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Catalogue >Fine Art >  Contemporary >  Infinite Island: Contemporary Caribbean Art Infinite Island: Contemporary Caribbean Art A lively and informative survey of contemporary Caribbean art, arranged as a series of essays illustrated by works in a wide range of media. These essays explore different aspects of the region's art, incuding sense of place and the history, culture and beliefs that shape the modern Caribbean region. ISBN 085667641 1 EAN 97808566777 641 3  [View sample pages in low resolution PDF format] Online price: £30.00 / €45.00 Infinite Island: Contemporary Caribbean Art presents a diverse, exciting selection of recent work in painting, installation, photography, prints, drawings, video, and sculpture by forty-five emerging and established Caribbean artists who live and work in the region as well as abroad. The title Infinite Island, alluding to Columbus's voyages and the beginnings of colonialism, evokes the contradictions, complexities, and multiple perspectives that characterize the contemporary Caribbean and its presentation in art. According to one account, Columbus, hoping he had found the 'Indies', asked the indigenous Indians of Cuba if the land was an island or a continent. The Indians, who envisioned the open seas as corridors and bridges to myriad other islands, replied that it was an infinite land of which no one had seen the end. The phrase 'Infinite Island' suggests the tension between containment and expansion, insularity and global interconnections, that continues to define the Caribbean and its geopolitical relations with Europe and North America - a tension that is an animating force in its culture and its art. Eurocentric definitions of the region are part of the legacy of slavery and colonialism; at the same time, however, the postcolonial mix of cultures, along with the modern diaspora of Caribbean people migrating to metropolitan centers around the world, has created a dynamic, flexible culture that is constantly transforming itself and generating new perspectives. The artists represented in this book reflect this fascinating hybrid culture and offer competing ideas about Caribbean identity in a variety of works done in the last six years in a wide range of media. Two introductory essays by contemporary-art historians survey the themes treated by the artists and offer insights into the different traditions and contemporary-art scenes in the region. The book contains 200 color illustrations, including a colorplate section complemented by commentaries that place the individual works in the context of each artist's oeuvre. Artist biographies and a selected bibliography complete the volume. This book accompanies the exhibition Infinite Island: Contemporary Caribbean Art, held at the Brooklyn Museum. Tumelo Mosaka is Assistant Curator for Contemporary Art and Exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum. He served as the co-curator for the Brooklyn Museum's Open House: Working in Brooklyn (2004), which presented 190 artists based in Brooklyn. At the museum, he has also organized Alexis Rockman: Manifest Destiny (2004) and Passing/Posing: Kehinde Wiley Paintings (2005). Originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, Mosaka was active there in a range of cultural projects. Other exhibitions that he has curated or co-curated include A Fiction of Authenticity: Contemporary Africa Abroad, at the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (2003) and A Decade of Democracy: Witnessing South Africa, at the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Boston (2004). Annie Paul is Head of Publications at Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. Associate editor of the journal Small Axe and the Cultures and Globalization Series (Sage, London), Paul is the recipient of a grant from the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development, The Hague, in support of her book project Suitable Subjects: Visual Art and Popular Culture in Postcolonial Jamaica. She was one of the founding editors of the original Caribbean Review of Books and has published in international periodicals such as Art Journal, South Atlantic Quarterly, and Bomb. Paul has also been a contributor to Documenta 11; the 34th AICA International Congress and Symposium at Tate Modern, London; and Meridian Masterpieces, BBC World Service. Nicollette Ramirez is a Trinidadian writer, performer, and arts advocate based in New York whose writing has been included in magazines as well as gallery and museum catalogues. She has won awards for fiction and essay writing and has completed a memoir. Ramirez curates events that combine elements from many fields of art, including music, dance, literature, and the visual arts, and works with artists to create happenings. Her work reflects her experiences of living between Trinidad and Tobago and New York.