AGORA
Kingston, JA, October 23, 2018 -The Orange Park Trust (OPT), has made public the structure and plans for the development of the Orange Park, St Thomas home (1968-2016) of master painter Barrington Watson as an attraction, and has announced its intent to commence a subscription rights offering pursuant to which it plans to raise approximately JMD 500,000,00.00 through the distribution of preference shares.
In a presentation at Gallery Barrington, William ‘Bill’ Clarke, shared the objects of the Trust which embody Barrington’s vision for Orange Park as a national asset: to establish the Barrington Watson Museum as a centre for the promotion of art and education which facilitates the artists' training and retreat.
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The Trust's Board of Directors are William Clarke (Chairman), Doreen Watson (Director/Secretary), Joseph A. Matalon, Sybil Gordon-Jones, Dr. Rudolph Stevens and Gordon Lawrence. Their first significant action since the 2016 passing of Jamaica's master painter was the design and construction of his memorial at Orange Park which was unveiled on February 19, 2017. Since then, the Trust has incorporated two companies: the Orange Park Arts Trust (OPAT), a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee; and the Barrington Watson Arts Centre (BWAC), a company limited by shares.
The Trust will make direct representation to Jamaica's central government and its agencies, international organizations, the local diplomatic corps, and large private sector entities for participation 200,000 preference shares. It is proposed to issue 5,000,000 authorized 2.5% non-cumulative preference shares of $100 each to capitalize BWAC.
OPAT and BWAC will manage the development and long term sustainability of Orange Park and see to the attainment of the objectives of the Trust. In addition to commercial operations (corporate sponsorships, membership subscriptions, ticket sales and tours), BWAC will seek grant funding from government and agencies and international sponsors.
The development - which comes of the heels of the impending start of the South Coastal Highway project from Harbour View to Yallahs and A1 road improvement to Port Antonio - will take place in three phases. Phase I includes the repair and upgrading of the existing infrastructure and construction of required public facilities; the construction of a $250 million, 15,000 square foot museum for the permanent collection of Barrington’s works as well as works from other artists and selected artifacts from St. Thomas, will occur in Phase II; and Phase III will see construction and outfitting of a residential building to provide short term visitor accommodation, facilities for artists’ retreat and facilities for corporate conferences and retreats.
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For More Information*: Doreen Howell Watson
The Orange Park Arts Trust Ltd.,
75 Old Hope Road, Kingston 5
Email: doreenhowell@gmail.com
Phone: 876-350-0597 [if !supportLineBreakNewLine] [endif]
Barrington Watson bought Orange Park, a 400 year old plantation counting house in the hills of St.Thomas in 1968 as a place to live and to focus on his work without distraction. Overtime, he restored the property to its current grace.
In 1991 Barrington created the Orange Park Trust and in 1994 he deeded the property to the government, to be used after his death as a centre for the development of Jamaican and Caribbean art.
* This communication does not constitute an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities.[endif]
CHINA-JAMAICA ART DEALERS NEEDED? | The global art market will be fueled in part by China, and the thousands of new Chinese museums that are slated to open in the coming years. There are currently under 7,000 museums in China but they are growing at between 500-1,000 museums a year. "So there is a massive demand for interesting things to either look at, to talk about," says US billionaire art collector J. Tomilson-Hill
(Right) Artist Yue Minjun in front of his 2006 painting Seen in the Grass Land in his Beijing studio.
The push is part of China's efforts to not only become the world's economic super power, but also to become a cultural force on par with the US and Europe. New museums in China have paid astronomic prices for trophy works. Last month, Sotheby's racked up sales of over USD466 million at its Hong Kong sales, including a USD65 million painting that broke a record for Hong Kong.
Art remains an attractive asset for the global rich who want a store of value they can take offshore, or use to avoid taxes. The art piling up in duty-free warehouses in Singapore, Hong Kong and Switzerland are a sign that the rich are using art as a way to offshore their wealth.
AUCTIONUM
The second biggest auction news in October was the partial self-destruction of Banksy's Girl With Balloon (2006) which was necessarily renamed Love is in the Bin (2018). Responses to the Banksy "prank" ranged from being called an economic act of genius to a public relations stunt that became an empty gesture. The buyer, a European collector, said: ‘When the hammer came down last week and the work was shredded, I was at first shocked, but gradually I began to realize that I would end up with my own piece of art history.’
