C O N C E R T S :

The Nassau Music Society presents: Trinidadian soprano Nicole Jordan

TONIGHT THRU SUNDAY:
Friday, October 26th thru Sunday, October 28th

The First Concerts of the Nassau Music Society’s 50th Anniversary Season

The Nassau Music Society kicks off its 50th Anniversary season with the mesmerizing Trinidadian soprano Nicole Jordan, performing in three distinct concerts.

Friday, October 26th: Bahamas National Youth Choir’s “I Will Life Up Mine Eyes” concert at Christ Church Cathedral at 7pm.

Saturday, October 27th: “Goddess of the Wind” at The Current at Baha Mar at 6:30pm. Accompanied by Bahamian pianist Dion Cunningham.

Sunday, October 28th: “A Night at the Opera” at 5pm at St Paul’s Church Hall, Lyford Cay. Joined in parts by American tenor Gary Seydell, as well as choristers from the Bel Canto Singers, the Lyford Cay International School choir, and vocalists from The University of The Bahamas.

There will be a credit card bar open during the Wine & Art reception prior to the concert at The Current, and a complimentary glass of wine or soft drink will be served at intermission both Saturday and Sunday evenings.

Tickets for “Goddess of the Wind” and “A Night at the Opera” can be purchased at any of our three convenient box office locations: Custom Computers, Old Fort Bay Town Center, Cable Beach, and Cotton Tree Plaza (just before Harbour Bay on East Bay Street). Tickets for The Bahamas National Youth Choir concert are available at Buy The Book, Cable Beach.

Bahamian artist Tavares Strachan added “invisible” names like Fell, Monk, Lamarr, Norgay, and more alongside Rembrandt, Chopin, Franklin, and Darwin on the museum’s façade for the 57th Carnegie International.

by Ann Binlot

In 1886 the great Scottish-American industrialist Andrew Carnegie announced his grand plans for what would arguably be the first contemporary art museum in America. “I am thinking of incorporating with the plan for a library that of an art gallery in which shall be preserved a record of the progress and development of pictorial art in America.” The first gallery of the Carnegie Museum of Art opened in Pittsburgh in 1895, and in 1907, the institution expanded with a neoclassical-style building dedicated to, according to words etched on its exterior, “literature, science, and art.” Some of the names of the greatest contributors to those areas were immortalized on the outside of the museum, with their names carved on it. They included Franklin, Rembrandt, Chopin, and Darwin—all men who were Caucasian.

When Bahamian-born, New York-based artist Tavares Strachan did a site visit for the 57th Carnegie International—on view there through March 25, 2019—the names caught his eye. “I was just curious about the names they already had on the building, and so I just wanted to think about editing, or adding to that list of names of people who might be invisible, or who might not ever end up on a building,” said the artist. And so, Strachan decided to create an extension of his five-year project called Encyclopedia of Invisibility for the exhibition by adding names of those he thought should line the exterior of the Carnegie Museum of Art in a rainbow of scripted neon lights, either alongside or on top of the existing names of the building. The artist also installed the phrase “All of the people that have been made invisible through the mechanism of history.” “Monk” (for Thelonious Monk) now covers “Darwin,” and “Baldwin” hangs over “Franklin.” Other names Strachan added to the Carnegie Museum of Art’s façade include Hedy Lamarr—for the Austrian scientist and actress, Tenzing Norgay—the Tibetan sherpa who was one of the first two individuals to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1953, and the late rapper Tupac Shakur. “He’s someone a lot of people know,” said Strachan, referring to Shakur, “but he would never be on a building like this.” [...]

CLICK HERE for full article at Document Journal.

Bahamian film screened at Smithsonian

Bahamian documentarian and multimedia visual artist Tamika Galanis’ short film, When the Lionfish Came, was screened yesterday at The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. as a part of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History’s first ever Smithsonian African American Film Festival. Galanis’ film was a part of the Diaspora Transcendentals programme.

When the Lionfish Came is a six-minute illustration of disappearing Bahamian culture and sea life, the palpability of the absence of real climate change initiatives, and the continued pursuit of tourism despite cultural decline.

The Smithsonian African American Film Festival is a multi-day cinematic experience celebrating African American visual culture and film featuring more than
eighty films over 4 days, October 24–27, 2018.

CLICK HERE for text about the film at the Nassau Guardian.
CLICK HERE to visit the Festival’s website.

Bahamian musician performs piece by Wynton Marsalis on ‘CBS Sunday Morning’

Back in 2004, legendary Grammy Award winning composer and jazz musician Wynton Marsalis was commissioned to write the signature opening theme, entitled “Abblasen Swing”, for the iconic television programme CBS Sunday Morning.

