Petrine Archer [.com]

The Meaning of Style is an exhibition now showing at the New Art Exchange in Nottingham, England Jan 16 – 10 April, 2010. The exhibition explores the presence of African-Caribbean men in Britain over the past forty years and takes its name from cultural theorist Dick Hebdige's classic text Subculture: The Meaning of Style published in 1979 that would transform the way that we view youth and their modes of resistance today. In much the same way that Hebdige explored the fashion of that time including Rastafari, Mods, Rockers, Skinheads and Punks, this exhibition shows how Black-British youths through the dissonance of their dress, hair and gesture use popular culture styles from sources such as Jamaican dance hall and American hip-hop to give themselves agency and visibility. Artists included in the exhibition are Vanley Burke, Clement Cooper, Micheal Forbes, Gerard Hanson, and Barbara Walker who working in different media present a bold statement about the influence of black culture on contemporary Britain. But as challenging as these portraits are it is tempting to consider how they might match up against the works of other Black Diaspora artists such as Ebony Patterson, O'Neil Lawrence and Lawrence Graham Brown whose works also search for substance within style.

Jamaica is saddened by the loss of another of its stalwart artists Albert Huie who died aged 89 over the weekend. Born in 1920, Huie developed his painting skills working alongside artists such as Edna Manley and Koren der Harootian at the informal classes offered by the Institute of Jamaica in the late 1930s and and early 1940s. His art from this period reflects their pre-occupation with images that Jamaicans could better identify with as the country moved towards political independence. Street scenes, market vendors, landscapes and portraits such as the National Gallery of Jamaica's Vendor (1939) and Noon (1943) that highlighted the dignity of working class people reflected Huie's developing sense of nationalism. His portraits especially project a pride in blackness even before the black art's movement had come to prominence in the United States. Huie was a prodigious artist who went on to further his skills in Britain and develop a characteristic style indebted to Impressionism  but tempered by his use of Caribbean light, forms and subject matter. The study of his work has been furthered by its inclusion in local and Caribbean high school syllabi and he has been the subject of a monograph by Edward Lucie Smith Albert Huie: Father of Jamaican Painting (2001). For more on his work see Masterpieces from the National Collection and Huie in Caribbean Artists A-Z.

At almost 5 pm (ET) on Tuesday. I was wrapping up another day at my computer when the house started to sway. I knew immediately that it was a tremor and after the usual panic and dash for safety in the doorway, I laughed with relief that Jamaica had been spared a disaster it could ill-afford. Later I heard the news about Haiti. 

Now the full horror of Haiti's plight is being painfully played out by the media. Our thoughts and prayers go to our neighbours there and especially to the artist community who have always been a vital part of the Caribbean's expression despite their hardships. Just last month, we were celebrating Haiti's Ghetto Bienniale when it seemed that again Haiti had overcome great setbacks to keep its art moving forward and to demonstrate its strength as a survivor and as a Salon des Refuses for the 21st Century. No doubt, the country will overcome this too but it will take time and support from all of us. An aid effort on the part of artists and organisers related to the Biennale has been established and Ebony G. Patterson who has just returned from showing her work in the show is asking us all to do whatever we can. To give your support follow this link http://www.foundry.tv/haiti/ and remember '..there but for the grace of God go I.... '

The New Year starts with a bang for the black diaspora when TATE Liverpool mounts Afro-Modern - Journey's Through the Black Atlantic this month (29 January – 25 April 2010). It's an ambitious exhibition that looks at art from both sides of the Atlantic between 1909 and the present,  using as its starting point Paul Gilroy’s view that the African Diaspora’s experience of trans-shipment and relocation was an entirely modern one that transformed them. The contingency of their New World lives shaped their formation of imagined communities and identities.

This is a potentially contentious exhibition for the TATE that is still coming to terms with its own origins within the slave trade. So it is important that their telling of this history of the Black Atlantic is not about the African Diaspora alone since it was the European slave trade that set in motion this scattering of African peoples and their subsequent cultural dislocation and hybridization. The Diaspora’s restless migratory patterns since their removal from Africa, has left its communities in constant motion, a people of the sea, forever looping back to points of entanglement rather than their origins. As ‘black westerners’ their movement into the metropolis of their long-time masters has meant that their host cultures too have absorbed, and been absorbed by, this process of syncretism. In this sense, Malcolm Bailey’s Hold, Separate but Equal (1969) shown here is poignant. Fashioned after abolitionist illustrations, the diagrammatic bare bones of a slave ship float against a stark glossy polymer azure blue sea. Deep inside the womb of this vessel, black and white bodies crouch. Although separated, both groups are equally bent low under the weight of slavery, suggesting that we are all implicated in this history of the middle passage and in turn we must all bear the burden of its consequences.

