TURNS OUT I may like conceptual and contemporary art. Maybe it’s because I really, really love to read, and there’s so much narrative and conversation going on in the art. I experience the way the visuals intersect within a piece or in the context of the exhibition/installation space as a lively conversation: sometimes an argument, sometimes as probing questions, other times as a story with multiple permutations to the narrative structure. I LOVE IT! It’s almost as though you really can’t not get it; because it’s talking to you, just you, a little differently from how it’s talking to any other viewer. You can also read the artists’ statements—that’s a bit more iffy. Sometimes they read as a sequence of multisyllabic hyphenated words with a tangential yet nebulous relationship to each other, but you’re not sure if you’re deciphering it accurately. I have to say, though, that I had a ball at Artistic Interventions at the Barbados Museum & Historical Society, which was open in May and June 2018.
Full disclosure: yes, I am a member of the museum; yes, I am a geek; yes, I enjoy going to the museum whenever they do something new around the fixed exhibits; yes, I freak out over local artwork. With that being said, inviting “local contemporary artists to critically engage with [the Barbados Museum’s] collections through a series of interventions,” with the works “interwoven in the museum’s galleries, interrogating and re-contextualizing the historical narratives on display,” was intellectually sexy as hell and fun to experience. Things were pretty, things made me think, things rejigged the narratives in interesting ways.
There were eight “interventions” by six artists: Llanor Alleyne, Annalee Davis, Katherine Kennedy, Adam Patterson, Adrian Richards, and Kraig Yearwood. You collected your map at the main entrance and then went on a scavenger hunt through exhibits that maybe you’d never seen, or saw when you were ten, or saw ten days ago, and saw them with new(ish) eyes. The “interventions” were tucked away so neatly within exhibits, sometimes they were hard to find—in fact, I had to go back to find the last one. Some were two-dimensional, some were three-dimensional, one was a video on a loop (that one was a doozy to find); there were guys, gals, black Bajans, white Bajans, mixed Bajans (yes, that matters: we’re talking about narratives in the multiple Barbadoses); young artists, older artists, queer intervention narratives, challenging narratives, and I’m sure many that others were able to add to this list.
I won’t go into a ball by ball critical review because, one, I found the last intervention two weeks after the fact, and two, the overall experience, on a Tuesday afternoon in an election cycle during a recession when “rocks and hard places” abounded and hopelessness and despair threatened to overwhelm—well, the experience was refreshing. I was stimulated and quietly excited: it felt playful, it felt stress free. I was alone, I got to talk to myself, and I didn’t have to please anyone or conform to any view (not that I usually do). The little I will say about individual interventions?
Llanor’s aesthetic was my kinda party. Where can I (hope to) purchase this work? I was familiar with Annalee’s work and themes, and I'd be keen to experience the ritual she built around her (bush) Tea Services. (There was such a chance on June 11, but, alas, I missed it.) Also, “YAY!” for working with Hamilton’s Pottery! Katherine’s brain must be a fascinating place to visit. I admired her skill for realizing the physical concept with such deft craftsmanship. Adam Patterson—dude, I need to meet you, and where can one find the full text of the poem you used for the video art? I got shivers watching it. Adrian’s challenge was direct, like the gaze of the subject of that haunting photo. And Kraig? Well, yours was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: camouflaged so well, with some shiny bits, and worth it.
The exhibition was part of the museum’s activities for “Museums Week” in May and was extended into June. Under International Council of Museums’ (ICOM’s) campaign Hyperconnected museums: New approaches, new publics, its focus was to make such designated spaces more engaging and relevant. Opal
