This month’s selected artwork is a woodcut print on paper entitled “Pulling Nr. 1,” (1982) by Maxwell Taylor—a painter, printmaker, sculptor, ceramicist and draughtsman. The work is currently on show alongside other Taylor drawings and prints, as well as many other artists, in the exhibition “From Columbus to Junkanoo” curated by Jodi Minnis and Averia Wright.
Creative industries are a ‘new’ fixture in the discussions among government development folks. They want to expand the reach of the creative industries and link these with tourism. Creative industries are about celebrating all that is creative and allowing these creative areas to generate new streams of income for the country. Music and dance comprise the creative industries.
Nowé Harris-Smith, an emerging Bahamian artist, shows us her foray into reconciling the tension between two battling mediums; tensions between reality and the imagined, between the ideas of bodies as symbols of our individuality but also as unifying vessels of the universality of our human experience.
New Economies of Culture We often talk about the importance of cultural tourism, but perhaps few of us understand what that means or even why it could benefit us as a country. Cultural tourism has become one of the largest drivers in tourism mobilisation over the last decade.
Film programmer and invited curator of the NAGB summer film series, Francis Litzinger, shares his love for film; from growing up in Toronto to his foray into the industry. This year, through a unique partnership, Litzinger lends his expertise to develop programming riffing off of the NAGB’s exhibitions. Through the end of August, we host five films, which delve into the backbone of classic and contemporary filmmaking.
Scraped up from the beds. Uprooted. Carefully picked and collected. Transported by boat. Beaten. Sun-dried. Clipped and polished. Sold to the highest bidder. The sponge industry of the colonial Bahamas as represented in Jacob F. Coonley’s ‘The Sponge Yard’, an albumen print circa 1870, shows neat rows of sponges laid out to dry, to be clipped, to have the animal remains eroded away by hours in the sun
all into close engagement with one another. Gun Boys Rhapsody begins with what in Shakespeare’s day would have been a loaded soliloquy, foreshadowing the devastation that lay ahead. As the actor tells the audience his life is about to end, we are far from prepared for the heart-tugging roller coaster escapade into which we have ventured.
In the spirit of its current exhibition, EN MAS’: Carnival, Junkanoo and Performance Art of the Caribbean, the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas is putting out a call to Junkanoo’s best. We’re inviting the country’s star bellers and drummers to bring the heat in our bell-off and drum-off competitions on Friday, June 10.
Opening three new shows recently, The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB) has been keeping busy preparing its gallery spaces for a fresh wave of visitors. Still, the NAGB has made time to focus on its next major undertaking – the NAGB Sculpture Garden.
The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB) recently opened its newest temporary exhibition, EN MAS’: Carnival, Junkanoo and Performance Art of The Caribbean. Co-curated by New Orleans-based curator Claire Tancons and Dr. Krista Thompson, professor of art history at Northwestern University, EN MAS’ features a body of works exploring the relationship between performance art, street festivals and contemporary art.