BEYOND BOUNDARIES: SEEING ART HISTORY FROM THE CARIBBEAN

Program

We are facing urgent calls to rethink art history and its practices. Monuments are falling amidst calls to decolonize, as the legacies of slavery and colonialism are materialized in our public and institutional spheres. As we think about our futures, what yield might there be for art history to engage rigorously, with a region—the Caribbean—that has remained peripheral to the field, yet has always existed beyond its disciplinary boundaries? It is the polyvalent and polyphonic nature of the Caribbean that sustains its long history of intellectual production, and its challenge to Western conceptions of modernity, from the nation state to political economy and artistic production itself. The development of Caribbean intellectual thought takes us from the plantation to anti-slavery discourse and decolonization, from transculturation to creolization to the very concept of what constitutes the human. Why has art history—a discipline often defined by its relationship with shifting terrains of theoretical critique and analysis—been slow to engage with Caribbean writers and thinkers, to take seriously their multidisciplinary, multi-theoretical and, multi-lingual voices? This conference asks what such an engagement could look like, and offer, the field of art history at this critical juncture.

Pre-Recorded Artist Conversations

“Transformative Justice”
patricia kaersenhout, artist, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

“Dreaming in the Face of the Impossible”
Andrea Chung, artist, San Diego, California

Thursday, October 20, 2022

MANTON AUDITORIUM
CLARK ART INSTITUTE 

9:00 AM           WELCOME
Caroline Fowler, Research and Academic Program, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts


9:10 AM            INTRODUCTION
Conference co-conveners Anna Arabindan-Kesson, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, and
Wayne Modest, National Museum of World Cultures, Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam, the Netherlands


ON SEEING WITH AND THROUGH THE CARIBBEAN

9:45 AM           SESSION 1
Artists Tessa Mars, Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and
Marcel Pinas, Paramaribo, Suriname, in conversation


10:45 AM         DISCUSSION
Moderated by Anna Arabindan-Kesson and Wayne Modest


11:15 AM          COFFEE BREAK
MANTON READING ROOM


(ART) HISTORIES

11:30 AM          SESSION 2
“Of Art and Spirit: Sacred Practice in Caribbean Contemporary Art”
Yanique Hume, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados

“Beyond Vodou Iconography: Luce Turnier, a Feminist Modernist in Haiti”
Jerry Philogene, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania

Watch interview with patricia kaersenhout in preparation for this panel.

12:30 PM         DISCUSSION
Moderated by Faith Smith, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts


1:00 PM          LUNCH BREAK
CAFÉ 7 ON THE LOWER LEVEL OF THE CLARK CENTER IS OPEN 10:00 AM–3:00 PM.


(ART) HISTORIES

2:30 PM          SESSION 3
“A Caribbean Cannibalist under the Floridian Sun”
María Elena Ortiz, The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas

“Heroic Sculpture in Contemporary Caribbean Practice”
Petrina Dacres, Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts, Kingston, Jamaica

“Criticism as Creation: The Political Aesthetics of Black Ecstasy in Multimodal Caribbean Art”
Erica Moiah James, University of Miami Florida, Coral Gables, Florida

4:00 PM          DISCUSSION
Moderated by Anna Arabindan-Kesson and Wayne Modest


5:00 PM          PUBLIC RECEPTION
MANTON READING ROOM

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2022

MANTON AUDITORIUM
CLARK ART INSTITUTE

9:00 AM           WELCOME
Caroline Fowler, Research and Academic Program, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts


CARIBBEAN AS CRITIQUE

9:05 AM           SESSION 4
“Artist Talk”
Charl Landvreugd, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

“Queer-ing Art Methods and Practices: Caribbean Potentialities”
Andil Gosine, University of York, Toronto, Canada


10:05 AM         DISCUSSION
Moderated by Anna Arabindan-Kesson, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, and
Wayne Modest, National Museum of World Cultures, Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam, the Netherlands


10:30 AM         COFFEE BREAK
MANTON READING ROOM


CARIBBEAN AS CRITIQUE

11:00 AM          SESSION 5
“‘What loveliness escapes the schools’: Carifesta’s Epistemological Critique”
Adrienne Rooney, Rice University, Houston, Texas

“Some Strategies for Rethinking Caribbean Art Histories”
Veerle Poupeye, Kingston, Jamaica


12:00 PM          DISCUSSION
Moderated by Faith Smith, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts


12:30 PM         LUNCH BREAK
CAFÉ 7 ON THE LOWER LEVEL OF THE CLARK CENTER IS OPEN 10:00 AM–3:00 PM.


CARIBBEAN AS CRITIQUE

1:30 PM           SESSION 6
“John Dunkley’s Photographic Eye: A Close Look at Banana Plantation”
Nicole Smythe-Johnson, University of Texas at Austin  

“The Archipelagic Method: A Model for Complexifying Latinx & Photography Art History”
Aldeide Delgado, Women Photographers International Archive, Miami, Florida


2:30 PM          DISCUSSION
Moderated by Shawn Michelle Smith, School of the Art Institute of Chicago


3:00 PM          COFFEE BREAK
MANTON READING ROOM

CARIBBEAN AS CRITIQUE

3:30 PM          SESSION 7
“Intertidal Imaginaries: The Resistant Geographies of the Shore(coast) in the Aftermath of Saltwater(storm) Surges”
Deborah Jack, New Jersey City University, Jersey City, New Jersey

“From the Forest to the Concrete to the Ocean: Mapping a Poetics of Eco-Criticism in Caribbean and Diasporic Visual Art Practices”
Daniella Rose King, Hyundai Tate Research Center: Transnational, London, UK

View interview with Andrea Chung in preparation for this panel.


4:30 PM          CLOSING DISCUSSION
Moderated by Anna Arabindan-Kesson and Wayne Modest 


5:30 PM          PUBLIC RECEPTION
MANTON READING ROOM

For any questions, please contact [email protected].