Kreyol Factory
French Embassy, Santo Domingo
From the end of November, 2009 to the end of February, 2010, the exhibition spaces of the French Embassy in the Colonial District of Santo Domingo remained open to the public to feature the group show “Intersections/ Kréyol Factory”, comprised of a resis- tant body of works highlighting the critical and reactive orches- trations of Tony Capellán (1955), Marcos Lora Read (1965), Jorge Pineda (1962), Belkis Ramírez (1957) and Limber Vilorio (1970), alongside Polibio Díaz’s (1952) “epidermal” and delightful stills.
These were the same artists that participated in the exhibition “Kréyol Factory”, curated by Yolande Bacot and presented at the Grand Hall of La Villette Cultural Park, Paris, France, between 7 April and 5 July, 2009. The show explored the complexity of “créole” identitary processes, their essential frictions and the diversity of their richness through multiple symbolic visions and proposals. It included sculpture pieces, installations, draw- ings and videos by a series of leading contemporary creators from the Caribbean Region (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica and Puerto Rico), and the Indian Ocean islands (Reunion, Mauritius and Madagascar). Curated with precision by art historian María Elena Ditrén, Director of the Museum of Modern Art, “Intersections” was a significant exhibition that faced us once again with the need for a profound appreciation of the most essential examples of present-day Dominican art: those whose primal components find their basis in the deserts and oases of ideas; in the inter- plays between rupture, experimentation, transmigration, delir- ium, poetry, and introspective journeys. Materializations of a vitality and a plasticity of incredible beauty; of a practice of specialized imagination involving roots, journeys and effects whose incisive capacity for dialogue has deserved respect and acclaim in the most demanding contemporary art and visual culture spaces of resonance.
“Intersections/Kréyol Factory” was the second proposal of out- standing quality and unquestionable transcendence presented by the French Embassy in its exhibition halls during 2009. The first was “Medio Camino” (Nov. 08 /March 09), a selection of Marcos Lora Read’s best works of the past twenty years, curat- ed by Marianne de Tolentino. The success of these exhibits is due, mainly, to the effective support to contemporary Dominican art offered by Mr. Roland Dubertrand, French Anbassador to the Dominican Republic, as well as to the enthu- siasm and dedication of Catherine Mac-Lorin, Counselor for Cooperation and Cultural Affairs.
In sum, the selection that María Elena Ditrén has wisely staged based on an intelligent, critical, and inspirational museographic criterion, has allowed us to notice and celebrate the reaffirmation of Tony Capellán, Marcos Lora Read, Jorge Pineda, Belkis Ramírez, Limber Vilorio and Polibio Díaz as the new harbingers of the “real-marvelous”: ancestral and everyday dreams, nightmares, mirages, infamies and hopelesnesses of Dominicanness or, in other words, of the vital constant of “flight and fusion” that continues to burn in the Caribbean/Latin American identitary psyche at this post-Modern time.
