An eye for the new

Jamaica’s stately National Gallery is renowned for its historic collection of Jamaican art. Under the watchful eye of director emeritus and former chief curator David Boxer, the gallery has amassed an impressive collection of the work of Jamaican masters.

But even a doyenne needs a makeover now and then. Every two years, the gallery invites a guest curator to mount an exhibition in an innovative new programme intended to provide both objective commentary and a refreshing personal perspective on the state and practice of Jamaican art.

“The aim is to bring new eyes and fresh ideas to the Jamaican contemporary art scene,” says Dr Jonathan Greenland, executive director of the National Gallery. “We need to bring in someone who is not tied to any particular aesthetic or style. Otherwise, we run the risk of getting stuck in a routine.”

The Curator’s Eye programme — which alternates with the Jamaica National Biennial exhibition — debuted two years ago with an exhibition of works selected by Lowery Stokes Sims, executive director of the Studio Museum in Harlem.This year’s guest is Eddie Chambers, an art critic and curator with a long history of challenging artistic conventions.


Maroon Mandala, by Charles Campbell
Courtesy Charles Campbell
Born in Wolverhampton in the United Kingdom to Jamaican parents, Chambers is a rare Caribbean presence in the rarified world of British art. He has curated shows around the world, building his expertise in the works of artists from the African diaspora. In 1989, he established the African and Asian Visual Artists Archive, a black artists’ research and reference facility, which he led until 1992. In his curating, teaching, and writing, his goal is to “contribute to the pluralisation of the art world”, to carve a place for artists of colour on the mainstream agenda. Given the opportunity to curate an entirely Jamaican exhibition, his goal was to broaden the dialogue on what art is considered noteworthy within the Jamaican community, eschewing the conventional criteria of mastery.

His selection, titled Identity and History: Personal and Social Narratives in Art in Jamaica, opened on December 11, 2005, and will run until March 2006. The show is a highly personal collection that, with its dual themes of history and identity, tells as much about Chambers as about the artists he selected.

“I was looking for work that commented on issues of history and identity,” says Chambers. “Jamaica has always held a fascination for me. When I was growing up, I learned a lot about Jamaica from my parents. I grew up on the music of Marley and Tosh, so I naturally became curious about what Jamaica’s visual artists have to say about Jamaican history, its place in the African diaspora and the world.”

Chambers’s personal art collection includes the works of Jamaican artists Charles Campbell, the late sculptor Woody Joseph, Alan Zion Johnson, an. . .

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