Leading Scholars and Artists Address Freedom in Caribbean Art at Rutgers-Newark on April 5March 22, 2006
(NEWARK) - Rutgers-Newark’s Paul Robeson Gallery will welcome several leading scholars and artists for a panel discussion on freedom and its representation in Caribbean-American Art on Wednesday, April 5. The discussion, which takes place from 2:30-4 p.m. in the Gallery, will serve as the culmination to its current exhibition, “No Country is an Island: Figures of Freedom in Recent Caribbean-American Art.”
Panelists will include:
· Sherri-Ann Butterfield, Professor of Sociology at Rutgers-Newark
· Annalee Davis, an artist and producer of the documentary, “On the Map,” from Barbados
· Belinda Edmondson, Professor of English and African-American Studies at Rutgers-Newark
· Andre Juste, artist, from Haiti
· Juan Sanchez, artist, from Puerto Rico
According to Gallery Director Jorge Daniel Veneciano, in addition to focusing on the current exhibition topic of freedom in Caribbean (American) art, the discussion will address related issues of diaspora and identity.
“The work of Annalee Davis and André Juste, for example, interrogate received notions of freedom, and the paintings of Juan Sanchez represent the unfinished business of independence,” Veneciano notes. “The scholarly work of Dr. Sherri-Ann Butterfield indirectly engages the politics of freedom, specifically where it raises questions of migration, its patterns and limits, problems and motivations. The investigations of Dr. Belinda Edmondson investigate the “romance tropes” (the figurative metaphors) of Caribbeanness, including that of freedom and other tropes.”
The panel discussion is co-sponsored by Sumei Multidisciplinary Arts Center, The Office of Student Life & Leadership, Rutgers-Newark, and the Paul Robeson Gallery.“No Country is an Island: Figures of Freedom in Recent Caribbean (American) Art” will be on display through April 6. The exhibit presents the work of 11 artists from the Caribbean and the United States who grapple with the effects of post-colonial freedom either directly or indirectly.
The Gallery is open Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and on Wednesday from noon-7 p.m. It is located within the Paul Robeson Campus Center, 360 Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, Newark. For more information, call 973-353-1610.
The exhibition is a collaborative project organized by Yoland Skeete, Executive Director of Sumei Multidisciplinary Arts Center, and Veneciano. The exhibition is made possible, in part, by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and administered by the Somerset County Cultural & Heritage Commission through the State/County Partnership Local Arts Program.
CONTACT:Contact: Peter Haigney 973-353-1663, Cell: 732-713-2809, or phaigney@andromeda.rutgers.edu
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