Art. Recognition. Culture.

Introducing ARC. SEE website here. READ CRB blog piece with ARC's editor in chief Holly Bynoe and the magazine's creative director Nadia Huggins here.

FROM THE ARC website:

ARC Magazine is a quarterly Caribbean Art and Culture print and e-magazine published out of St. Vincent and the Grenadines by artists Nadia Huggins and Holly Bynoe. We are endeavouring to form a creative platform to offer insight into current practices across the burgeoning creative industries, while bridging the gap between established and emerging artists. Within the recent motions of integration there is a critical space developing where, for the first time, we can envision a converging nexus of artists who want to share their creative experience.


ARC Magazine presents a formula, an experiment and an imaginative body of curated work that exhibits the trajectory and the motion of artists who practice within the region. Within our collective networks, we are finding it necessary to make the common man and the aficionado aware of possibility of art, its evolution, trends and ‘personalities’. We also feel the need to provide a forum that celebrates creativity, its determination, dialogue and pleasure. It is our ambition to inspire and give voice to a new generation of independent, DIY and emerging artists who remain fearless while battling the parts, fractions and whole of their varied cultures. At ARC we want artists to negotiate their own space by offering a neutral ground that will license discourse and varied creative insights into the mind of an artist.

ARC is a projected motion that goes up, outwards and beyond into a space of curiosity.

Wrestling with the Image

SEE RICHARD RAWLINS E-CAT here.


The Art Museum of the Americas (AMA) announces the opening of Wrestling with the Image: Caribbean Interventions, an exhibition of contemporary art from twelve Caribbean countries.   Featuring work by artists from the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago, the exhibition is curated by artist and curator Christopher Cozier and art historian Tatiana Flores.

Wrestling with the Image: Caribbean Interventions presents works in a variety of media, including photography, video, painting, graphic arts, sculpture, and installation.  The scope of the objects demonstrates how the region’s contemporary artists are confronting stereotypes about the Caribbean without denying their own surroundings or rejecting the worlds in which they operate.   Through investigations on history, tourism, globalization, popular culture, and gender, these artists urge us to reconsider our own expectations on how a Caribbean image should look.

Characterized by scholars as “the laboratory of globalization,” the Caribbean is a multifaceted locale that transcends geographic boundaries.  Its culture has European, African, Asian, Latin American, and Native American roots.  It is not surprising, then, that several artists in the exhibition explore themes of migration, the spread of culture, and global citizenship.  For co-curator Christopher Cozier, “this is a conversation about movement in the Atlantic world—a dialogue about dispersal rather than displacement.”  Many of the artists themselves no longer live in the Caribbean, residing in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia; nevertheless, their experiences are the result of complex historical, economic, and cultural processes that are part and parcel of what it means to be Caribbean.

Past and present, local and universal, and self and other are among the dichotomies addressed in this exhibition.  Marlon James’ blunt and direct portraits depict young people who look like they could be from anywhere.  Ebony Patterson’s provocative portrayals derived from Jamaican dancehall culture—with its ironic face bleaching and androgynous fashions—are equally global.   By contrast, Joscelyn Gardner engages the historical archive. Her series of hand-painted stone lithographs Creole Portraits III pays tribute to faceless women victims of slavery by depicting a typical African hairstyle juxtaposed to an iron collar.   Among other images conjuring colonial history is Nikolai Noel’s drawing Toussaint et George, in which Haitian liberator Toussaint L’Ouverture and George Washington seem to stare each other down on equal footing.

In John Cox’ paintings of boxers, the notion of the prize fighter as confident and infallibly masculine is turned on its side.  The works introduce unresolved tensions by depicting subjects fighting against their doppelgangers or striking their own faces.  Heino Schmid challenges that status of the image as a conveyor of meaning.  In the case of his Temporary Horizon video, two glass bottles momentarily keep one another standing, but then fall.  A man’s arms and waist appear on screen, and he puts the bottles back into place.  They fall again, and the anonymous man’s Sisyphean task continues.

