Mar­sha Pearce re­views Dear Joseph, an art ex­hi­bi­tion at the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um and Art Gallery

Dear Joseph, an ex­hi­bi­tion of works from the na­tion­al art col­lec­tion, opened at the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um and Art Gallery in Port-of-Spain on March 15. The art dis­play is cu­rat­ed by Kwynn John­son, who used a let­ter by the late artist Carlisle Chang as the point of de­par­ture for se­lect­ing and or­gan­is­ing the work in the ex­hib­it. Chang's let­ter, dat­ed around 1961, is ad­dressed to fel­low Trinida­di­an artist Joseph Cromwell-As­see, who was liv­ing in Lon­don at the time. The ex­hi­bi­tion ti­tle is tak­en from the let­ter's open­ing salu­ta­tion, "Dear Joseph."

Chang men­tions a num­ber of artists in the let­ter, while dis­clos­ing to Cromwell-As­see his views on the state of the art scene in Trinidad: "I am afraid hard liv­ing prob­lems have dis­missed out of my sys­tem a lot of this sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty which at­tach­es to painters and paint­ing in Trinidad."

Chang adds: "Per­son­al­ly I feel no ex­cite­ment, whether in ar­chi­tec­ture, mu­sic, dra­ma or paint­ing, on­ly a lot of ac­tiv­i­ty in a desert. This must be a pe­ri­od of stock­tak­ing and cau­tion and per­haps there is a hint of se­ri­ous­ness among the young ones who 'take up art.' But I see lit­tle around me to bright­en the pic­ture."

It is note­wor­thy that Chang dis­tin­guish­es the words "take up art" with his use of quo­ta­tion marks. It draws our at­ten­tion to an in­con­gruity in what he deems a gen­er­al lack of com­mit­ment to growth among those who claim to be in­ter­est­ed and en­gaged in cre­ative prac­tice.

It is al­so sig­nif­i­cant that Chang was writ­ing in a pre-in­de­pen­dence cli­mate with art as a re­source that could be tapped for its po­ten­tial for con­tribut­ing to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion and play­ing a key role in in­di­vid­ual and col­lec­tive de­vel­op­ment. Have we ful­ly un­der­stood art's ca­pac­i­ty in T&T? Is tak­ing up art a friv­o­lous, su­per­fi­cial af­fair? Are our artists not se­ri­ous enough? Have artis­tic works in T&T been plagued by sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty–by too much ten­der­ness, ro­man­ti­cism and nos­tal­gia?

The body of work now on show at the Na­tion­al Art Gallery al­lows us to do some stock­tak­ing, to re­view and as­sess the big pic­ture of vi­su­al arts in our na­tion.

Pieces have been pulled from the vault, from a col­lec­tion of art the mu­se­um has ac­quired through pur­chase over the years–"with our tax dol­lars," to quote the cu­ra­tor–or through do­na­tions. The ex­hi­bi­tion is an amal­gam of ear­ly and con­tem­po­rary works that ex­pos­es us to a na­tion­al vi­su­al archive and al­lows us to ac­cess and in­ter­ro­gate a vi­su­al mem­o­ry. It is a var­ie­gat­ed mem­o­ry bank rang­ing from a Ce­drosan Sal­adoid cer­e­mo­ni­al ves­sel found at Erin in South Trinidad, to car­toon strips and wire sculp­ture; a cache cre­at­ed with an ar­ray of me­dia: oils, acrylic, wa­ter­colour, pen and ink, graphite, gouache, char­coal, pas­tel, cop­per, 18-carat gold, wood and clay.

What is on dis­play in­cludes Chang's ma­que­tte for his mur­al The In­her­ent No­bil­i­ty of Man, which was com­mis­sioned for Pi­ar­co Air­port. Au­di­ences get a chance to con­nect with a piece of his­to­ry that was buried with the de­struc­tion of the mur­al when the air­port was ex­pand­ed in 1977. It is an im­por­tant work that fore­grounds our spir­it of re­silience and our in­alien­able wor­thi­ness.

The ex­hi­bi­tion al­so de­votes an en­tire wall to Joseph Cromwell-As­see's paint­ings, which ex­plore the sub­ject of folk­lore. Cromwell-As­see do­nat­ed 31 of his paint­ings to the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um in 1998. The ex­hib­it is a means for au­di­ences to ac­quaint them­selves with his work. His bold ren­der­ings of soucouyants, douens and oth­er fa­bled char­ac­ters bring lo­cal myth to life.

