I am excited to announce today’s opening of the ‘Facing Locality’ exhibit curated by Luis Camnitzer at the Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts in Frederiksted and tomorrow at Walsh Metal Works Gallery in Peter’s Rest.
I have submitted, in a collaboration with Mike Walsh, a film about a street artist that will be shown at the opening. The film, ‘AJ of the Living’ revolves around AJ Simmonds, his art, and his sources of inspiration. ‘AJ of the Living’ can be found on Youtube, where the idea is that it can be seen around the world in conjunction with the ‘local’ opening here on St. Croix. The artwork at the two venues is truly inspirational, and encourages the mind of the viewer to think differently about the place we call home.
Here’s what the Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts have to say about the event:
Facing Locality intends to raise the issues of locality, frame of reference, ingrown resonance and tacit understandings that in art often are sacrificed for the sake of external conventions and expectations. Local artists around the world look towards the cultural and marketing centers for inspiration or try to satisfy the expectations of foreign visitors who look for the signals of exoticism. Thus true locality is often completely erased from the art repertoire, or is translated and misrepresented.
The exhibition asked for a review of these issues in the Caribbean and challenged artists to face locality in two possible ways:
1) Critically: from the point of view of colonial symbolism and cultural conditioning by the tourist trade, or
2) A utopian constructive way: offering possibilities for a reaffirmation of locality by isolating and expanding on elements seen as inextricably connected with local everyday life.
21 artists and 2 collaborators, mostly from the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico and born between 1936 and 1978 were chosen to “face locality”. The paintings, photos, sculptures, drawings, installations, videos, mixed media and multimedia art works were created by Stanley Coll, La Vaughn Belle, Javier Cambre, Janet Cook-Rutnik & William Stelzer (collaborative work), Nanna Debois Buhl, Cynthia Hatfield, Tomas Lanner, Monica Marin, Carmen Mojica, Mark W. Mulherrin, Nora Quintero, Vimarie Serrano and Carmelo Sobrino & Lisa Ladner (collaborative work) who will exhibit at the CMCArts, and by Florine Demosthene, Doug Frank, Sara Lee Hayes, Hilda M. Muñiz, Erik Pedersen, Quintín Rivera Toro, Nelly Toledo and Mike Walsh who will exhibit at Walsh Metal Works Gallery.
As always, we hope to see you there with an avid hunger for cutting edge art.
