Fluid Ecologies: Hispanic Caribbean Art from the Permanent Collection

The history - and art - of the Caribbean region is bound by the sea, by the ebbs and flows of myriad sea crossings that, beginning with Columbus's fateful encounter, thrust the "sugar islands" into colonial economies, global trade, proto-capitalism, and ultimately modernity. The region's historical role as crossroads of the world has engendered cultures, literatures, and art born of dynamic intellectual and creative networks connecting writers, artists, and ideas across the Caribbean Sea, its islands and continental shores, and the world beyond.

The individuals featured in this exhibition, a cross-section of the region's most celebrated Hispanic Caribbean artists of the last five decades, are linked through this sea-as-history, echoing in their work the fluid ecologies that constitute the salient markers of the region's history. These artists have sought to disavow this reduction of the tropical landscape to a tourist's paradise. They offer instead intense renderings created at this crossroads of the world, emerging from a history of fluid navigations of a multifarious space.

This exhibition was organized by the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, Professor of Hispanic Studies on the Sarah Tod Fitz Randolph Distinguished Professor Chair.