this morning and wear running shoes.

A bikini never goes out of fashion.

My nieces and nephews are awesome! When I grow up, I want to be just like them.

Photo:
7am swim with mama.

Swimming in the Caribbean. Surrounded by family and nature. I’m counting the days…

Where is yours?

Where is My Mind
By The Pixies

Oh
With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Your head will collapse
But there’s nothing in it
And you’ll ask yourself

Where is my mind

Way out in the water
See it swimmin’

I was swimmin’ in the Caribbean
Animals were hiding behind the rocks
Except the little fish
But they told me, he swears
Tryin’ to talk to me, coy koi.

Where is my mind

Way out in the water
See it swimmin’ ?

With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Your head will collapse
If there’s nothing in it
And you’ll ask yourself

Where is my mind

Oh
With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Oh
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Oh
Oh