Veerle Poupeye's blog about art in the Caribbean and beyond
At the opening of the Jamaica, Jamaica exhibition "The National Gallery nah keep again?", said one artist scathingly; another quipped if "the National Gallery had been postponed?"; and yet another marveled at how a postponement announcement could also be a museum's first public announcement about a particular exhibition. They were all responding to the National... Continue Reading →
Art museums have, for quite some time now, been under intense critical scrutiny over the ideological content of their exhibitions and programmes, and over how they relate to audiences, in terms of who they speak to and for. More recently, the critical gaze has shifted, initially to museum boards, and the socio-economic and political interests... Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
Perspectives 