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Requiem for an experiment:
Zemicon Gallery
(December 2000—December 2009?) |
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| For a moment, the invitation to write a requiem for Zemicon seemed like a morbid privilege—sort of like writing one’s own obituary. It struck me, later, that this reaction suggests that I, too, apparently, have a tendency to conflate the gallery with the owner! I believe that precisely this—its character of one-(wo)man show—at once has been Zemicon’s weakness and strength: the personal commitment has been recognized, but so has its limitations and idiosyncrasies |
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iIt is important for me to underscore that Zemicon did not set out to construct a canon, but to build on and extend what others had already suggested. If such a canon had been pursued, the gallery’s policy would surely have been different. But, in the given circumstances, its focus had to be on individual bodies of work that, though already acknowledged as significant, were largely inaccessible to the general public.
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| The opening of Zemicon almost 10 years ago in Barbados was an individual response to what I perceived to be a marginalization of artists who do not work to suit the market. I saw the reluctance—on the part of commentators, galleries and policy-makers—to distinguish between different levels of artistic ambition as a disservice to all. |
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This, I thought, was especially to the detriment of aspiring artists, who should be able to embrace, attack or even ignore their (artistic) parents’ legacies as a matter of choice. Consequently, Zemicon gradually evolved from a commercial gallery into a dedicated exhibition space, which has hosted more than 60 exhibitions. If it can claim any success at all, I think it has been that of offering exhibition-viewers strong impressions of particular artistic statements.
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Given its intention, I thought it imperative for the gallery to be located in the island’s capital, Bridgetown. Meanwhile, the short-lived history of a far more ambitious establishment like the Art Foundry recommended a modest scale, and the result was a “shoe-box gallery.” Subsequently, the smallness turned into a different sort of problem, because it didn’t permit any sort of secondary activity: Zemicon had to be financed solely through sales’ commissions. With the recession and what I suspect may be a general shift in the direction of the market, this has—even on a modest scale—evidently not been possible.
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I concede that the gallery’s policy for these reasons has been inadvertently conservative, but this is one of the ironies of operating in a place with very feeble infrastructures. Do I have any other regrets about Zemicon’s trajectory? A few, but mainly a slight sadness that it won’t, as a logical extension of its first phase, play a significant part in getting the next generation off the ground.
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Having said that, it is actually my impression that “lineage” isn’t that important to young Barbadian artists: they relate more easily to their peers abroad than to their local predecessors. Although my generation may scoff at this disposition, it may in fact turn out to be liberating and productive. And it reminds me that what every generation owes to the next is knowing when it is time to hand over.
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Editors’ Note: Since this piece was commissioned, the definitive closure of the Zemicon space has been averted by a pledge of support from a few members of the community. The gallery will, however, undergo various changes, including a change of name.
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