January 20, 1997

Caribbean Visions

Graces Middlebury College Museum of Art

Caribbean Visions: Contemporary Painting and Sculpture,

an exciting exhibition currently on view in the Museum at the

Center for the Arts, surveys 50 years in the art of the Caribbean

islands. The exhibition opened in mid-January with a talk and

museum tour by Miriam Basilio.

“Visions” demonstrates the abundant diversity

of cultural traditions throughout the region. Against the diversity

of history, languages and religions among the arts, are more modern

themes of landscape, spiritualism, personal identity, and political

and social commentary. And, while its extraordinary range and

depth will strike most viewers, the curators believe that a shared

Caribbean consciousness also thrives in the exhibit. The exhibition

was selected by Dr. Samella Lewis, professor emerita of Scripps

College of the Associated Colleges of Claremont, California, a

leading scholar in the art of the Caribbean and Africa.

Miriam Basilio, a native of New York City, works

at the Americas Society in New York on a forthcoming Maria Izquierdo

exhibition. She has also performed curatorial assistance to El

Museo del Barrio, the Museum of Modern Art, City College Gallery

at CUNY, and the Frick Art Reference Library. She received her

B.A. at Boston University, her M.A. in museum studies at New York

University, and is a Ph.D. candidate studying with Professor Edward

Sullivan of the university’s Institute of Fine Arts.

The exhibition will run through March 9.