Curated by Julie Crooks. Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Art Gallery of Ontario from September 1, 2021 to February 21, 2022. Includes bibliographical references (pages 254-255).
Contents:
Credits. Curator's acknowledgements -- The unity of worlds / The Antilles: fragments of epic memory / Kaie Kellough -- Seeing the unseizable: confronting the past and considering the future / Julie Crooks -- Calypso / Edward Kamau Brathwaite -- Photography in the city of Bridgetown: the nineteenth century / Harclyde Walcott -- They came in ships / Mahadai Das -- Indentureship and the art of speculation / Andil Gosine -- The world the freedman/woman made / Erna Brodber -- The epic creativity of Frank Walter / Barbara Paca -- Epilogue from Silencing the past: power and the production of history / Michel-Rolph Trouillot -- My mother, Dorothy Henriques Wells / Mary Wells, with a preface by Emily Cluett -- The afflicted gaze of Peter Dean Rickards / Annie Paul -- The cartographer tries to map a way to Zion / Kei Miller -- Reimagining history as narrative in contemporary art / Marsha Pearce -- The San Domingo masses begin / C.L.R. James -- "The quintessential Caribbean people": the Garifuna of St. Vincent and the Grenadines...and the world / Melanie J. Newton -- Blacklight / Christian Campbell -- Poetic images and political places: the work of Caribbea-Canadian artists Sandra Brewster and Manuel Mathieu / Dominique Fontaine -- How to kill a Soundboy: a conversation with Leasho Johnson / O'Neil Lawrence -- If we must die / Claude McKay -- A 1 2 3 portrait of a legend / Josefina Báez -- The unity of worlds / Kaie Kellough -- Further Reading -- List of Works -- Credits.
Summary:
"Contemporary art emerges as a retrospective counterpoint to historical photography from the Caribbean in the 1840s to 1940s, in this critical volume featuring work by prominent artists and writers of Caribbean descent. Shifting depictions of the Caribbean, its people, and its culture are examined in thinking about how histories and memories are constantly revisited, rearticulated, and reimagined. Anchored by an extensive selection of historical Caribbean photographs from the Montgomery Collection at the AGO, Fragments of Epic Memory situates a range of photographs, postcards, daguerreotypes, albums, and ephemera from the period just after emancipation in 1838 within a broader context of visual culture in the Caribbean. Fragments of Epic Memory will include the works of modern and contemporary Caribbean artists such as Wifredo Lam from Cuba, and Frank Bowling and Aubrey Williams from Guyana, who represent the first generation of migrant artists of Caribbean descent. Twenty-first century artists who live in the diaspora, moving between the Caribbean and its diaspora, such as Paul Anthony Smith from Jamaica (based in Brooklyn), Zak Ové from Britain (Trinidad), Nadia Huggins from Trinidad (St. Vincent and the Grenadines), and Sandra Brewster from Guyana (Canada), amongst others, will be highlighted. These artists constitute a conceptual generational bridge and continuum of artistic expression across history, geography, time, and space."-- Description provided by publisher. "New ways of understanding Caribbean visual culture, from historical photographs following emancipation to contemporary transnational perspectives, on the occasion of a major exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada. Anchored by an extensive selection from the world-class Montgomery Collection of Caribbean Photographs at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Fragments of Epic Memory situates a range of prints, postcards, daguerreotypes and albums from the period just after emancipation in 1838 within a broader context of visual culture in the Caribbean. This critical volume includes works by Caribbean artists such as Wifredo Lam from Cuba, and Sir Frank Bowling and Aubrey Williams from Guyana--who represent the first generation of migrant modernist artists--alongside 21st-century artists such as Paul Anthony Smith from Jamaica (based in the US), Zak Ové from Britain (of Trinidadian heritage), Nadia Huggins from Trinidad (based in St. Vincent) and Sandra Brewster from Canada (of Guyanese heritage), among others. Their works, along with texts by prominent writers of Caribbean descent, serve as counterpoints to the historical photographs and the violence of the imperial project, constituting a conceptual generational bridge across history, geography, time and space."-- Description from Artbook.com, accessed 20221007.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.