Omar Victor Diop, Nanny and Quao, Jamaica (1720), from the 'Liberty' series, 2016 | Courtesy © Omar Victor Diop / MAGNIN-A, Paris
Senegalese artist Omar Victor Diop inserts himself in the series Liberty: A Universal Chronology of Black Protest to explore the defining moments of historical revolt and black struggle in Africa and the diaspora. His images feature key freedom fighters like Jamaica's own Queen Nanny (c. 1686 – c. 1755), and her brother Quao, who fled enslavement to found Nanny Town, the Maroon community in the Blue Mountains. For Diop, the series constitutes ‘a reinvented narrative of the history of black people, and therefore, the history of humanity and of the concept of Freedom.’
AGORA
Max Earle has gone straight to market, via an on-line store to showcase and sell his photo paintings on canvas and photo gloss prints of Jamaica: "one of the most beautiful countries in the world". Earle is an established commercial photographer and his fine-art outpouring is a generous one---his pictorial pieces of the Rock sell for USD35.00-65.00.
Spotted at My Jamaica, Liguanea: a choir of Winston Patrick's Angels of Peace.
Winston Patrick is a modernist sculptor, whose creations from local hard woods range from figurative works with surrealist undertones to abstract works. They appear at once playful while exhibiting more serious elements.
12-13" tall
Cedar
$6,000.00
Artspace is selling three digital prints of Ebony G. Patterson's works (from top left): Untitled (Among the weeds, plants, and peacock feathers); Untitled (Lily, carnation, and rose budz); Untitled (Among the weeds, backpack, shoes, and stones). These editions were produced by Artspace in support of Patterson's Kickstarter campaign toreclaim an overlooked site in Kansas City for an inaugural exhibition curated by Dan Cameron called "Open Spaces."
Each 24"x 36" print sells for USD750.
AUCTIONUM
Sotheby's sales result (above) from the third (RED) auction curated by the artist Theaster Gates and the architect David Adjaye which raised $5.5 million to fight AIDS in Africa, with matching funds from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for a total of $10.5 million.
"When (the) work came up by Ebony G. Patterson —currently the subject of a major solo show at the Pérez Art Museum Miami—auctioneer Oliver Barker announced that she was in the room. When the lot was won by (Theaster) Gates, he stood up, looked to Patterson, and bowed." Read more about the auction here.
An exceedingly rare Ketubbah from Kingston, Jamaica celebrating the wedding of David ben Abraham Nunes Henriques and Amy bat Alfred Delgado in Kingston on August 14, 1884.
A remarkable survival from Jamaica's Jewish community considering they could not openly practice their Judaism until after 1655 when they were granted religious freedom. Additionally, because the 1907 earthquake leveled much of Kingston, the document constitutes a rare and historically valuable relic of nineteenth-century Caribbean Jewish life.
Estimate 8,000 — 12,000 USD
Price Realized 11,875 USD
Sotheby's, New York
December 19, 2018
QUANTUM & INDICIA | ex FIDA BONA
Contemplations of the Existence of Jamaica's Visual Arts Industry by Winston C. Campbell, PhD appears in volume 7 (pages 22-29) of the National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC) Journal.
Campbell determines that there is an art industry in Jamaica by virtue of the stakeholders that exist -- artists, educators, legislators, administrators, lawyers, insurers, technical, security and transportation specialists, collectors --- but what is missing is the "appropriate ethos that will bring the appropriate levels of commitment, facilitation and support that is required at a legislative and institutional level."
POTESTATEM
The Cultural and Creative Industries Innovation Fund (CIIF) was established in 2017 with an initial USD2.6 million in capitalization from the Caribbean Development Bank. It is intended to be a multi-donor fund, which will support the development of the creative industries (CI) sector in the Caribbean. CIIF’s goal is to enable the region’s cultural and creative industries to be globally competitive. The CIIF provides grant funding for innovative projects that demonstrate a significant measure of innovation, collaboration and sustainability.
FALL ARTS RESIDENCY | A six to nine-week program open to visual artists working in any medium or discipline who are concerned with pushing boundaries within their disciplines and within the current social landscape, as well as engaging with the public through art. Read more here.
CURATORIAL/ART WRITING INTENSIVE | A 5-month long mentorship program geared towards addressing the dearth of archival scholarship on the work of artists in Jamaica and the Caribbean by empowering young writers and curators with the tools to write these histories. Read more here.
EXHIBITIONUM | CLICK TO SEE SLIDESHOW
“Half the Picture: A Feminist Look at the Collection”
The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn
Through March 31, 2019
Renée Cox is an Jamaican-American artist, photographer and political activist who uses her body to celebrate black womanhood. Her monumental photograph Yo Mama appears in the Brooklyn Museum must-see review of its collection through an intersectional feminist lens, highlighting work created in response to social and political moments. Timely too, Renee is experiencing a renaissance according to Hyperallergic but her work has long been a compelling confrontation of racism and sexism
Renee Cox, The Yo Mama, 1993. Archival digital ink-jet print on cotton rag, 4x7feet.
