Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago, Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), Long Beach, California, USA. September 16, 2017 – March 28, 2018
Read more on Relational Undercurrents on Pacific Standard Time’s website
MOLAA will join other arts institutions across Southern California in participation with Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA 2017, an exploration of Latin American and Latino art in a series of related exhibitions opening in September 2017 and running through January 2018.
Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago will call attention to a region of the Americas that is difficult to categorize and often overlooked: the island nations of the Caribbean. The exhibition proposes an “archipelagic model”— defining the Caribbean from the perspective of its archipelago of islands, as distinct from the continental experience—to study issues around race, history, the legacy of colonialism, and the environment.
Relational Undercurrents will emphasize the thematic continuities of art made throughout the archipelago and its diasporas, challenging conventional geographic and conceptual boundaries of Latin America. This approach draws particular attention to issues arising from the colonial legacy that are relevant to Latin America as a whole, but which emerge as central to the work of 21st-century Caribbean artists.
The exhibition is divided into four thematic sections: Conceptual Mappings, Perpetual Horizons, Landscape Ecologies and Representational Acts and features artists whose works have informed and shaped those themes. With over eighty artists and occupying the entire museum space, Relational Undercurrents includes painting, installation art, sculpture, photography, video, and performance. It is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated catalogue with commissioned essays by scholars and curators. Curated by Dr. Tatiana Flores.