Welcome back!
We continue our speaker series with archaeologist and
MET Museum Assistant Curator of the Art of the Ancient Americas, James Doyle and the exhibition,
Arte del mar: Artistic Exchange in the Caribbean (on view: December 16, 2019 - June 27, 2021).
In his curatorial practice for
Arte del mar, Doyle imagines the Caribbean Sea not as a "passive surface" but as a "connective tissue" connecting the Caribbean islands to their coastal mainland peers in networks of artistic exchange. He leverages his art museum setting to recognize the agency of indigenous communities as artists - crafting objects of aesthetic design and material meaning that were activated in ritual and political contexts. In a current moment of critical conversations about the relationship of museums and community stakeholders, Doyle describes small, but powerful inclusionary moves employed in the exhibition (e.g. bilingual introductory text, textual reference to men and women political leaders, inclusion of
contemporary artwork to render Afro-Caribbean cultural influences visible and
digital components).
- Amanda Guzman