A traveling OAS Art exhibition 2020 – 2023
Written by Kit-Ling Tjon Pian Gi
In 2017, I met Atreyee Gupta at Readytex Art Gallery in Paramaribo, Suriname. Readytex Art Gallery is the gallery I am affiliated to. Atreyee came as an assistant curator for an OAS exhibition that would travel through the United States of America.
I was happy to meet her because I was used to international curators to be white men.
The exhibition would be one of Artists of Asian descendants living and working as visual artists in OAS states. This was also quite exceptional because there had been a tendency to make exhibitions of African descendance with a black slavery history. I was black, but not black enough. Maybe because in my appearance I have more Asian looks and my name is Chinese. When speaking to Atreyee Gupta, I did not get the impression that they were only looking for young artists. Selecting only young artists for international exhibitions had also been the trend in the past decade.
And yes, my feelings were right: I got selected for the exhibition. However, it took a long time to organize the exhibition. Atreyee even changed jobs, but Adriana Ospina stayed as the main curator of the exhibition. Only in 2019, we got the message that the exhibition would start in Florida at the Morikami Museum in 2020. The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens had good reviews on having interesting exhibitions and the gardens were reported to be beautiful. My family consisting of two grandchildren, a son, a daughter-in-law, my husband, and myself booked tickets and a resort on the beach nearby the Morikami Museum to have holidays in Florida and visit the exhibition. Due to Covid-19 the flights and this first exhibition venue were cancelled.
The first exhibition venue became Kalamazoo Institute of Arts in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The second venue was San Antonio Museum of Art in San Antonio, Texas. The next venue was in Washington DC at the Art Museum of the Americas. The last stop would be at the Arthur Ross, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the winter months.
https://www.artsandartists.org/exhibitions/cultural-encounters/#exhibition-materials
During the travel of the exhibition, the name was changed into ‘No Ocean Between Us’.
http://www.museum.oas.org/exhibitions/2020s/2021-noocean.html
Living in the tiny little country of Suriname on the north coast of South America, we had been isolated for months with Covid-19 code black.
In August, it became possible to travel again, so I thought: “If you want to see the exhibition, you have to go now to Washington DC, because it will be winter in Pennsylvania.” I was never found of the winter anyway.
I went through all Covid-19 procedures: Double vaccination, PCR test, swab, mouth – and nose cabs all the way while on travel. But it was worth it. On August 27, I arrived at the Art Museum of the Americas, where Adriana Ospina gave me a warm welcome as the first participating artist to visit the exhibition.
The Art Museum of the Americas is a relatively small and cozy museum. The building happened to be the residence of the OAS Secretary General. With seven participating artists, Suriname has a tremendous contribution in the exhibition. Only Suriname has Javanese descendants and there are four artists with Javanese roots in the exhibition. To my pleasant surprise, all the works of the Surinamese participants were selected to be published in the catalogue. A whole room was dedicated to Suriname with the works of Soeki Irodikromo, Rene Tosari, Sri Irodikromo, Dhiradj Ramsamoedj en Reinier Asmoredjo. Sunil Puljun was on display in the same room as my fellow artist of Guyana, Bernadette Persaud as an East-Indian descendent. Though Dhiradj Ramsamoedj is also an East-Indian descendent, he was not in this room. I think it was a matter of sufficient space. He was in the room with the Surinamese Javanese descendants, where he could have a prominent place with his big installation.
My work was on display in a room together with artists of Chinese and Japanese descendance.
Next to me there was a work with a Ki Lin in it. Ki Lin is a mythological creature, important to the Hakka Chinese. Ki Lin is the spelling in Hakka; Kei Lun in Cantonese; Qilin in Mandarin; Kirin in Japanese. I was really touched because the Ki Lin has an important place in my next individual Art project. An Art project I started to prepare years ago.
Furthermore, I also felt very connected to the Japanese artists. When I was back in my hotel room, I noticed that I had taken a lot of photos of the Japanese artists, because I thought their work was interesting.
During my stay in the museum, the exhibition was not crowded with visitors, but there were visitors dropping by. In San Antonio, all catalogues were sold out, because of the educational program. So despite of Covid-19 the exhibition has been well intended.
Happy to have met with Adriana Ospina and with catalogues for all my fellow artists of Suriname, I went for a quick stroll in Washington DC. Of course, I went to the White House and the Capitol. I also went to the National Gallery of Art. There again, I had some pleasant surprises. The Museum had a big collection of sculptures of August Rodin, but I loved the collection of bronzes of Edgar Degas even more. Besides the countless small statues, there were two bigger ‘Ballerinas’, who always have been my favorites. In another part of the building there seven paintings of El Greco, so it really was my happy day.
My visit to Washington DC came to an end with a visit to China Town. This was recommended by my tennis friend Rene Mouwen, a former consul at the Dutch Embassy in Paramaribo.