As a group, the works in the exhibition demonstrate the dynamism and creativity of the current generation of Caribbean artists.  According to co-curator Tatiana Flores, they also “allow us to reflect on our own assumptions and preconceptions regarding   the meaning of place, the articulation of difference, and the construction of past and present.  Whether they challenge, delight, frustrate, or disgust, these images provoke a reaction.”

Wrestling with the Image: Caribbean Interventions includes work by John Cox, Blue Curry, Kishan Munroe, Heino Schmid, (The Bahamas); Ewan Atkinson, Joscelyn Gardner, Sheena Rose, Tonya Wiles (Barbados); Santiago Cal (Belize); Pauline Marcelle (Dominica); Roshini Kempadoo, Hew Locke (Guyana); Maksaens Denis, Jean-Ulrick Désert, Barbara Prézeau-Stephenson (Haiti); Charles Campbell, Keisha Costello, Marlon James, Ebony Patterson, Oneika Russell, Phillip Thomas (Jamaica); Terry Boddie (Saint Kitts and Nevis); Nadia Huggins, (Saint Lucia); Holly Bynoe, (Saint Vincent and the Grenadindes); Sri Irodikromo, Patricia Kaersenhout, Marcel  Pinas, Dhiradj Ramsamoedj, (Suriname); Nicole Awai, La Vaughn Belle, Marlon Griffith, Jaime Lee Loy, Richard Fung, Abigail Hadeed, Nikolai Noel, Rodell Warner, and Natalie Wood (Trinidad and Tobago).

Wrestling with the Image: Caribbean Interventions forms part of the About Change emerging artists’ program, an initiative of the World Bank in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank, the OAS, and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat.  About Change is a series of juried exhibitions of contemporary art from Latin America and the Caribbean that will take place throughout 2011 and 2012 at different venues in Washington, D.C., including the World Bank, the Art Museum of the Americas, and the galleries of the Inter-American Development Bank.  It has been organized by the World Bank Art Program under the auspices of the World Bank Vice Presidency for Latin America and the Caribbean Region.

Wrestling with the Image: Caribbean Interventions

On view January 21‐March 10, 2011

Art Museum of the Americas

201 18th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20006

Hours: Tuesday‐Sunday 10 AM‐5 PM Friday, January 21 at 12 noon: Gallery talk and exhibition previewFriday, January 21 at 6pm: Opening receptionFriday, March 4: student symposium on Caribbean art in conjunction with George Mason University and Caribbean in Transit JournalMarch 1‐10: Caribbean film series

FILM REVIEW: Black Swan

Black Swan is a cruel and terrifying film. It plumbs the depths of one character’s fears and insecurities and makes us reflect on our own. It is not at all concerned with ballet, but rather the study of a character who achieves tragic proportions. And as with all tragedy, it is built upon one character’s fatal flaw.

“The only thing in your way is you,” the artistic director of a New York ballet company tells Nina (Natalie Portman). The artistic director is Thomas Leroy (played Vincent Cassel) and he issues this advice at a crucial point in the film.

One of the strongest aspects of Black Swan is how it is not about the world of dance, even though it is anchored in it. To say that it is filled with dance-movie clichés is to miss the point. Here is a thriller that is more Rosemary’s Baby and Repulsion rather than The Red Shoes. The film is almost certainly set in Nina’s mind as she pirouettes to a breaking point that is possibly physiological or psychological—or even both.

The plot follows an agonizing sequence of events that unfold from the moment Nina is unexpectedly chosen to dance the Swan Queen, the principal role of the Swan Lake. She must overcome several fears to liberate herself artistically and mentally and the key to this liberation is something unstated and hidden, though in plain view for us to see.

Part of the impact of this film comes from its star: Natalie Portman who communicates Nina’s delicacy, anguish, ache and innocence with a poignancy that is at times painful to watch. Her portrayal anchors the film within a subterranean world filled with Freudian impulses that at times almost overwhelm the viewer, mirroring a similar process that arguably occurs in Swan Lake itself. 

