ARC Magazine, founded in 2011, is a print magazine devoted to highlighting contemporary Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora art.Published twice yearly, it is curated by Holly Bynoe, editor-in-chief and Nadia Huggins, creative director. Bynoe and Huggins, ARC's co-founders, are both from St Vincent; contributors come from all over the region, including T&T. Issue 7 of the magazine was launched in June 2013 in Grenada. The launch was structured to coincide with the 38th Annual Caribbean Studies Association Conference.Prefacing the diverse collection of art, interviews, essays and retrospectives that make up Issue 7, Bynoe's editorial issues the powerful proclamation that "the Caribbean as an artistic space has never been more potent." It's a sentiment that's also a catalytic marker for the creative energy infusing both ARC as a collective entity, and this issue in particular. ARC as an imaginative, representative space is all-inclusive, inviting intuitive play with the boundaries that signify what it means to be a member of the Caribbean cultural consciousness.
Boundary delineation is crucial to the work of this issue's featured artist, Jean-Ulrick D�sert, of Haitian provenance, based in Berlin. D�sert's reflections are framed in the form of a conversation with interviewer Jerry Philogene. The creations of D�sert are constructed from multiple media: they are often panoramic in scope and immersive in intent: his ongoing series, The Goddess Projects, uses imagery of the iconic French-American performer and Civil Rights movement activist, Josephine Baker.The Goddess Project spotlights Baker's image as a leitmotif, a recurring symbol in a body of work, often tending towards revolutionary significance. D�sert expresses interest in Baker "beyond the banana skirt" and the installations in The Goddess Project hinge on telling stories outside of a cocoon of myopic romanticism–though, the artist urges, all interpretations are valid.Interviewed by David Cuthbert, Trinidadian graphic designer and artist Marlon Darbeau discusses his functional creative projects, three of which were showcased in the installation By Making–More than just a place to sit, in December 2012 at Granderson Lab, Belmont.
Darbeau's Peera incorporates elements of design that are both tradition-steeped and au courant, re-imaging the peerha or peerah (a small, low bench used in Hindu weddings, as well as in daily household use) as both a useful furniture item, in addition to a portable case for the transportation of tools and other implements. Darbeau's finished Peeras are sleek, efficient creatures of style and practicality: they hearken to a rapidly evanescing age while simultaneously showing the undeniable progress of an item's evolution in current space."All of the work certainly has a strong design sensibility," Darbeau says in response to one of Cuthbert's questions, elaborating, "and I believe they can stand as beautiful objects, but it's the obvious usefulness that I love."
In its Artist Portfolios segment, four talents are showcased: Jowy Maasdamme of Aruba and the Netherlands, whose female figures challenge concepts of high fashion; Mirtho Linguet of French Guiana, presenting photographs of women wherein "the grotesque is sexual and beauty is revealed as unexpectedly rough in its features"; from the Dominican Republic, Gerard Ellis's paintings draw parallels with the question Junot D�az poses in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao: "Who more sci-fi than us?"; while Bahamian Piaget Moss presents collages made from found materials that are constructed "in search of balance."
Numerous other gems are tucked between the glossy pages of this installment in ARC's oeuvre, notably a sensitive treatment of Steve McQueen's approach to the artistry of film, one that delves into his early experimental work as well as his Hollywood-famous features. Of McQueen's particular dedication to ascribing meaning in cinema, Rajesh Punj says that the director "has always sought to facilitate a situation that encourages unsanctioned acts of beauty."Bynoe's introductory assessment of the creative Caribbean state–both as non-fixed geographical terrain and as syncretic playground–are solidly reconfirmed with the contributions within Issue 7. Such publications are perhaps the thinking person's answer to coffee table ephemera, presenting art that confronts, peels back the old skin of tropes to turn stolid ideas about art curation on their heads. We are the better for having ARC on our bookshelves, in the full give and flow of our cultural conversations. Ramlochan is a contributor to ARC Magazine.