ANNOUNCED
MULTIMEDIA
The Jamaica Observer published a wonderful spread on The Kiln-dom of Nakazzi Hutchinson and the "evening of exquisite art” hosted by Supreme Ventures director Steven Hudson. Hutchinson is an artist who also sees herself as an inventor. “I invented the process of the glass mask purely by chance, ...the driftwood and the materials signify natural hair, locs and natural beauty — the essence of a Jamaican woman”.
As seen in VOGUE | Christian Louboutin (right) hosted a celebration of Ebony G. Patterson’s solo show . . while the dew is still on the roses . . . at the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Standing left is Swizz Beatz, a longtime supporter of the artist; who introduced Louboutin to Patterson’s work.
Above left is the cover of the digital publication produced on the occasion of Ebony's fourth solo exhibition at the Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago. High quality photographs offer a near immersive experience of the show. Other catalogues available include Dead Treez and ...when the grow up... Click here to see.
"Curved-bay-shaped sign adorned with contemporary textures and a tropical turquoise colour, with lush landscaping, clean, white, bold lettering and white cuboid forms on the background. Tropical contemporary interpretation of a traditional resort along a bay, which will stand as a beacon of innovation, illuminated with varying colours during the night with the options of being distinguished when required..to aid the celebration of seasons, as ‘Montego Bay’ – the dominant words – will be able to reflect the colours of each respective season."
Dual façade digital installation
Montego Bay, St James
$17,000,000
NOTABILIA
The Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) has committed over $17.5 million to mobilize Jamaica’s first Walking Street Museum on Duke Street as part of downtown Kingston’s redevelopment plans. The Duke Street Refurbishing Project will include placement of street art --- sculptures, murals, low and high relief figures and storyboards --- depicting Duke Street’s history along various locations of the roadway. The work is expected to commence by the second quarter of 2019 and will be managed by the Kingston Restoration Company as part of a public-private initiative to upgrade the target area, which falls between Port Royal Street and East Queen Street. Director of Projects at the TEF Yohan Rampair says that the walking museum is seen as a way to create an enduring and unique attraction for visitors while serving as a vehicle to preserve an important part of the nation’s history.
Basil Watson has been selected to create a monument in honour of the American civil rights icon, Martin Luther King Jr. The 12ft bronze statue is expected to be completed in 2019 and will be located on Martin Luther King Jr Drive, Atlanta near to CNN headquarters and the Mercedes Benz Stadium. "It is fitting that a Jamaican should be selected to create a statue of the famous Civil Rights martyr and Nobel laureate. On his much celebrated first visit to Jamaica in 1965, King said he never felt more at home anywhere in the world and declared “In Jamaica, I feel like a human being.”
JUST BECAUSE WE LOVE THE TITLE OF THIS WORK | By Grenada-born British artist Denzil Forrester, called Duppy Deh (2018). Forrestor focuses on painting places, constructed from memories of home or a feeling of home. After nearly a lifetime of being "marginalized" he is now represented by Stephen Friedman Gallery in London according to an [ARTnews] story. Forrestor's recent show From Trench Town to Porthtowan was curated by Peter Doig.
ALIBI
Nicky Byron, (pictured left with a Lancelot Fearon nude) co-owner of Kingston's Island Art and Framing, has given in to a yearning to add her own “two strokes” to the showroom and both unveiled and sold-off her first-ever art collection, entitled (sic) Artist Peace Of Mind. Read the full Observer story here.
Good wishes and congratulations are in order for curator Nicole Smythe-Johnson and artist Rodell Warner on their nuptials.
Their wedding picture appears here without permission, but because it was publicly posted, and because we believe there is nothing more beautiful or valuable or inspirational than love, we hope they won't mind too much.
TRANSITIONS
Lawrence Edwards (1922-2018) Born in St Thomas, Edwards attended the Jamaica School of Arts and Craft and also studied with Edna Manley. His exhibition career started in 1960 at the Hills Gallery and his works were most recently seen in the National Gallery West's 2018 exhibition “The Art of Jamaican Sculpture”. His work Rapture, (1992), a 58" tall guango sculpture, pictured here, forms a part of Aaron and Marjorie Matalon's Gifts for the Nation donation to the National Gallery of Jamaica.
Keith Patrick Byles (1927-2018) Artist and communications professional
is remembered by the Gleaner's arts editor Amitabh Sharma in a glowing tribute: "There are seldom occasions and there are rarely people to describe that put one at a loss for words - where similes and attributes seem to lose their sheen. Perhaps, in essence it would be akin to trying to match the intensity of sunlight with a lamp. K. Patrick Byles was one such person whose larger-than-life persona went over, beyond, and above his physical attributes."
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