The first time I saw the film, I thought it cruel: too painful and tragic. Helplessly, we watch Nina make crucial mistakes, and hold our breaths in fear that she will literally fall with every step she takes. Why would a director (Darren Aronofsky, who did the equally poignant Requiem for a Dream) want to subject viewers to something like this?

But then, as I watched a second time, I felt that perhaps my reaction was my own. Perhaps Aronofsky has achieved that which art achieves best: trouble and terror. On second viewing it became clearer that a key cipher in the film is Nina herself. As with the great heroes, almost everything that stands in her way is a creation of her own making. Her navigation of this, and the beauty that she discovers at great pains, are both the stuff of dreams and nightmares.

RATED: 4 stars **** 

All Your Houses

FROM THE ORGANISERS:

"The man next to me on the ten-hour flight has insomnia. His white clothing is in layers, and neat. He repacks his hand luggage, which is full of gifts. He was an athlete who represented his nation. Injury and necessity sent him to the factory near Croydon to make plastic cups. He is too big to ignore, even if he had not confided to me his fear of the losses that night shifts make in his mind. The art of memory becomes a topic of discussion. Will his family remember him? His trip is a secret..."

Vahni Capildeo is a Trinidadian writer who has lived in Britain since 1991. Her poetry includes  No Traveller Returns (2003), Person Animal Figure (2005), and Undraining Sea (2009). On Tuesday 4 January, 2011, at 7 pm, Capildeo will read from her recent work at Alice Yard. The programme will include excerpts from her prose work All Your Houses, accompanied by a series of images by Andre Bagoo, part of an “intertextual dialogue” ongoing over the past two years.

All are invited. Photo courtesy Nicholas Laughlin.

The first part of the last part of the Harry Potter films

It's good. Thank goodness. And the fact that it ends mid-way through the action is a huge plus, avoiding all that sentimental wrapping-up that often accompanies the denouements of the prior films.

If you have not read the Harry Potter books, you may at some points have NO IDEA what is going on. But this does not stop any of the fun. I sometimes found certain lapses of logic and then I snapped out of it: after all, it's a film about a bloody boy wizard flying around the place on a broomstick. HELLO!

The acting in this film is also up a notch, the characters have matured a bit, though they remain stockish. The use of landscape in this film was incredible and, for the first time in a Potter film, I found the special effects completely convincing. Not spoiling things too much I will say this: like in the last film, a major character dies. Be prepared for tears.

ALL IN ALL: **** 

That song from Almodovar's 'Broken Embraces'

Intoxicating song which comes at a crucial moment of Almodovar's last film, Broken Embraces, starring Penelope Cruz.

The film itself is standard Almodovar: dark, self-reflexive, profound and hilarious. It is, like all Almodovar films, essentially a soap opera with a plot so effortlessly convoluted and full of secrets that it cannot be summarised. This time, though, it lacks the edge and genuine complexity of some of the Spanish director's earlier work like Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Bad Education and Talk to Her. But it is still unforgettable.

***TONIGHT: Les Diaboliques @ studiofilmclub

FROM THE ORGANISERS:

Thursday November 25th TONIGHT!

FREE!

doors open at 7:30pm and films will start at 8:15pm

After last weeks film about Henri-Georges Clouzot's aborted masterpiece INFERNO we bring you his existing one... Les Diaboliques

Les Diaboliques (Henri Georges-Clouzot/France/1954/116') 

Legend has it that Henri-Georges Clouzot beat out Alfred Hitchcock to secure the rights to this novel, which proved to be a veritable blueprint for an icy masterpiece of murder, mystery and suspense. Afterwards, the story goes a fellow told Alfred Hitchcock that after his daughter saw Psycho she refused to take a shower and that after she saw Diabolique she refused to get in a bathtub. Well, Hitchcock said, send her to the dry cleaners.