Estimate: £200,000 to £300,000
Price Realized: £1,093,127.00
Value of owning a piece of history: Priceless
Sotheby's, London
RECORD | Jenny Saville became the world’s most expensive living female artist when her very large painting (see right) Propped (1992) 213.4x 182.9 cm./84x72 inches sold at Sotheby's, London for £9.5 million (USD12.4 million).
The National Gallery of the Cayman Islands (NGCI) new exhibition, “Big Art Auction 5”, will raise funds for the gallery’s permanent collection and related educational programmes by featuring work from leading local contemporary artists before they are auctioned off at a “Sotheby’s-style” evening reception on November 1, 2018. Part of the proceeds from the auction will go to the artists and part to the NGCI Art Fund in a 50/50 split.
QUANTUM & INDICIA
Ten years after English artist Damien Hirst bypassed his gallery representatives and went straight to market, consigning 223 new works directly to Sotheby’s London for a two-day auction event entitled: “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever”, artnet magazine revisited the sale which generated USD201 million (soaring way above its high estimate of USD24million) and analyses the subsequent resale of 19 of the works therein.
Findings? The glut of Hirst works may have decreased the demand for his art: 17 of the 19 works decreased sharply in value compared to their debut. The bulk of the work, however, has not returned to the market, perhaps indicating collector preference for psychic value over profit.
ex FIDA BONA
Nari Ward (left) talks to the students of the Edna Manley College about his work (right) Iron Heavens, 1995. An installation of oven pans, ironed cotton and charred wooden bats.
Nari Ward (b. 1963, Kingston) is a New York based artist known for his large sculptural installations composed entirely of discarded objects which he re-works and re-purposes to confront social issues. While he intentionally leaves the meaning of his work open, allowing the viewers their own interpretation, in every work (which he admits is largely dark and depressed) he imbues life and hope by adding plants, sugar glazes, raw cotton and the like.
Ward is represented by gallery heavyweight Lehmann Maupin and is enjoying commercial success - JAMR reported on the record Sotheby's sale of his Casio Black, 2017 earlier this year. When asked if he ever feels pressure to produce, considering the time-consuming complexity of his works, he offered that he was not marketable until later in his career and so by then had accumulated an available body of work.
Up until then Ward was a house-painter, chased after residencies and taught (which he continues to do). The lesson from Ward for the students who are impacted by the absence of exhibition spaces and, by extension, market was this: Do what you have to do, so you can do what you want to do. There is always hope.
Ward was invited to Jamaica by NLS' Deborah Caroll Anzinger in conjunction with the Edna Manley College. The New Museum, NYC will present his first museum survey in New York in November. “Nari Ward: We the People” will feature over thirty sculptures, paintings, videos, and large-scale installations from throughout Ward’s twenty-five-year career, highlighting his status as one of the most important and influential sculptors working today.
National Gallery of Jamaica senior curator, O'Neil Lawrence (seen with Katrina Coombs at Art Bo) is advocating for more arts research.
In October he presented his paper: "Representation of the Body in Nationalist Art" at ASAP/10 in New Orleans, LA and then headed to Bogota, Columbia for Art Bo - one of Latin America's leading market events - where he discussed the need for more knowledge-based curatorial capacity in the English-speaking Caribbean as a strategy for sustaining of regional cultural initiatives.
EXHIBITIONUM
Detail from Anzinger's Coy, 2018. Acrylic, foam, mirror and aloe on canvas
ON SHOW | Erosion
Sargent's Daughters Gallery, NYC
October - November 18, 2018
In her debut New York solo show Deborah Carroll Anzinger confronts a wide range of subjects through an equally wide range of media, employing living plants, hair, mirrors and styrofoam. The materials are central to Anzinger’s practice, and carry dichotic messages: aloe barbadensis possesses an ability to pierce or penetrate flesh (conventionally a phallic trait) as well as a resilience and ability to heal (a feminine attribute in conventional terms); mirrors disrupt the plane of the artwork introducing a moment of awareness that the viewer in their presence contributes to the syntax of the work; styrofoam, usually a hazardous environmental waste, serves as a support for living plants. These dualities are embraced both in material and meaning. Continue reading...
For Freedoms - an American collective for creative citizenship founded by Eric Gottesman and Hank Willis Thomas - rolled out the over 150 artist-designed billboards in the 50 State Initiative ( + the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) for the largest public art project in U.S. history.
The organization believes that if artists’ voices replace advertising across the country, public discourse will become more nuanced. During the September to November 2018, the 'exhibition' is intended spark a national dialogue about art, education, commerce, and politics.