Today as the show celebrates its 40th Anniversary, Marsalis returns to the show with a “jazzier” version of the Swing piece and engaged top students from the prestigious Juilliard School to play the swingy instrumental. Included in the quartet was Bahamian musician Giveton Gelin who is currently studying for his undergrad degree at what is considered one of the world’s best performing arts conservatories.

Marsalis exclaimed on his Facebook page, “Our great Juilliard trumpet section! Playing this swing version of the Abblasen after seeing it [only] a few minutes before. Not just great players, but great musicians and soulful people. It is a joy to know them and hear them play and learn about the world from their perspective. Love ‘em.”

CLICK HERE to view the short clip on CBS Sunday Morning.

The Bahamas:
Falling deeper into our own
Sci-Fi movie

by Patricia Glinton-Meicholas

Nowadays, there is no problem catching the news. It comes at you whether you want it or not—from car radio, radio on cable, television, on your Smart phone, social media, network news, shows commenting on the news, news from the United States, Europe, Britain, Al-Jazeera. And it’s nearly all bad and then some. There are those friends who take suspicious pleasure in giving you a full brief on the latest bloody car accordion, or the latest nunc demittis from a particularly virulent disease. (If you don’t know the meaning of that strange phrase, you shoulda been listening in Ms Davis’ class!)

I read and listen to the news like a child with one eye completely shut and peering out from under the blankets with the other squinting. What’s going on in the world at large and in The Bahamas is so unprecedented in the ability to change what has existed for millions of years in a day, by putting nuclear triggers in the all too strong and steady hands of people with shaky brains. It does not help to hear of “earthquakes in divers places”, melting icecaps and nature in need of a good ol’ swig of Bacardi’s best or a daily dose of Prozac. There’s some good news—take the cure for yourself. It won’t calm the shaking out there, but it might soothe ours.

Now, along with “Now I lay me down to sleep”, we add “Lord, please give us one piece of good news tomorrow and I pray you not to allow the crazies to wake.” Don’t feel bad, if you, like some of us check our house doors twice and under our beds three times. The truth is, there are too many boogeymen—we call them “sperrits”—floating around, waiting for a chance to alter your mind, your body and your future and none in a good way. [...]

CLICK HERE for full text at Eyewitness News.

Bahamian artist presents at printing conference and curates new show in Iowa

Bahamian writer, visual artist, and small press publisher, Sonia Farmer, will be presenting her paper, “Resisting Paradise: The Craftsman Press Archive” at the 2018 Friends of Dard Hunter and the American Printing History Association Conference under the theme “Matrices: The Social Life of Paper, Print, and Art” at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Farmer has also co-curated and her work featured in an exhibition of the University of Iowa Center for the Book student work, “In-Progress: Scaffolding & Snafus” at the University’s K.K. Merker Gallery during the conference.

Using the working definition of “matrices” as “something from which something else originates, develops, or takes form”, the exhibition aims to spotlight the often-invisible or discarded materials that contribute to final projects & editions. Ultimately, the exhibition asks: How do the University of Iowa Center for the Book students work through the creative process, and how is that process honed in this academic space?

Farmer’s piece, “A True & Exact Remix” is included, containing a collection of printing registration sheets from her artist book edition, “A True & Exact History” (edition number 26/25).

Sonia’s fellow curators, Colleen Lawrence and Suzanne Glemot, helped to make this student exhibition happen as part of the American Printing History Association and Friends of Dard Hunter 2018 joint conference.

CLICK HERE for more info on the Conference.
CLICK HERE for Sonia Farmer’s blog.

Gerald Cash Primary learns about Cuban drumming

Students of Gerald Cash Primary School showcased musical talents and learned about Cuban drumming when renowned percussionist Eduardo Cordova visited their school as part of a cultural exchange delegation, on October 17, 2018.

The students performed Rake-n-Scrape and Junkanoo rhythms and had a “jam session” with Mr. Cordova at the end. Among those present for the event were Senior Cultural Affairs Officer in the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture Sonovia Pierre, Music Education Officer for Primary Schools Antoinette P. Thompson, Resident Ambassador of the Republic of Cuba to the Commonwealth of The Bahamas Her Excellency Ismara Mercedes Vargas Walter, Cuban visual artist José Luis Cicilio, and other cultural and Cuban stakeholders.

© The Bahamas Weekly

Strange darknesses

Lavar Munroe’s sinister fantasy creatures in the “specimens” series.

by Natalie Willis

They may appear to be things of fantasy, with their glittering feathered wings, beads, embellishments and horns adorning those who look to be less than the usual hooved suspects, but Lavar Munroe’s “Specimens” series find their footing in the real world through their presentation, and indeed through their representation. By investigating through fantasy and myth the repercussions and implications of the waves of colonialism on this landscape, first with Columbus, but also alluding to British colonialism with the museum-style classifications and taxonomies of these fair and strange imagined beasts, Munroe’s ‘specimens’ give us a moment to really think beyond the horrific impact on humans and into the broader ecology of The Bahamas.

