A diaspora is the forced or voluntary spread of a group of people from their homeland; for the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, it is an idea that led to a convergence of works at its La Jolla location.
The exhibition “Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s–Today” opened at MCASD April 18, a major showing featuring an intergenerational group of 27 artists who live and work across the Americas and Europe.
It’s an “extraordinary exhibition that … really challenges our perceptions and … will captivate our audiences,” said MCASD David C. Copley Director and chief executive Kathryn Kanjo.
The main MCASD galleries are sectioned off to explore related ideas such as territories, movement, exchange and more, with connected entries and exits representing the interaction among them.
Pieces are tactile, such as a seemingly simple stack of paper (Felix Gonzalex-Torres, “Untitled” (Passport), 1991); contain video elements (Christopher Cozier, “Gas Men,” 2014) or raw sugar discs (Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, “Sugar/Bittersweet,” 2010) and more, inviting visitors through a dimly-lit series of rooms revealing “real and imagined landscapes,” said MCASD Associate Curator Isabel Casso.
“Forecast Form” reimagines the Caribbean as a dynamic space defined by displacement “rather than geography and ethnicity,” Kanjo said, which resonates in San Diego’s binational and border region, which MCASD is committed to understanding.
“Forecast Form” originated at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and has also shown at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston; MCASD is the only West Coast venue for the exhibition.
All three museums are situated on bodies of water, an important component of the show, Casso explained. “We’re positioned at the cusp of something, on the border of something.”
The 1990s as a backdrop for “Forecast Form” is also significant, she said, as it was a time of “substantial change and transformation” centered on identity and cultural issues.
The 27 artists featured in the MCASD exhibit are of Caribbean heritage or live in the Caribbean, Casso said; their contributions consider diaspora as a behavior that “really does prize movement.”
Also carefully curated: the exhibit’s title, Casso said, as the Caribbean is “the inauguration of the modern world, forecasting all … the issues that come toward us.”
“Forecast Form” runs through July 28.
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