Caribbean Art

by Veerle Poupeye

Overview

An updated and expanded edition of this classic, illustrated survey of Caribbean art, featuring the work of over 100 artists from the period of colonialism to the present day.

The Caribbean is made up of more than twenty countries, each with its own identity. Yet fascinatingly, there are significant cultural commonalities despite geographic, ethnic, linguistic, and political diversity. A mixture of African, Amerindian, Asian, and European origins define the remarkable Caribbean culture, which, from the period of colonialism to the present, has also witnessed a massive diaspora.

Caribbean Art examines the diverse and highly accomplished work of Caribbean artists, whether indigenous or from the diaspora, popular or “high” culture, rural or urban based, politically radical or religious. This expanded edition with a new preface has been updated to reflect and address fundamental challenges to traditional art-historical practice and its foundational connections to histories of colonialism, Eurocentricity, and race. This is explored further in two new chapters focused on public monuments linked to the history of the Caribbean, and the intersections between art and tourism, raising important questions about cultural representation.

Caribbean Art features the work of internationally recognized artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sonia Boyce, Christopher Cozier, Wifredo Lam, Ana Mendieta, Ebony G. Patterson, Hervé Télémaque, and more than one hundred others, working across a variety of media including performance, photography, and film. This new edition makes an important contribution to the understanding of Caribbean and postcolonial art and its context, in ways that invite productive conversation and encourage further explorations on the subject.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780500204788
Publisher:	Thames & Hudson
Publication date:	05/10/2022
Series:	World of Art
Edition description:	Second
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	816,332
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Veerle Poupeye is a Belgian-Jamaican art historian, curator, and critic. Previously executive director of the National Gallery of Jamaica, she now lectures at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston, Jamaica, where she is based. She has written books, articles, and exhibition catalogue essays on Jamaican and Caribbean art and culture and contributed to the journalsSmall Axe, Jamaica Journal, Caribbean Quarterly, and the New West Indian Guide.

Table of Contents

Introduction 9

Chapter 1 Prehispanic and Colonial Art 27

Chapter 2 Decolonization and Creative Iconoclasm 53

Chapter 3 Modernism and Cultural Nationalism 70

Chapter 4 Popular Culture, Religion and the Festival Arts 103

Chapter 5 'Dangerously Close to Tourist Art' 140

Chapter 6 Political Radicalism, Abstraction and Experimental Art 156

Chapter 7 The Land, the Sea and the Environment 192

Chapter 8 The Personal and the Political 212

Chapter 9 The Caribbean Contemporary 238

Bibliography 279

List of Illustrations 289

Index 295

Editorial Reviews

Discusses the diverse work of some 100 Caribbean artists both indigenous and from the diaspora. Encompasses popular and "high" art from rural and urban cultures, and art with politically radical and religious associations. Contains chapters on prehispanic and colonial art, modernism and cultural nationalism, popular religion and the festival arts, anti-imperialism and race consciousness, nature, the self and other, and recent developments. Art from some 20 countries is represented in high-quality color and b&w illustrations. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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