Rooy, Felix Rooy; Smit, Jennifer Smit

Curaçao Classics : Visual Arts 1900-2010

Text in English & Spanish. The first Westerner to set eyes on Curaçao was Alonso de Ojeda, and registered the duality of the island with the words: "Isla de los Gigantes" (Island of the Giants), but in the end as "Isla inutil" (useless Island). More than a century later, the French, the English and the Dutch acknowledged the strategic importance of this useless island as a trading base for the lucrative transatlantic slave trade. This dual imaging of Curaçao, on the one hand unique and, on the other hand a useless island changed little during the colonial ages. From the monocultural Western perspective, the hybrid, multicultural bastard culture of Curaçao, to this day generates little respect from Dutch art policy. This multicultural bastard identity makes it impossible to judge Caribbean art only from a Western perspective. The first glance Western look of the Visual Arts of Curaçao hides a Caribbean approach which finds yet another mirror in the hybrid Caribbean spirituality. The proverb: "What you see is not always what you get" illustrates the complexity of the Caribbean image idiom. The artists who are spotlighted in this catalogue are on the one hand, "Yu di tera" (locals) and on the other hand, foreign artists migrants or passers-by who have left their mark on the cultural heritage of Curaçao. The multidisciplinary diversity of the Curaçao art panorama is an essential part of this manifestation and finds its reflection in the selection of the artists.