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 →
Provocations: Navigating The Creative Industries
This is the first of a new series of shorter critical interventions on salient issues. The posts will pose questions, rather than to attempt to provide answers, and they are meant to be conversation starters, and comments are welcomed, as usual. There have been a lot of conversations here in the Caribbean, of late, on... Continue Reading →
Inside Pandora’s Box: A Few Thoughts about Art in the Age of Corona – Part II
This is the second of a three-part post. Part I can be found here and part III is forthcoming. In 1961, the then young politician Edward Seaga delivered his seminal speech "The Haves and the Have Nots" in the Jamaican Upper House. Irrespective of how we may feel about the ideological and political path Seaga... Continue Reading →
Inside Pandora’s Box: A Few Thoughts about Art in the Age of Corona – Part I
This is the first of a three-part post. Part II can be found here and part III is forthcoming. What times are these, in which A conversation about trees is almost a crime For in doing so we maintain our silence about so much wrongdoing! - Bertolt Brecht, ‘To Those Who Follow in Our Wake’... Continue Reading →
“It’s All Broken” – or, Why the Imagination Needs to Rule
"It's all broken," the child said to his mother. And right he was, as there is very little that remains intact and functional at the once bustling Kingston railway terminus on Pechon Street in downtown Kingston. The occasion was a recent guided tour, facilitated by Kingston Creative, and guided by the Jamaican architect Patrick Stanigar.... Continue Reading →
Caribbean Conversations: Phillip Thomas – Part II
Here is the second part of my extended conversation with the Jamaican painter Phillip Thomas (part I can be found here), in which he talks about his work and issues and interests that have influenced him, and on which he has strong and at times very provocative views. It is long but well worth reading... Continue Reading →