Véra Clouzot plays the sickly wife of a callous headmaster of a provincial boarding school going to seed, and the commanding Simone Signoret is the headmaster's mistreated mistress. Together they plot and carry out his murder, a brutal drowning that director Clouzot documents in chilly detail, but the corpse disappears and a nosy detective starts sniffing around the grounds as threatening notes taunt the women. Clouzot's thriller is as precise and accomplished a work as anything in Hitchcock's canon, a film of gruelling suspense and startling shocks in an overcast, grey world of decay. Some have accused the film of being misanthropic, and Clouzot's attitude toward his characters is bitter at best, contemptuous at worst. The viewer is left on the outside looking in, but the razor precision and terrifying twists deliver a sleek, bleak spectacle absolutely worthy of attention.The end caption of the film pleads with the audience not to reveal the ending of the film to any of their friends,a truly influential, intelligent, and unforgettable film. 

Akuzuru's Una at COCO dance fest

FROM THE ORGANISERS:

This new Performance work by the artist A k u z u r u will be presented on two separate days at the COCO Dance Festival 2010: Moving Movement Museum. Performance art, though not traditionally a dance medium, is very much an interactive genre characterized by unrehearsed situations, which establishes uncontrived results. Because of its spontaneous, experimental and extended spatial process as a given, movement and stasis become the engine of its connective projections.

Act 1 RED: the prelude to the main performance on Sunday, will be in motion on Friday 26 November at 8.30pm from the Alice Yard Art Space on the street.

Act 2 WHITE: continuing as a much more extended presentation, will be in motion on Sunday 28 November. Starting at 5.45pm with a walking action from the General Hospital in Port of Spain, around the Queens Park Savannah route to Alice Yard, this performance will continue from Alice Yard at 7.30 pm on the street. The public is invited to ‘walk with me’ before viewing the main performance later on.

ABOUT:

A k u z u r u is an Experiential Artist who is known for her  performance art  and large sculptural-installation works. Born in Trinidad, her works have been shown internationally in the Caribbean, Europe, Africa and Asia. Interdisciplinary in approach, the artist creates intense experiences, working primarily in the natural environment in site specific situations. Just a few examples of where she has participated in and presented her works include the Nottinghill Carnival in London; LIFT:_London International Festival of Theatre; The London Samba Festival; the 2nd. Biennale de Martinique; Rockstone & Bootheel Exhibition in USA; Solo exhibition at the National Museum of Trinidad & Tobago; Solo exhibition at the Caribbean Contemporary Arts (CCA) and her epic journey Earthology India in India.

COCO Dance Festival ’10 presents the Moving Movement Museum at Alice Yard and Bohemia

The Contemporary Choreographers’ Collective - nicknamed COCO - is a group of independent choreographers - Dave Williams, Nicole Wesley, Nancy Herrera and Sonja Dumas – which offers performance support for choreographers working in unconventional ways in Trinidad and Tobago.   COCO will host its second annual dance festival from Friday, November 26th to Sunday, November 28th  – this time in a series of unusual spaces.

Showtimes are as follows: Friday, November 26th and Saturday, November 27th – 8:00pm; Sunday, November 28th – 7:00pm.  Tickets are available from the choreographers and from the organizers.   Kindly call 622-4426 to make reservations.  Security will be provided.

New 'Green Lantern' trailer...yippie!

It's looking like a cross between Iron Man and... Iron Man. With Chris Evans (the flame from Fantastic Five...or Four?) There are concerns over the tired tones:

"There is a distinct whiff of Iron Man to the debut trailer for Green Lantern, which hit the web earlier this week. Cocky hero plunged unexpectedly into superherodom and required to shape up to new responsibilities? Check. Rousing hard rock soundtrack? Check. Attractive female discarded with wisecracking insouciance? Yes, Green Lantern even borrows an early scene from Jon Favreau's 2008 film---Guardian, UK.

We await with trepidation!