It's good to see that the Caribbean exhibition Rockstone and Bootheel curated by Kristina Newman-Scott and Yona Backer for RealArt Ways is getting such good press. Benjamin Genochio writing for the New York Times describes it as " a mind-opening selection of artwork that is by turns colorful, messy, playfully witty and downright noisy" and discusses the work of some of its outstanding artists such as Blue Curry, Ebony G.Patterson, Peter Rickards. Although the presentation is cramped Genochio does not mind he writes: "It is hopelessly over-stuffed, case perhaps of the curators' being overly ambitious with the material. But none of this matters because the overall quality is so good that you are bouncing from one great work to the next. It's an exciting ensemble". 

It's rare for exhibitions to receive such positive and comprehensive coverage from mainstream media so take a look at offering online. Click here: A West Indian Melange.

If you are not yet acquainted with Caribbean Art World Magazine (CAW) you can link to it here for fresh articles about art in the region and interviews with artists. This month CAW features Willard Wigan the Jamaican/British artist who overcame his learning disabilities by creating microscopic sculptures that fit in the eye of a needle or on a pin head. Wiggan's tools are unconventional including shards of glass and teddy bear fibres and his methods are profoundly meditative. Less remarkable are his subjects that come from popular culture such as The Simpsons, Hulk and Alice in Wonderland, but this is understandable given Wiggan's childhood retreat into a world of fantasy away from adult judgement. Watch  his video here.

David Boxer, one of Jamaica's most renowned artists, has a history of in situ exhibitions that are all the more successful because of the elegance of his personal space and his curator skills that ensure his art is always displayed to advantage. These shows short-circuit Kingston's commercial galleries and let Boxer speak directly to his visitors in persuasive ways. Such intimacy also provides insulation from public critique. But with his latest private show Bacon as Icon, one senses the artist's desire for engagement and feedback. In his choice of image for the exhibition's invitation that echoes Edvard Munch's The Scream (1893); the anxious nurse's panic in Sergei Eisenstein's film Battleship Potemkin (1925); and most importantly, Francis Bacon's gaping-mouth iconography. Boxer urgently expresses his own call for attention and recognition in a lineage of distinguished modern artists.

I recently created an entry for wikipedia about Jamaican art. I did this because it concerns me that, even as the web is expanding rapidly, there is insufficient information about our diaspora cultures online. It was an interesting interlude that absorbed my energies completely for a couple of days, especially because writing for wikipedia is not easy. It is, after all, an encyclopedia and the Wikipedians who volunteer their services are exacting with their writers and protective of its standards. Some six drafts later and after much angst about my expertise and neutrality, the piece has finally been accepted as a stub – that is - the beginning of an entry that will require additional support and citations. So I'm calling on readers who have some knowledge and the stamina to withstand withering editorial criticism to support the stub. Do it for art, and the good of your country...

Rockstone and Boot Heel, is an exhibition of Contemporary West Indian Art at Real Art Ways in Connecticut, USA. The show's title suggests “arduous travel” and the complex social terrain that so many of its art works tackle, as well as its artist's difficult journey from the marginalized Caribbean to mainstream visibility. The exhibition is a welcome event in a landscape where international presentations of this scale and nature are so few. This ambitious project owes its success to curators Yona Backer and past Edna Manley College student, Kristina Newman-Scott who envisaged the exhibition as being a 'mash-up' of artists and styles that could speak to the region's artistic diversity.

One work, held up in customs, failed to make the journey because of its controversial inclusion of miniscule marijuana seeds sealed in resin. Its aborted trip raises many issues related to art and the law, and institutional sensitivity to the practice of art in Jamaica. That our artists are creating art work desired by the rest of the world is laudable, but the risk of arrest for taking artistic license, demonstrates that we still have a long way to go...

A recent advertisement promoting cheaper fares to London on Virgin Atlantic has clearly been designed to appeal to the younger hip black British traveller but there's something suspiciously stereotypical about the way its imagery has been handled. As smart as this couple look with his cool shades and her trendy bob, they remind us that race is a system of shifting signifiers marked by skin tone, bulging eyes and boobs. I have stared at these images trying to place their visual pedigree in a lineage of posters for commodities that range from pancake syrups to luxury soaps, and their source is surprisingly not black but white. With their big heads and rubberized complexions they resemble the intrepid Thunderbirds; those rocket flying puppets who commandeered the skies and our image of the future on British television back in the 1960s. How slick of Virgin Atlantic to make this link between their airline and the space travel that must have been every child's aspiration back then. Presumably, it's our turn to be on the go...