The Kingston Biennial: Part 1 – a limited outlook
I left the June 26 opening of the Kingston Biennial at the National Gallery of Jamaica (NGJ) with very conflicted feelings. It was good to be back for an exhibition opening at the NGJ, the first since February 2020, and to see members of the local artistic community I had not seen in person for more than two years, in some instances. My conflicted response was to the exhibition itself. The Kingston Biennial is, as such, a remarkably cohesive and tightly curated exhibition with works of art of a generally high standard, and an enjoyable exhibition experience. There are, however, also significant problems, with the exhibition itself, in terms of its conceptualization and curation and its narrow scope, and with the self-defeating politics that have surrounded it.
I was, for instance, looking forward to seeing the work of Hurvin Anderson, Arthur Simms, Satch Hoyt, and Nari Ward. They are artists of Jamaican descent who work in Europe and North America and who have been producing remarkable work, to great critical acclaim, and Ward is the only one who had exhibited at the NGJ before. All, except for Simms, are, however, represented by very modest, almost timid works, that lack the sort of impact and presence one would expect from major artists in a biennial. Ward, for instance, is known for his expansive structures and installations, many of which are site-specific. I expected a work of great impact and significance but what we get in his Windward is, in essence, a re-interpretation, adjusted to the Jamaican context, of an earlier work, We the People from 2011. It is an interesting work that reflects provocatively on the tenets of Jamaican nationhood, but it hardly makes the strong statement I had expected from Ward. In contrast, Simms’ four mixed media sculptures do have the sort of presence and impact I expected from him, but they all date from 1992, and are thus a remarkable 30 years old, while Hoyt’s work, Kick That, is from 2006. Both are active artists and more recent work could surely have been selected that is more relevant to the present moment.
Budgetary and logistical considerations on the part of the NGJ probably played a major role in these disappointing choices, as art shipping to Jamaica is particularly expensive and challenging. But I must also ask of these artists what exhibiting in Jamaica represents for them? Is it a mere gesture of goodwill towards the country of their birth and its cultural institutions, for which a token contribution will suffice, or something that is a major and meaningful moment in their career, that is treated with the same seriousness and urgency of other major international exhibition opportunities? It appears that the former is, regrettably, the correct answer. When a Caribbean cultural institution such as the NGJ goes through the cost and effort of bringing the work of such artists to its exhibitions, we should not be getting second best. And including such artists should not be a mere matter of legitimizing but ultimately self-defeating name-dropping on the part of the curators and the NGJ.
There are also technical and curatorial issues that frankly surprised me. Designing and laying out an effective and engaging art exhibition requires striking a balance between technical requirements, aesthetic considerations, and teasing out those instructive relationships and conversations between the works on view that will engage audiences. It appears, however, that expedience took the upper hand, with many works seemingly placed randomly, or even in ill-advised positions. I would certainly not have placed two sound-based pieces, by Matthew McCarthy and Satch Hoyt, so close together that the subtle soundtrack of the latter could barely be heard. Nor would I have placed Marlon James’ remarkable, large-scale photographs in a narrow corridor, where there is no room for them to be viewed properly. It is also of concern, and remarked upon by several viewers, that the selected paintings by Phillip Thomas, Alicia Brown, and Greg Bailey all employ strikingly similar imagery and an equally similar aesthetic. That is not a coincidence, as their work is part of a distinctive cluster of representational painting in contemporary Jamaican art, but that works that have such a closely related look and feel were not only selected for the same exhibition but mounted closely together, without any redeeming juxtapositions, does not do these artists and the strong, individual artistic voices they do present, any favours. Likewise, it was disappointing to see Laura Facey’s viscerally powerful Guide Their Way Home, which in her solo exhibition at Orsmby Hall commanded the space so eloquently, huddled together so uncomfortably on the highly reflective floor of the NGJ’s central gallery. The work needed a a space of its own for us to appreciate its expansive, epic qualities. Its juxtaposition with Ward’s understated Windward, while related in subject matter, brought together two works that speak such different formal and visual languages that they practically obliterate each other.
The Kingston Biennial’s lead curator, David Scott, reveals in his essay that the curatorial team opted for an intimate, cohesive exhibition. This search for cohesion is, however, a limitation as much as it is a strength, as it leads to a highly predictable, risk-averse, and ultimately rather unambitious exhibition. It is an exhibition that reaffirms a particular canon of contemporary art associated with Jamaica, and a now rather obsolete curatorial approach that is preoccupied with producing such hierarchies. We have seen the exhibition before, many times, at the NGJ and other places (and most of the featured artists are in fact regular exhibitors at the NGJ, some in practically every recent exhibition). Major international exhibitions elsewhere, such as the present edition of Documenta (which will be the subject of another column), are resolutely challenging such approaches, with radical, provocative rethinking and inspired collaborations. A biennial can be anything you want it to be, yes, but the question is, ultimately, what it needs to be in the present cultural moment. In my estimation, a good biennial must rock the boat, take risks, and change the conversation. It must be messy and disruptive, and open to new ideas and developments. No such thing is happening here, no new or provocative questions are being asked, no games are being changed, and there is certainly no room for any diversity or inclusion.
The choice of theme, too, may have contributed to the exhibition’s predictability. Pressure may have great currency in Jamaican culture, and it is certainly applicable to the present moment, but it is also a passepartout theme. It is applicable, in some way, to almost all art ever produced in Jamaica and by Jamaicans, and to a lot of art elsewhere. It takes us down an already extremely well-trodden path.
Not only is the Kingston Biennial an unusually small exhibition, for a biennial, but it lacks the sort of energy and imagination that should fuel such projects. The question certainly arises who and what this biennial is really for, and I am yet to hear any convincing answers on that count, from the curators or the NGJ. Most of all, it pains me to think about what could have been, if the intellects and curatorial imaginations of a David Scott, Wayne Modest, Nichole Smythe-Johnson and, for that matter, O’Neil Lawrence could have been applied to a more ambitious, open, imaginative, and transformative project, implemented by a NGJ which was firing on all pistons, uninhibited by the unfortunate institutional politics that have weighed down the institution in recent years.
In part 2 of this three-part review, I will review some specific works in the Biennial that attracted my attention. Part 3 will explore the politics that have surrounded and affected the exhibition, as well as the catalogue essays.
Dr Veerle Poupeye is an art historian specialized in art from the Caribbean. She lectures at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston, Jamaica, and works as an independent curator, writer, researcher, and cultural consultant. Her personal blog can be found at veerlepoupeye.com.
