El tiempo de todavía
Apuntes desde las artes visuales en el Caribe 1984-2003
Artists: José Bedia, Myrna Báez, Tony Capellán, Antonio Martorell, Belkis Ramírez, Carlos René Aguilera, Elvis Avilés, Luis Cruz Azaceta, Juan Basanta, John Beadle, Ernest Breleur, Stanley (Stan) Burnside, Ras Ishi Butcher, Renee Cox, María de Mater O’Neill, Polibio Díaz, Edouard Duval-Carrié, Scherezade García, José García Cordero, Myrna Guerrero, Consuelo Gotay, Quisqueya Henríquez, Rosa Irigoyen, Alette Simmons Jiménez, Roy Lawaetz, Marie-José Limouza, Elvis López, Marcos Lora Read, Pascal Meccariello, Radhamés Mejía, Chiqui Mendoza, Tony Monsanto, Leo Núñez Genao, Pepón Osorio, Raquel Paiewonsky, José Perdomo, Jorge Pineda, “PR Puerto Rico”: MM Proyectos, Carolina Caycedo, Chemi Rosado Seijo, Jesús (Bubu) Negrón, Nick Quijano, Raúl Recio, Genaro Reyes (Cayuco), Miguelina Rivera, Antonious Roberts, Arnaldo Roche Rabell, Roseman Robinot, Freddy Rodríguez, Carlos Sangiovanni, Colectivo Shampoo, Thierry Tian-Sio-Po, Inés Tolentino
Curators: Sara Hermann, Laura Bisonó Smith, and Joel Butler Fernández
Assistant Curator: Michelle Cruz
Coordinators: Sara Hermann and Laura Bisonó Smith
Museographer: Paula Flores
Date: December 2023 – May 2024
Venue: Centro León, Santiago, Dominican Republic
The Time of Stillness: Notes from the Visual Arts in the Caribbean, 1984–2003 takes its title from references regarding the perception, passage, and tangibility of time in the Caribbean region as described by the Dominican author Marcio Veloz Maggiolo in his novel La mosca soldado (Madrid, Siruela, 2004).
This time latency that Veloz Maggiolo inscribes in the category of “stillness” serves as a foothold to delve into the dynamic and fruitful artistic landscape of the Caribbean that unfolded between 1984 and 2003. During this period, the region faced a crisis due to external debt and the rise in poverty and inequality in societies. Natural disasters, hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions have affected the geographical space placed in their path. Military interventions, civil conflicts, successions of more or less corrupt governments, along with efforts to establish communities, peace endeavors, and recent independences coexist in this same meridian.
Two cultural events frame the temporal selection: the first Havana Biennial in 1984 and the fifth (and last) Caribbean Biennial of 2003 in Santo Domingo. These events determine a crucial time frame during which the production of contemporary art, rooted in the Caribbean and its diasporas, developed, expanded, and wove networks amid the complexities of the cultural context. Simultaneously, the space marked by these two celebrations also defines a state of affairs, a way of interrelating, and a way of functioning of the art system that permanently modified the landscape by exhibiting and establishing other ways and spaces of action. From there, strategies proliferated seeking visibility, projection, and creating community spaces in the Caribbean region through visual arts.
This exhibition seeks to shed light on the evolving socio-political themes, techniques, and narratives that emerged during this pivotal era. In this way, it presents an approach to the artists and their works from their immediate circumstances, allowing exploration of the various influences, inspirations, and intercultural dialogues that shaped the art of the region at that time and served as a prelude to the production of the early 21st century.
The Time of Stillness serves as a chronological and cultural backdrop, providing a contextual framework that gives different meanings to the trajectory of artistic production from the Caribbean today.