The full list is a stellar line-up including Ebony G. Patterson, Carrie Mae Weems and Theaster Gates,
Ebony G. Patterson, untitled ( ...he was 12) 167 W. Main Street, Lexington.In Collaboration With 21c Museum Hotels. Courtesy of the Artist and Monique Meloche Gallery.
ON SHOW |
Dundee University, Scotland
Through January 2019
Photographs of Jamaica's rural and urban landscapes appear alongside historic images of Jamaica captured by the Valentine & Sons postcard firm.
Stephen McLaren, Jamaica: A Sweet Forgetting - View through the Blue Mountains, Jamaica (left) and Varun Baker, Journey 1 - Joshua (centre) and friend on a central Kingston street, Jamaica.
SHOWED | The Journey
One Space Gallery, Tribeca, NYC
October 11-15, 2018
During his travels with Jamaica's Olympic Bobsled Team, Michael Anthony Hill viewed art in the great museums of Europe. It rekindled his passion for painting, which draws on both African visual culture and Cubism. When producing these works, the artist paints in a storage unit that allows only 30% of light to pass through. "It makes my work brighter when exhibited in the natural light," explains Hill.
SHOWED | Open Your Eyes and Look Within
The Jamaican High Commission, London
October 23–26, 2018
To celebrate the UK's Black History Month and Heritage Month in Jamaica, the Jamaican High Commission, for the first time ever, opened its doors to present its 40+ piece collection of contemporary paintings and sculpture which are on long-term loan from the National Gallery of Jamaica.
A still from Jeannette Ehler's video, Black Bullets, 2012 (above) is the promotional image for the current installation of the travelling exhibition Relational Undercurrents; Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago curated by Tatiana Flores, now on show at the Florida International University’s Frost Art Museum through January 2019 as part of their programming for Art Basel Season 2018 in Miami. Relational Undercurrents is the first major survey of this size and scope of 21st century art by 67 contemporary Caribbean artists representing 14 Caribbean countries, whose works, including those by Camille Chedda, Charles Campbell and Ebony G. Patterson, offer expansive perspectives that transcend the boundaries imposed upon Caribbean cultures. “Because of Miami’s geographic proximity to the Caribbean nations, as well as our cultural mosaic which Caribbean cultures have shaped, it was important for us to bring this exhibition to Miami during Art Basel season,” said Dr. Jordana Pomeroy, the Director of the museum.
ANNOUNCED | After a year and half of living in Switzerland, local photographer Patrick Planter has joined forces with Geneva-based Denise Allen of Experience Jamaique, to present a live, interactive online exhibition on November 24th, 2018 designed to target international audiences for and buyers of Jamaican artwork. Read more from the Sunday Gleaner here.
Patrick Planter, Resiliance/Resilence
MULTIMEDIA
Roberta Stoddart talks about her latest body of work, The Tear Catcher: "I try to look for God in everything. Art is created through us, and by us. God is always involved. God is—in everyone, everything, everywhere; seen and unseen. When I know that and can feel that, then nothing is inconsequential, all creatures are sacred, and all of life becomes an opportunity to love," says Stoddart to the Trinidad Guardian newspaper. Click on image to see the Y Art Gallery video.
PRINT | Amy Laskin was featured in the fourth issue of Hyperrealism Magazine. "My paintings often focus on an anonymous nonrepresentational figure comprised of natural elements and unusual combinations. I am interested in decorative language and the assemblage of forms which are placed in situations existing in a natural worldly environment. Ostensibly, these combinations are of a surrealistic and mythical nature presented in a cogent way to suggest something phantasmagorical." Laskin is a Jamaica-based artist whose works are represented by Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago.
AUDIO | NLS Kingston's latest podcast, Episode 29 of IN invited artists, historians and curators to recapture and analyse circumstances preceding and following the Black Arts Movement of Britain's 1980s creative landscape. Presented with the support of the British Council.
For many reasons we are delighted to see that our September issue (Volume 1 Issue 10) of the Jamaica Art Market Review was posted to the Critical. Caribbean. Art page resulting in new readers and an uptick of site visits. Thank you!
DESIGN | Sculptor Laura Facey Cooper's hand is all over the National Flower Team submission to the Jamaica Houses of Parliament Design Competition as is her elegant simplicity: "It is as much a sculpture as it is a building," she said, reasoning that the lignum vitae petal from Jamaica's national flower, in the park made good sense. Indeed. In addition to Laura Facey, the team consists of Stephen Facey, Dr Patricia Green, Dr Jenna Blackwood, a supporting ensemble of students from the Caribbean School of Architecture and team design leader Hugh Dutton who noted that the building sends a strong message that Jamaica cares about the environment. If the recent Town Hall Meeting's tremendous response to this work is any indication, then the National Flower Team has already won.
