Turning the screws on President Granger; birds, boats and mad people ' GVACE 2017

(Image butchered from the invitation image shared around for the opening ceremonies)

President Granger smiles down benignly from the large 3 dimensional piece. The raised part is composed of screws. It is like sculpture and it must have taken a lot of time for the artist Shimuel Jones to do.  The piece is called 'Chronicles of HE Granger'. The screws are arranged to create the face of the President. The background has newspaper on it. By the time I come to see it, I had already seen the paintings of President Granger, and former Presidents Burnham and Chung. I was a little nervous - another artist had a portrait of President Granger prominently recently in another exhibition.  I was wondering if the artist were trying a thing thinking of party paramountcy and loyalty to the supreme leader and so on. No artist in the exhibition had bothered with the other Presidents of the past. I remember one artist in another painting with a face which looked very much like former president on the Apasmara dwarf representing ignorance who was being trampled by Lord Shiva in the tandava dance.

Is the name 'chronicles' a pun on the Guyana Chronicle representing the good news headlines which are at form the backdrop to the raised screws? Why screws? Is HE Granger turning the screws on the population .. making things more difficult? Does HE Granger have all the screws in the right place or are some screws loose? Should the population keep the screws on HE Granger to make sure he does well?
I wondered if there were answers in the background. There were the good news headlines. And some classified ads? I wondered if the artist had selected the ads specially - something about a massage, and an East Indian man looking for a pen pal? Is HE Granger supposed to find the companion for the East Indian man? A metaphor for all of the high expectations?

President Granger's face in screws isn't the only piece worth looking at in the exhibition. The 200 or so pieces are displayed over the four levels of Castellani House. 

Birds and boats..
I was relieved to see the drawing of the Birdmen by Walter Gobin. The drawing stands out a bit from others because of the subject. At long last somebody was doing something locally about the Guyanese bird culture. Vincentian artist Josette Norris told me that she was amazed at the birds in cages - seeing how people walk around and ride around with birds.. "big strong men walking and moving with the birds in cages to work and for leisure"
The Bird men had made it to the New York Times and to the Parts Unknown blog but not to the art gallery or any of the other places which are about culture.
There are beautiful photographs of birds in the Photogrpahy exhibition. There are quite a few photographs about boats - for some reason boats seem to be a big subject for photographers in Guyana. There weren't any of jhandi flags in the sea, another big subject.  A man said he thought Michael Lam's picture of man in the water with a boat would have won a prize. Another favourite subject seems to be old wooden buildings - decay. I liked Jemana DeFreitas' Catchlights..

Mad people
The photography had some pictures of  'mad people'. The 'mad people' are used to symbolise 'destitution' and so on. It is a bit cliche now .. I mean.. how come "desperation" is not a nice man in a suit in a hot country, rather than say the man half naked enjoying the breeze near the seawalll?  There are other pictures of children - I liked Aubrey Odle's full face portrait of a child.
Aisha Jones got second place with her photograph of  a young man holding another young man.. a change to see young men as 'artistic' subjects in addition to the many pictures of women as subjects.

Akima McPherson's installation of a journal reminded me of Mosa Telford's column Conversations on Healing in Stabroek News   

Other pieces which stood out for me include one about a Saxophone player  and another installation about the destruction of the Pomeroon.  There picture of the jetty which seems to be in the clouds (Mesach Pierre) seems to go into a fantasy world.


Different things appeal to different people. People who are not artists might be surprised at the prizes and what wins and what does not win. I spent a few minutes trying to figure out the nibbi kissing chair on the coloured rag mat.. there are other benches in the gallery and I thought this was one.
 I wondered if there were mistakes in the catalogue as some of the titles did not make sense to me but that is how it goes some times. The winning sculpture piece is called Silence - I couldn't figure out why.

The Student Art Exhibition from UG at the Umana Yana had some beautiful work and I guess the artists could not submit in time for this exhibition.

Hopefully, with the President's call for more art display spaces around the country, there will be more opportunities for exhibitions. 

(I was not planning to write this blog, so I did not make notes as I was walking through the exhibition. Respect due to all the artists. I wrote it after one of the photographers Michael Lam said he was disappointed that he has not seen anything in the Sunday papers today. I am sure those articles will be proper articles )


(The Guyana Visual Arts Competition continues until Saturday 18th August, 2017 at Castellani House, Georgetown. Opening hours - Mondays to Fridays 10am to 5pm, and Saturdays 2pm to 6pm. Except holidays. Admission Free )