World Of Art Series Caribbean Art [Paperback]

The art history of the Caribbean is not something we usually learn in college. Yet, like so many other parts of the world dangling on the fringes of the "Western Canon" a la Janson and the like, the Caribbean jolts the art historian with its diversity, intensity and breadth (stretching back some 2,500 years at least).

So anybody rum-brave enough to attempt the first comprehensive Caribbean art history book, even for the general reader, deserves to be congratulated, even if they do a so-so job of it. The first thing to consider is the REQUIRED brevity of the Worlds of Art series (a painful 'triage' in which many favorites are left on the cutting room floor, otherwise prolific giants get listed alongside one-hit wonders as if their contributions were equal).

I find myself admiring and pitying Poupeye for this project. She has given us one of the few affordable, handy textbooks we can use in the few departments worldwide that are teaching Caribbean art, but she has and will continue to incur harsh criticism from some Caribbean scholars who bemoan that she gave short shrift to some indispensable object, creator, movement, or class of Caribbean art.

For her part, she has attempted to address imbalances in the scholarship (she has corrected for the common oversight of the Pre-Columbian Caribbean; the frequent marginalization of Asian West Indians in some of the big Caribbean editions; has not failed to give the Haitian "naives" their due etc). But in the end, she could be only cursory on every topic. Also, she did not succeed in counterbalancing the heavier scholarship in the Greater Antilles with that in the Eastern Caribbean.

Thus, the book comes off like a dazzling, but light read, leaving you with an MSG craving not long afterwards...and here's the rub: there is no book to continue where Poupeye left off. Oh there are brilliant exhibit catalogues like Infinite Island: Contemporary Caribbean Art and Caribbean Visions: Contemporary Painting and Sculpture etc., but while they have bigger, nicer pictures, all of them suffer from the same imbalances she is trying to correct.

So if Veerle Poupeye (and we) are lucky, she'll one day land a book deal for a much bigger volume in which she: fills in the picture of Neo-African ritual art; explores the early modernist movements in the Anglophone and Hispanic islands; surveys the astounding wood sculptors of the "small-islands"; discovers native artists of the French West Indies (beyond Haiti); at least speculates about the explosion in the number of late 20th century artists in the Dutch and some other Lesser Antilles; highlights the Guianas as participating fully in the Caribbean artistic discourse; not to mention gives us more images from those world famous Cubans and Diaspora artists; and definitely awards a full chapter to just the festival arts for which the region is so renown.

There's a lot of work to do. Poupeye's is a good start!

Given that it is the only book surveying Caribbean art across national and linguistic boundaries, it is an invaluable resource for those interested in Caribbean art. Poupeye covers a great range of artists and topics to keep the reader interested and more than satisfied. Hopefully more texts will build upon Poupeye's text in the near future.

The art of the Caribbean directly reflects its culture and history. My wife and I read this book before our first Caribbean trip and got a lot out of it, especially in terms of colonial art, race consciousness, and The Self and Other. Also interesting were the items on popular religion and the Festival Arts.

Some of the writing is dense, but the 76 color illustrations make the book worthwhile.

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