NOTABILIA
AWARD | Sculptor Simone Leigh won the 2018 Hugo Boss Prize at New York's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, one of the most reputed awards in the art industry for creating pieces that are unexpected and advancing the scope of contemporary art. The jury lauded her sustained mentorship of young female artists and said that her emphasis on centering the black female experience is profoundly inspiring in its simultaneous radicality and necessity. Upon receiving the award, Simone - who was born in Chicago, Il to Jamaican parents - said: “I'd like to dedicate this award to Peggy Cooper Cafritz, my friend and mentor, who talked to me a lot about black women and art and power. She also talked to me about the importance of these kinds of awards and the responsibility that they engender and I accept.” See more of Simone Leigh's work and read more about the award.
AWARD | The Pollock-Krasner Foundation awarded USD3.9 million to 125 artists and twenty-five organizations for its 2017–18 grant cycle and among this year’s grantees is artist and NLS Kingston organizer Deborah Caroll Anzinger. The Foundation was formed in 1985 to provide financial assistance to working visual artists of established ability through the generosity of the late painter Lee Krasner, widow of American painter Jackson Pollock.
Basil Watson's WIP shots of his recently unveiled statue of Pocket Rocket, Olympian sprinter Shelly-Ann Frasier Pryce at the National Stadium Park capture her spirit, exuberance and determination.
ANNOUNCED | The CARICS International Fine Arts Festival will be launched in March 2019 with an introductory “Affair of the Arts” exhibit at the Old Hospital Park, Montego Bay. This is a lead up to the inaugural grand exhibit proposed for Spring 2020. CARICS (the Cachet Caribbean Community Society) is the brainchild of architect Oniel Cunningham who seeks to inject vibrancy and growth into the Jamaican art scene.
ALIBI
National Gallery West announced their newest addition to the team, Kaleb D'Aguilar, the new Curatorial Assistant. D'Aguilar is an aspiring Film Director who also performs with the Quilt Performing Arts Company in Jamaica. He's a great addition to their team, says NGW "because of his exuberance and passion for the Arts, with the drive to promote National Gallery West and all its functions in the most effective and innovative way possible."
TRANSITIONS
Harmony Hall Gallery (1981-2018) was acquired in 1980 by Annabella Proudlock, who, with a group of friends, spent a year restoring the mid-19th century Methodist manse to its original glory. Promoting excellence in, and broadening the appreciation of Jamaican art and craft was the principal motivation for opening the Ocho Rios gallery whose promotion of Jamaica's intuitive art was unique and is now legendary.
ARCHIVES
In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance (c1918- 1937) which established the authority of black creatives: artists, writers, poets, musicians, dancers, publishers, over the representation of black culture and experience, we remember sculptor Ronald Moody (1900-1984) and his contribution to the movement.
Moody was producing his work in England at the time of the emergence of the Harlem Renaissance in the United States but moved to Paris - the 1920s mecca of black painters and sculptors - in the late thirties.
African-American cultural theorist Alain Locke documented artists of African heritage working within the diaspora for the New York-based organisation the Harmon Foundation. The Foundation became interested in the work Moody was undertaking in Europe and in August 1938 Evelyn Brown, the assistant director of the Foundation, sent a letter to the Jamaican born Honorable James Samuel Watson (1882–1952) - one of the first two Blacks elected as a judge in the state of New York - asking about Moody. The letter states:
Ronald Moody with Johanaan (1936)in Fleming Close Studio, Fulham, 1963
Photograph © Valerie Wilmer
"For a number of years the Harmon Foundation has been interested in improving race relations through recognition of the achievements of Negroes, particularly in the field of art. In this connection we have been accumulating information about Negro artists in this country and have been keeping records of their work. We recently heard of a Mr. Ronald Moody, sculptor, of Jamaican, W.I., ancestry and would like to find out more about him if possible. Mr. Elmer Carter, Editor of Opportunity, suggested that you might possibly be able to help us.’
The result of this intervention was that a number of Moody’s carvings were included in the 1939 exhibition Contemporary Negro Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland, a large survey show organised by the Harmon Foundation. Among them was his great female head, Midonz (1937) which he lost track of until it was restored to his estate decades after his death.
Read more about the Harlem Renaissance anniversary celebrations; about the Tate's embrace of Ronald Moody as one of Britain's most remarkable sculptors and about his inclusion in the National Gallery West exhibition The Art of Jamaican Sculpture.
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