The “specimens” were shown first as part of the wider “Invasions” series, including again fantastical drawings and mixed media works, which looks to the “discovery of the New World” with Columbus and the subsequent decimation of the indigenous peoples – Arawak, Lucayan and Taino – populations in The Bahamas. We have since found promising research that suggests they were not completely eradicated from this place. Through study of other Caribbean island populations near us, the recently uncovered jawbone of an Arawak woman found in Preacher’s Cave, Eleuthera – a thousands-year-old mouth which, due to its preserved state, is capable of telling us the first full human genome – shows that Caribbean people still hold the DNA of the Indigenous peoples of this chain of limestone and volcanic rock. It would, of course, be arrogant to think that strangers coming to the land that was home and sacred to the Arawaks, could know this landscape intimately enough to know all of its secrets, its hidey-holes, its places of refuge. Of course, the indigenous people’s couldn’t have entirely been killed off, even with disease – they were nomads and resilient and found a way to continue, albeit differently. However, what of the fauna and flora? [...]

CLICK HERE full story in The Nassau Guardian.

Murky Histories and Futures:

“Digging Upward in the Sand” (2018) by Plastico Fantastico

by Natalie Willis

Forward, onward, digging upward in the sand, together. The 2018 “Double Dutch,” the 7th in the series of paired exhibitions, brings us questions on the future, on climate change, on what it means to govern a chain of 700 islands, and on what it means to lose an island’s culture from lack of infrastructure and intervention. “Digging Upward in the Sand” (2018) by the Plastico Fantastico Collective, stirs up these queries, worries, and troubling presents for us.

Set against the backdrop of the current dilemma in Ragged Island, with an island nearly decimated, rendered almost uninhabitable, and survivors being forced to choose between exile on-island or exile by leaving home. The climate refugees of Ragged Island bring us not just questions on government, on responsibility, on climate change, but they also bring us worries on how we preserve island cultures when the islands are lost. In “Digging Upward in the Sand” (2018), Plastico Fantastico give us a simple image to consider, but a lot is contained within this short video loop.

We see a young man in a Junkanoo costume, underwater, with a shovel, digging at the sand beneath his feet. Over the duration of the film, the visibility of the Junkanooer becomes more and more obscured with the uprooted sand becoming suspended in the salt water. The fragility of Junkanoo costumes (made entirely of cardboard, paper and glue, very likely to disintegrate when wet) comes to mind, the horror of a rainy Boxing Day or New Years Junkanoo... [...]

CLICK HERE for full text at the NAGB.

by Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett, The University of The Bahamas

Art and design, though they seem to make strange bedfellows, work hand in glove, and, along with literature, carve out space for exceptional spatial and design shifts that move people into new possibilities.

The 2018 iteration of the annual regional collaborative project “Double Dutch” titled “Hot Water,” combines the work of Plastico Fantastico (PF) and Expo 2020 team from University of The Bahamas. The teams spent a week traveling to and from Ragged Island researching what it might look like to rebuild in stronger and more resilient ways in the wake of Hurricane Irma. The project combined students and faculty, as well as members from PF and we interviewed committee and community members and spent hours and then days creating and distilling ideas for the exhibition. What finally stands in the Ballroom of the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB) is weeks of contact and ideation, with that, a lot of experimentation to see how best to construct and meet new demands.

The need for water was a striking reality as the Ragged Island community were unable to gain much traction with their rebuilding efforts as they had an extremely limited amount of freshwater. In order to rebuild, fresh water is essential. For all aspects of life, fresh water is essential. So the metaphor of salt and sand, combined with water—green/blue economy were powerful metaphors of development and historical reality and retention. [...]

CLICK HERE for full text at the NAGB.

How do you build a sustainable art career?

We examine case studies of two star artists who have developed sustainable careers amid intense pressure.

by Charlotte Burns

How does an artist build a steady and long-lasting career after an early bout of intense auction success? Two talents of different artistic generations—35-year-old Njideka Akunyili Crosby and 49-year-old Cecily Brown—offer complementary case studies. Over the past few years, Crosby has ascended to bona fide art-market stardom at a rapid pace. Similarly, Brown found fame as a young painter—and is now proving that it is possible not only to survive, but also to thrive in midcareer.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby:

The Rising Star Bursting Onto the Scene

Rewind to Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2014. The London-based gallery Victoria Miro debuted large and striking works by a young painter it had recently signed. There was instant demand: five institutions vied for a 1960s-style interior that ultimately sold to Cape Town’s Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa for nearly $50,000. “We’ve never had such an immediate response to a new artist,” the gallery’s director, Glenn Scott-Wright, said at the time. Just 10 years earlier, the Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based artist had wanted to pursue a career in medicine; she turned to art only after she failed to get into her first-choice medical school. [...]

CLICK HERE for full article at ArtNet.