T&T lore be­comes a thread that binds Cromwell-As­see's pieces to oth­er artists' work in the ex­hib­it. Willi Chen's in­tense­ly ab­stract pa­pa bois con­vers­es with Cromwell-As­see's more recog­nis­able forms so that au­di­ences be­come wit­ness­es to a dy­nam­ic di­a­logue. Al­fred Co­dal­lo's La Di­a­b­lesse at Bele Dance and Der­mot Loui­son's Soucouyant al­so join in this con­ver­sa­tion among art­works. The re­sult is a live­ly ex­change with each artist's work voic­ing our oral tra­di­tions in dif­fer­ent cre­ative ways.

More con­nect­ing threads are tan­gi­ble. Plac­ing Lisa O'Con­nor's paint­ing of Stollmey­er's Cas­tle (2002), Jack­ie Hink­son's paint­ed view of Queen's Park Pad­dock (1997) and Fran­cis­co Cabral's three-di­men­sion­al, fret­work-adorned chair with its jalousied back (1986) all in close prox­im­i­ty to each oth­er prompts us to con­sid­er them in re­la­tion and to re­flect on the seat or lo­ca­tion of our his­to­ry. Is our his­to­ry, our record of who we are, to be sought in a past long gone or does it live in places like Stollmey­er's Cas­tle, the Pad­dock, or the fort paint­ed on the back of Cabral's chair?

The fact that Cabral's work, en­ti­tled His­tor­i­cal Site, is po­si­tioned in front of win­dows at the gallery, which bear shut­ters sim­i­lar to those fea­tured in the artist's sculp­tur­al piece, makes us read the art to­geth­er with its sur­round­ings. We find our­selves ask­ing whether the Na­tion­al Art Gallery is to be seen as an ef­fec­tive site for our his­to­ry. While watch­ing the can­non that Cabral has paint­ed, we are com­pelled to pon­der the gallery's archival and ed­uca­tive fire­pow­er.

Oth­er art pieces on dis­play let us see the work of those artists men­tioned in Chang's let­ter: Sybil At­teck, Hugh Stollmey­er, Joan St Louis and Noel Vau­crosson, among oth­ers. The sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty that Chang de­cries is ev­i­dent in such works as Wil­son Min­shall's 1957 paint­ing Bay Tree Av­enue, Ge­of­frey Hold­er's un­dat­ed Mar­tini­quan and Ja­son's Nedd's 1992 A Catch of Jacks.

Yet while Chang feels no ex­cite­ment at the time of writ­ing his let­ter, a thrill is pal­pa­ble in the space where the ex­hi­bi­tion is mount­ed. Etch­ings cre­at­ed in the 1970s by Carlisle Har­ris and Son­ny­lal Ram­bis­soon are bril­liant­ly ex­pres­sive in their pre­sen­ta­tion of lines. Wendy Nanan's imag­i­na­tive brass and cop­per piece, dat­ed 1990, has us spi­ralling in­to an­cient civil­i­sa­tions.

There is more than a hint of se­ri­ous­ness to be found among the artists ex­hib­it­ed. Works by Steve Ou­ditt, Ed­ward Bowen, Christo­pher Co­zi­er, Makem­ba Kun­le, Emheyo Ba­hab­ha, Richard "Ashraph" Ram­saran, Bar­bara Jar­dine and Pat Bish­op add bright­ness to a pic­ture of our vi­su­al arts.

How­ev­er, what sup­press­es the light of that pic­ture is the pre­dom­i­nance of male artists on show. Has the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um made sys­tem­at­ic ac­qui­si­tions of art­works with a bias in favour of male art prac­ti­tion­ers? Is our vi­su­al mem­o­ry a gen­dered one? Where are the women who sure­ly gave shape, colour and tex­ture to our art scene? These are the ur­gent ques­tions this ex­hi­bi­tion rais­es.

The ex­hi­bi­tion is a use­ful por­tal that links our past, present and fu­ture. The cu­ra­to­r­i­al de­ci­sion to use Chang's let­ter as a trig­ger for choos­ing and ar­rang­ing a body of work that can raise pub­lic con­scious­ness of a na­tion­al col­lec­tion–a col­lec­tion of art that be­longs to all of us–is a smart one. What comes with that aware­ness, though, is an am­biva­lence; a si­mul­ta­ne­ous de­light and heavy un­easi­ness as we rev­el in the cre­ative strides demon­strat­ed by our artists while dis­cern­ing the like­li­hood of a pol­i­tics of ex­clu­sion that comes with ac­quir­ing and archiv­ing our na­tion's vi­su­al en­deav­ours.

A strength of this ex­hi­bi­tion is the promise it holds for stir­ring rich de­bate. It is hoped that the pub­lic en­gages with it and en­ters in­to crit­i­cal, con­struc­tive dis­cus­sions.

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Dear Joseph will be on dis­play un­til March 15, 2014, at the Marie Louise Hall of the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um and Art Gallery, 117 Fred­er­ick Street, Port-of-Spain. Gallery hours: Tue- Sat 10 am- 6 pm. In­fo: 623-5941.