'Disappointment' by Tanya

FROM Tanya Marie's smoking hot blog.

Expressive, eclectic, electric

Simply put a_phake rocks! This INTERVIEW at Outlish online magazine (a favorite) also features some of his EDM tracks. You can also CHECK him out on MySpace here. PHOTO by Arnaldo JJ.

Bocas Lit Festival

It's brand new. Find out What? When? Why? and Who? at the Bocas Lit Fest blog.

Tropical Night / Made in China

Do I want to make these items relate? Do I want to stamp one as a product, re-appropriated like the emotions of the individual? Do I want to draw lines between the hangman's hidden noose and the nails on the wall from which the clips hang? Little hangings, all. Little lives, bare. Paper and paint and boxes? Re-interpreted in a different manner every time. And thereby re-appropriated by the mind. Several minds.


"Why are they being labeled here in Trinidad? What would the value of labeling my work this way in narratives of development and progress?" 


FROM Christopher Cozier's blog. READ an interview with Cozier, on the eve on the opening of a show at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, here.

ALL photos copyright Christopher Cozier.

My favorite films of the year...so far!

The year is almost over, and there is still plenty of time to see lots of films but I thought I'd mention which were among my favorites for 2010 thus far:

1) I must start with I Am Love, which I love. It's a deeply melodramatic, but stunning, stylish and bravura film with Tilda Swinton playing a Russian-Italian woman. Nuf said? It's all very glossy and beautiful, but with a deeper purpose and intention in mind. The closing scenes are unforgettable, and so is Tilda Swinton who suggests oceans of emotion without batting an eyelash. Amazing. The soundtrack features music by the great American composer John Adams. 

2) Reading a summary of this film, you'd be forgiven for thinking this the Brokeback Mountain for orthodox jews. Eyes Wide Open is so much more than that. This is one of the most fascinating, beautiful and compelling  films I have ever seen. The attention to craft is subtle and non-ostentatious. Discover it yourself. It's probably the best film of the year, and one of the best films of the decade.

3) What more do I have to say about Inception? It is clear that the film has now transcended its commercial success and entered the public imagination in a way that only landmark films or cultural phenomena do. What I notice now about the movie, looking back, is that part of its allure is how it tries relentlessly to engage the audience's grey matter. It was almost as though Christopher Nolan, in a stroke of marketing counter-programming genius, said: I know, people are so starved for intelligent film that if I make an over-the-top film that requires some degree of complex mind-processing, then this will be a huge hit. So said, so done. In a sense, we have people like Tyler Perry to thank for this.

4) Simply put The Ghost Writer--starring Ewan McGregor--is Roman Polanski's best film in decades. Smooth, suave, assured, beautifully edited and with a political sub-text that is rare, this is the work of a director at the peak of his abilities. It also has a self-reflective context, given Polanski's arrest this year. You cannot miss this. Intriguing. 

5) Edward Norton. Robert DeNiro. Frances Conroy. Compelling in an unnerving way. A blazing, messy, complex and rewarding film. The film has some dark humour. And it's worth it just seeing Norton's hair.

'The American' is another dreary George Clooney movie

(WARNING REVIEW HAS SPOILERS)

I disagree with Roger Ebert who claims this is one of the best films of the year.

My favorite films this year, thus far, are: Eyes Wide Open, Inception, The Social Network, The Ghost Writer and Stone. The American simply does not make the cut.

It is not suspenseful and is rather slow-burning in a bad, predictable way. George Clooney is dreary in a dreary film with no life. I guess this mirrors the central character's dilemna, but alas, the film replicates this far too effectively.

We sit and watch for minutes and minutes as nothing really happens, and then he dies at the end (or kinda) as he drives towards a woman he likes. People in the cinema walked out constantly. Sheesh. It's like the James Bond film when he gets married and then the wife dies. Cept this time its the man, not the woman, that goes down in the name of love.

Rating: **

From the best film of the year, Eyes Wide Open. WATCH trailer here.