Exhibiting the Caribbean in the United States. The Narratives of Collective Representation through Infinite Islands, Caribbean Art at the Crossroads of the World and Wrestling with the Image

摘要

What can exhibitions tell us about art and cultural discourses in general? By analyzing exhibitions in the path that Henrietta Lidchi points out, as "systems of representations that produce meaning through the display of objects", this thesis explores Caribbean curatorial practices across museums in the United States during the 2000s. I examine the particularities of Caribbean art representation within the context of the U.S, followed by an analysis of the poetics of selected exhibitions such as Infinite Island: Contemporary Caribbean Art (2007), Caribbean Art at the Crossroads of the World and Wrestling with the Image: Caribbean Interventions. This project is guided under the broad argument that the study of these exhibitions in the United States will reveal notable efforts to de-construct cultural narratives on Caribbean art and the Caribbean itself. From this point of view, it is the intention to explore an understanding of Caribbean art and exhibitions as a neo-archive---as Erica Johnson uses to describe Caribbean literary counter narratives in her essay "Building the Neo-Archive: Dionne Brand's A Map to the Door of no Return"---where not only particular contemporary art pieces but also curatorial criteria attempt to challenge and overcome historical gaps and curatorial frameworks within broader global art narratives.