exhibitions

Art from the Heart, the second exhibition from Kingston's newest gallery has provoked some discussion about the art market and the gumption it takes to run an art business now.

DecorVIII opened late last year and its new show, Art from the Heart, (both phonetic puns intended) celebrates love and Valentine's Day. Situated in a small business enclave in an increasingly commercial but chic part of Kingston, DecorVIII is well appointed for uptown viewers seeking new trends and Art from the Heart offers a mixed bag, sometimes reflecting the sentimental tastes of the McDonald family team who run the gallery. The exhibition's Sunday morning opening with live music and good wine, was reminiscent of the nineties, an era when Jamaica's economy was buoyant and collectors had more disposable income to buy both good and bad art. The art market has dwindled since, even as it has become more competitive and sophisticated. With resources scarce, art lovers are becoming more discriminating about what they view and ultimately what they buy.

Perhaps because of these harder times, the McDonald's have been able to garner consignments, with stock from pioneer artists such as Alexander Cooper to younger talents such as Nakazzi Hutchinson (shown here), all keen for visibility given fewer opportunities to exhibit. DecorVIII's good natured owners are also enthusiastic about using their space to feature the work of up-and-coming artists, so they are showing pieces by those who have yet to find favour with the art world cognoscenti.

Art from the Heart reflects the McDonald's altruistic intentions and the exhibition's title is a gesture to their own passion and their eclectic approach. It remains to be seen if they also have the heart to weather the competitive nature of the business, the critical appraisal of their venture, and the risks of a shrinking market in these recessionary times.

The Olympia Gallery in Kingston has just launched its new website. Appropriately, the online design features the mural by senior artist Barrington Watson that has come to characterize the gallery's distinctive architecture and the optimism that accompanied the building's establishment in the 1960s. Founded by art patron A.D. Scott and supported by members of the Contemporary Artists Association such as Karl Parboosingh, Eugene Hyde, Aubrey Williams, the gallery represented the dream of Jamaica's newly independent intelligentsia who wanted to see art placed at the center of their country's nationalist agenda. Although, the vision of the Gallery as a thriving arts community and artist in residence retreat was never fully realized, its architecture and permanent collection still speak to the potential of that moment. Currently, the Olympia is experiencing a revival in popularity under the management of Rosemarie Thwaites and it is good that she has the foresight to see that Olympia's outreach must go beyond its brick and mortar facilities to embrace an extensive audience online. Click here to watch the 2 min video and to learn more about the gallery's design and history.  

Despite the rain hundreds of young people showed up at the Edna Manley College's School of Visual Art's graduation exhibition recently to support their friends. There were a few parents and older well-wishers too but it was good to see generation X and Y enjoying the celebration and responding so positively to the work on show. And they were not disappointed. The exhibition this year is exciting, with numerous high points in all the departments, suggesting that the school's more inter-disciplinary approach to their curriculum is finally paying off. In fairness to the college, it has always had a history of being multidisciplinary ever since the 1970s, when students were required to work their way through its departments such as painting, sculpture, textiles, jewelry, graphics and ceramics before choosing an area of specialization. Today, departments are even more fused with new names such Visual Communication, or design courses that incorporate fashion. In this sense, the school is in step with post-modern trends to bridge the arts by not viewing them as separate forms. This can be enormously liberating for students who can develop a more holistic approach to their craft by learning and borrowing from other disciplines. The benefits of this sharing are evidenced in this year's show, where painting students are working in 3D and a textile designer's display can take the form of a theatre set with live models and funky clothing. In the old sculpture studio, a ceramics student has created an installation that mimics a butcher's shop -only with human body parts - and the fine arts student's studios have Vis.Com displays with jewelery showcases. It's a real mash-up of creative ideas suggesting that these younger artists are finally delivering on the school's original intentions. Visit the gallery to view the exhibition's highlights.

The National Gallery of Jamaica has been busy this past month mounting two exhibitions of works donated to its permanent collection. On display in Kingston is the Guy McIntosh Donation while at the Civic Centre in Montego Bay in a space that many are already calling 'National Gallery West', visitors can view The John Pringle Collection a donation of paintings by the self-taught artist Mallica “Kapo” Reynolds. Both are stunning shows that demonstrate the broad spectrum of art in Jamaica ranging from its abstract expressionism that peaked in the 1980s and 90s with artists such as Milton George, Kofi Kayiga, and Milton Harley and Omari Ra to the grassroots expressions of “Kapo” the revival preacher whose art also enjoyed acclaim in the same era. Yet, despite their different schooling and social status and attempts in the past to label these artists as 'mainstream' versus 'intuitive', the works of these artists are not so far apart; they share an ability to channel emotion directly and potently. Works in these two important collections demonstrate the inherent links between naif art and modernism; the fluid relationship that also fired the imagination of Europe's avant garde nearly a century ago. Jamaica is lucky to have two such deep and rich veins of artistic expression running through its art history and the National Gallery of Jamaica is fortunate to have acquired work that can demonstrate those cultural currents so vividly.

Is there a disparity between what art students are producing at art school and what is likely to sell in the Jamaican market place? This is one of the central questions considered when the Edna Manley College's School of Visual Arts holds its public art forum Notions of Contemporary Art: Location Jamaica next week. Artists, critics and art historians will form two panels to discuss how we understand contemporary art and how these ideas might differ between artists, galleries and collectors. The forum comes after the success of the National Gallery's Young Talent Exhibition in 2010 and the current Art Fresh 2011 now showing at the Mutual Gallery that showcases work from artists with less than 10 years experience such as Monique Lofters whose work Observation Study is shown here.

A visit to the college's end of year exhibition versus the criteria for participating in Art Fresh 2011 suggests the widening gap between the expectations of such institutions. In college, students are encouraged to experiment, pushing the boundaries of ideas, techniques, media and scale. The result is that many move towards installations that echo a shift away from 2D surfaces to 'off the wall' assemblages and performances popular in galleries internationally. For exhibition in a local gallery where space is a premium however, experimentation is encouraged but the size of work especially for installations is prescribed. The criteria here is a practical one that serves the collector as end-user who more often than not only has a domestic space for display. And scale is not the only issue. Content sometimes, political, sexualized or just ephemeral can also be problematic. A recent collector committed to supporting one of the region's most talented artists lamented that despite spending extraordinary amounts of money to own a piece, the highly conceptual and temporal nature of the work would limit its future viewing. No wonder then that other collectors settle for conventionally packaged art with subjects that presents fewer issues for storage, display or documentation. And no wonder also, that graduates quickly shed their more thoughtful and technically ambitious ideas in favour of art forms that stand a better chance being purchased.

This week I was a member of the seven person panel judging entries for the National Biennial IV exhibition scheduled to open at the National Gallery of Jamaica in December. To ensure fairness, panel members were selected from diverse areas of artistic life with artists, curators and others having equal say. Yet, it was interesting to note how much consensus there was about what art pieces qualified for this high status exhibition. It was also good to argue about the merits and demerits of artworks without feeling that our critiques would engender bitterness or feelings of victimisation. The process of judging which was in turns reflective, lively, argumentative, humourous and serious brought home the fact that forums where one can discuss art in this open and honest way are limited in Jamaica and that perhaps our art product is suffering as a result.