We Have to Dream in Blue (Tenemos soñar en azul) by Arnaldo Roche Rabell

By Jennifer Lima, Bernadette McCrann, and Shanda Matthews

The enormous and expansive three-museum exhibition Caribbean: Crossroads of the World is the biggest art event in New York this summer season. New York has one of the largest Caribbean populations, so it is no wonder that El Museo del Barrio, in collaboration with the Queens Museum of Art and the Studio Museum, organized this event.
Over 500 pieces of art and almost four centuries of Caribbean history is displayed in Caribbean: Crossroads. The exhibition takes a look at the relationship between the Caribbean and other parts of the world, specifically Europe and North America, and showcases European, American, and Caribbean artists. The Caribbean: Crossroads exhibit is split amongst the three museums into six distinct themes: Counterpoints, Patriot Acts, Fluid Motions, Kingdoms of this World, Shades of History, and Land of the Outlaw.
El Museo del Barrio, located in upper Manhattan, is responsible for the Counterpoints and Patriot Acts portions of the exhibit. Counterpoints focuses on the economic development of the Caribbean. This theme reflects the Caribbean’s shift from plantation systems and the trade of sugar, tobacco, and fruit to the oil and tourism industries. Patriot Acts examines the central role that creole culture and racial mixture play in the Caribbean’s national and regional identity.
Queens Museum of Art in Flushing Meadows exhibits Fluid Motions and Kingdoms of this World. Fluid Motions shows how water affected transportation, in turn affecting Caribbean trade, migration, and communication and instigating cultural diffusion. Kingdoms of this World focuses on the combination of cultures, languages, religions, and art forms that interacted in the Caribbean, which eventually diffused into the traditional and modern features typical of the Caribbean, from the carnival to new languages and music genres.
The Shades of History and Land of the Outlaw themes are stationed at The Studio Museum in Harlem. The artwork in Shades of History tackles the subject of class and racial conflict, including slavery, abolition, and other cultural, social, and historical occurrences, and its importance and impact on various aspects of Caribbean culture. Land of the Outlaw displays artwork that presents the Caribbean as a pleasurable yet illicit place, mingling Caribbean stereotypes of paradise, pirates, smugglers, dictators, and others myths, which are now cemented in a worldwide popular-culture.
The Caribbean: Crossroads of the World is sponsored by the MetLife Foundation and supported by the Ford Foundation, The Reed Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Additional support is provided by the National Endowment of the Arts; Agnes Gund; Bacardi USA; Mondriaan Fund, Amsterdam; Christie’s, Inc.; Maduro & Curiel’s Bank N.V.; Tony Bechara; Ramón and Nercys Cernuda; The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation; Dr. Blas A. Reyes; Jacqueline L. Curiel; Susan R. Delvalle; Elena de Murias; Benjamin Ortiz; and Victor Torchia, Jr.

The exhibit will be available for viewing until January 6, 2013 at El Museo del Barrio - 1230 FIFTH AVENUE (AT 104TH STREET) NEW YORK NY 10029.