Sixty-seven contemporary Caribbean artists with roots in:

Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Curacao, Aruba, Saint Maarten, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Trinidad, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Barbados and Saint Vincent.

Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago (Oct. 13 – Jan. 13) headlines the powerful new season of exhibitions and programming for Art Basel 2018 at Florida International University’s Frost Art Museum in Miami.

This is the first major survey of this size and scope of 21st-century art by 67 contemporary Caribbean artists representing 14 Caribbean countries, whose works offer expansive perspectives that transcend the boundaries imposed upon Caribbean cultures. “Because of Miami’s geographic proximity to the Caribbean nations, as well as our cultural mosaic which Caribbean cultures have shaped, it was important for us to bring this exhibition to Miami during Art Basel season,” said Dr. Jordana Pomeroy, the Director of the museum. “Our new season opens up a dialogue about global commonalities rather than differences, from ecological changes to societal values around the world.”

Miguel Luciano, Amani Kites, Smart Power, Kenya, Courtesy of the Artist

Nearly seventy works by Caribbean painters, installation artists, sculptors, photographers, video and performance artists connect through ideas that go beyond language barriers, politics, and historic colonial divides. Artists in Relational Undercurrents include Allora & Calzadilla, Edouard Duval-Carrie, Adler Guerrier, Deborah Jack, Glenda Leon, Beatriz Santiago Munoz, Angel Otero, Manuel Pina, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Jimmy Robert and Didier William, among others.

Features more than 67 contemporary artists with roots in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Curacao, Aruba, Saint Maarten, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Trinidad, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Barbados, and Saint Vincent.

Camille Chedda, Wholesale Degradables (detail), 2014-2015, Acrylic paint on plastic bags, (photo by Jose Lima)

Departing from the premise that the concept of Latin America favors mainland countries, the exhibition proposes a mapping of the region that begins with the islands. Arising from a legacy of colonialism, recurrent themes include race and ethnicity, history, identity, sovereignty, migration, and sustainability.

Edouard Duval-Carrie, Lost at Sea, 2014

The works in this exhibition speak for the Caribbean’s indigenous peoples whose homes were fractured and divided by colonialism. These are spaces that were mercilessly exploited for labor and goods by distant European monarchies. This area also marks the site of one of the West’s first rebellions (the Haitian slave revolt which led to the independence of the island in 1804) and the Cuban War of Independence in 1898, a byproduct of the Spanish-American War.

Miguel Luciano, Amani Kites, SmART Power, Kenya, Courtesy of the Artist

The Caribbean is inhabited by many different indigenous cultures whose languages include Spanish, Dutch, English, French, and Creole.

Although the Caribbean has been fragmented by centuries of tyranny and domination, the contemporary artists in this exhibition draw upon themes of connection that often envision what lies beyond imposed borderlines.

Rene Emil Bergsma, Jet Blast, 2015, Video, Courtesy of the artist.

The exhibition is comprised of the following

four sections:

Conceptual Mappings

Artists in this section challenge the organization of traditional maps. In contrast to colonial maps, these artists create images that inspire a process of decolonization, creating new spaces that suggest a more diverse, just and complex concept of the world.

Perpetual Horizons

Horizons are the prominent characteristic of island geography, representing boundaries and possibilities. Whether the artists in this section incorporate the horizon as a portal to the past or present, or as a representation of limit or potential, each artist in this section contributes to a common dialogue about this prominent feature where they live – offering strength in the acceptance of infinity.

Landscape Ecologies

The Caribbean is a region of shared ecosystems and inhabitants. Artists in this section depict landscapes in relation to history, ecological issues, and current social and economic issues. Perceptions of the Caribbean have shifted throughout history from those of wonder to fears of disease and degeneration during the height of colonialism.

Representational Acts

All Caribbean islands have seen their autonomy challenged through colonialism and foreign occupations. The political agency is elusive and, in many cases, unattainable. Representation takes on an urgency for artists in Relational Undercurrents, who actively reconfigure the world they inhabit through social practice and self-expression.

Kishan Munroe, The Sinking of HMBS Flamingo, 2014, Oil and acrylic on canvas, Collection of Royal Bahamas Defence Force

Relational Undercurrents is curated by Tatiana Flores, Associate Professor of ArtHistory and Latino and Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University, this exhibition was organized by the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, part of the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time LA/LA.

Didier William, Dancing, Pouring, Crackling, and Mourning, 2015

The 15th Annual Art Basel Breakfast in the Park

Presents: Elizabeth Turk

Sunday, December 9 from 9:30 a.m. – 12:00 noon.

This event is free and open to the public, RSVP required at this link)

An official Art Basel week event, Breakfast in the Park attracts art collectors, patrons, gallery owners, cultural luminaries and artists from around the world, many of whom are visiting Miami for Art Basel. Each year a noted sculptor is invited to speak. This year, Elizabeth Turk has been invited to Miami as the guest speaker. Guests enjoy a complimentary outdoor breakfast, informal lecture and guided tours of FIU’s Sculpture Park and the exhibitions in the museum. View the Sculpture Park’s artworks here. Presented in partnership with West Kendall Baptist Hospital.

Elizabeth Turk is an internationally recognized sculptor known for transforming her signature medium of marble into intricate objects that defy our preconceptions about marble. Through the use of electric grinders, dental tools, and files, Turk pushes her medium to its limit, creating in each sculpture a provocative tension between the strength of the stone and its fragility, while addressing larger conceptual and spiritual concerns of the time, matter and space.