Some time in late 2018, the National Gallery of Jamaica decided to cancel the Jamaica Biennial, of which two editions had been held, in 2014 and 2017. The Jamaica Biennial was the re-conceptualized successor to the National Biennial and, before that, the Annual National Exhibitions. While still hamstrung by the expectations and entitlements that had... Continue Reading →
Creative Iconoclasm: What To Do With Those Colonial Monuments? – Part 2
This is the second part of a two-part post. Part 1 can be found here. The Caribbean is replete with statues that represent similar ideas about White Supremacy and Colonialism. Some of these statues date from the Plantation era but others, such as the Columbus Lighthouse in Santo Domingo, which was unveiled in 1992, are... Continue Reading →
Creative Iconoclasm: What To Do With Those Colonial Monuments? – Part 1
This is the first of the two-part post. Part 2, which can be found here, examines the implications for the Caribbean. As an art historian and curator, I am supposed to be beholden to the preservation of art and my response to any incident whereby an art work is deliberately damaged or destroyed is expected... Continue Reading →
Follow up: My April 24, 2018 Letter to Kei Miller
Two years ago, on April 28, 2018, I posted to this blog an open letter to Kei Miller (it is linked here for easy reference). The letter was written as my critical response to an essay by Kei, "The White Women and the Language of Bees", which had been published a few days earlier in... Continue Reading →