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.