Today’s throwback highlights two special international guests, Christopher Cozier, artist, writer, and Curator from Trinidad, who at the time was one of the judges for the Jamaica Biennial 2017 and Erin McLeod, a Canadian writer who visited NGW to do a review for the Jamaica Journal. The Jamaica Biennial 2017 was staged at [4] locations and National Gallery West was one of them which featured an interactive video installation by David Gumbs titled ‘Xing Wang – Blossoms’.
TBT ● Today’s throwback features Highlights of our visitors immersing themselves in ‘Xing Wang – Blossoms’ an Interactive Installation by Artist David Gumbs which was featured in the Jamaica Biennial 2017 exhibition at National Gallery West.
The Jamaica Biennial 2017 featured more than 160 works of art by more than 90 artists at three different locations, National Gallery of Jamaica, Devon House in Kingston and National Gallery West in Montego Bay. The Jamaica Biennial 2017 comprised of an invited section, to which artists with a proven track record were invited to submit and a juried section, which was open to artists living in Jamaica and Jamaican diaspora artists. There were six special projects by international invitees. These international artists were Caribbean based artists invited to contribute special projects to the 2017 Biennial. David Gumbs, who was one of the special projects artists, is from St. Martin and lives and works in Martinique. His work featured a visually stunning interactive video installation titled ‘Xing Wang – Blossoms, at National Gallery West. His interactive video installation reflects his preoccupation with the unseen, the cycle of life, the nature within and the digital universe.
This exhibition opened to the public on February 24, 2017 with guest speaker Homer Davis, the former Mayor of Montego Bay, and the artist David Gumbs.
To read more, visit: https://nationalgallerywest.wordpress.com/2017/02/13/jamaica-biennial-2017-at-national-gallery-west-features-david-gumbs-xing-wang-video-installation/
The Jamaica Biennial 2017, the National Gallery of Jamaica’s flagship exhibition, is shown at three locations, namely at the National Gallery and Devon House in Kingston and at National Gallery West in Montego Bay. At National Gallery West, which is located at the Montego Bay Cultural Centre, Sam Sharpe Square, the Biennial will feature an interactive video installation by the Martinique-based David Gumbs. This exhibition will open to the public on Friday, February 24 at 7 pm. The guest speaker will be His Worship Homer Davis, the Mayor of Montego Bay, and the artist David Gumbs will be in attendance.
David Gumbs is one of six specially invited international artists in the Jamaica Biennial 2017, who exhibit along with more than 80 artists from Jamaica and the Jamaican Diaspora, and the inclusion of these international artists is part of the National Gallery’s efforts to give the Biennial a stronger international outlook, with a focus on the Caribbean region. David Gumbs (1977, St Martin) studied at the Visual Arts School in Fort-de-France, Martinique, in 2001 and majored in interactive multimedia conception at Les Ateliers, L’ENSCI in Paris in 2002. His work has been shown nationally and internationally, including recently: Digital (2016), National Gallery of Jamaica; Video Islands (2015), Anthology Film Archives, New York; Transforming Spaces (2014), National Art Gallery of the Bahamas; Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival (2014); and the Martinique Biennial (2013), Fort-de-France. Since 2009, Gumbs teaches multimedia, transmedia and motion design at the Visual Arts School in Fort-de-France, Martinique.
Gumbs in 2016 participated in a Davidoff Initiative residency in Beijing, China, and his contribution to the Jamaica Biennial 2017 consists of an interactive video installation titled Xing Wang (Blossoms), which he developed during that residence. The video consists of five synchronized projections, four on a lace cube structure that stands on the gallery floor and one into the dome of National Gallery West. The mesmerizing, constantly moving abstracted video imagery is, as the title suggests, drawn from patterns in nature and will be sound-activated. This will be done in two ways: one is by capturing the sounds of the city of Montego Bay, which will be done live with an external microphone; the other is by means of a sensor built into a conch shell which is mounted in the middle of the installation, in which visitors can blow to activate the imagery.
The Jamaica Biennial 2017 opening event at National Gallery West on February 24 is free and open to the public. The main opening event of the Jamaica Biennial 2017 will take place two days later, on February 26 at 1:30 pm, at the National Gallery of Jamaica in Kingston, and is also free and open to the public. The Biennial will be on view at all locations until May 28, 2017.
The National Gallery of Jamaica is pleased to invite submissions for the juried section of upcoming Jamaica Biennial, which will now be held from February 26 to May 28, 2017 and will thus be the 2017 Jamaica Biennial.
The Jamaica Biennial, previously known as the National Biennial, is the National Gallery’s flagship biennial exhibition. Designed to encourage the development of art in Jamaica and its local and international exposure, the Jamaica Biennial includes works of art in all media and genres by a wide variety of artists who enter the exhibition through the jury system or by special invitation. The juried section is open to all artists resident in Jamaica and of immediate Jamaican descent, irrespective of residence. While thus mainly focused on the Jamaican and Jamaican Diaspora artists, the exhibition now also includes a select number of specially invited Caribbean and other international artists. The exhibition will…
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