Ask anyone in the larger art world about Trinidad and Tobago, and they will gladly inform you that Peter Doig is from there. Thank God for Peter Doig putting us on the art map.
A few other names like Chris Cozier, or Che Lovelace, are familiar to the art world outside the tiny T&T context. But there are many more T&T artists for the world to discover.
The 57th International Art Exhibition in Venice, Italy, from May 13 to November 26, 2017, offers an opportunity to present our art, artists and culture to the rest of the world.
At this biennial exhibition, we can showcase our Trinidadian and Tobagonian artists, many of whom toil in obscurity, largely unknown to the rest of the art world, not to mention the international art market.
Every two years, countries create pavilions (or exhibitions) to display their own art to the rest of the world. In 2017, the 120-year old Venice "Biennale" will be run under the direction of distinguished and experienced curator Christine Macel.
The benefits of T&T exposure at this most prestigious of art events include the prospect that, in the long term, those artists that have accessed the greater art world, would come back home and encourage others to do the same.
All this is by way of explaining my frustration at the refusal of the Ministry of Culture to provide a letter which would allow me to organise a pavilion to start the inclusion of T&T in this celebrated "Biennale."
Once successfully launched, future permutations of the T&T pavilion would, I'm sure, give artists a platform to enter into the larger art world.
Assuming their work fits into a world-class context, every artist should eventually find a place in the international spotlight, thereby expanding their market beyond just the limited circle of wealthy T&T art buyers.
Large potential benefits could derive from participation in this "Bienniale" and the attendant exposure of the artists, the art and the culture of a country as small as ours. In this region, artists from Haiti and the Bahamas have led the way and enjoyed the advantages from such participation. We in T&T need to think big about art.
For four years, however, I have tried in vain to obtain a letter for submission to the committee of this most famous art "Biennale."
After many visits and phone calls to the culture ministry, and lobbying friends of the then calypsonian minister, I finally obtained a meeting to present my proposal. After a long wait in the outer office, a secretary informed me that the minister, with whom I thought I had an appointment, was on his way to the beach!
Flash forward to this year, and the result of my approach to the relevant minister is essentially the same. A proposal emailed to various contacts and messages on Facebook were misconstrued. My letter request was denied, even after I made clear that no financial support was needed from the ministry.
Apparently, not only money is short, but also knowledge of the greater art world, and of what would benefit individual T&T artists, and our arts in general.
The letter I sought would have been included in an application package that would help put T&T's art and culture before some of the most influential people who could support the arts, financially and otherwise, inside and outside T&T.
Peter Doig and artist Chris Ofili, also an art world star, once mobilised a whole sector of the greater art world–art collectors, art dealers, architects, artists, curators and gallerists to visit T&T. I don't think many people in or outside our art circle realised it. What this did for our income and our intellectual and creative capital cannot be over-emphasized.
The measure of a country's civilisation can be taken from in its arts, and from how the people in the society treat one other.
Such a pity, that in the 21st century, T&T is still so backward that bureaucracy and ignorance stifle opportunities before they get off the ground.
Nicollette Ramirez,
T&T-born, New York-based, is active in the promotion and business of art.