Elsewhere: March 2010 issue of Sranan Art Xposed

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The March 2010 issue of the e-magazine Sranan Art Xposed — edited by Marieke Visser, Cassandra Gummels-Relyveld, and Priscilla Tosari, with the support of the Readytex Art Gallery — covers the Paramaribo SPAN exhibition, and also features an interview with artist Sri Irodikromo and notes on other recent exhibitions and artists’ projects. It is available in both English and Dutch editions, and can be downloaded from the Readytex website.

Elsewhere: Sranan Art Xposed

Paramaribo SPAN contributor Marieke Visser and her collaborators Cassandra Gummels-Relyveld and Priscilla Tosari--supported by the Readytex Art Gallery--have launched a new quarterly e-magazine covering Surinamese art: Sranan Art Xposed. The PDF publication is currently distributed via email, with excerpts posted on the editors' blog. Information on joining the SAX mailing list is available here. The first issue includes a survey of recent art events in Suriname, a short interview with artist Jhunry Udenhout, information on artists' websites, and an article on the recent Wakaman Project.

The editors write: "We seek links, we make connections, we look for news, we spread the news, we zoom in, and we zoom out."

Diary: meeting Roberto Tjon A Meeuw

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By Marieke Visser

22 July, 2009

Roberto Tjon A Meeuw (born Paramaribo, 1969) is the first visual artist I interview for Paramaribo SPAN. He will be in Rotterdam from the end of July till October, as an artist in residence. I am familiar with his work, but have never really spoken with him about his art. He is self-educated, and definitely not mainstream. An independent.

I meet him just two days before he's off to the Netherlands. With the family: his wife Hester and his sons Idris and Sonny. Of course with his family, because that's what it's all about. "I am easily filled and overflowing with love", Roberto says. "Even awakening in the morning is Walhalla to me. I feel thankful because I have woken today, my wife is lying next to me, my kids are there."

The atmosphere in his colourful house, where we have our talk, is pleasant. All around us: art. By the children, by friends, by Tjon A Meeuw himself. And lots of records (he is a DJ too, DJ Prepmatic), lots of books. He is not pretentious--no intellectual highbrow conversations here. But the work which surrounds us speaks for itself. It is clearly influenced by graffiti and hiphop elements, never limited to a canvas in a regular frame. Pieces of window panes, broken furniture, old electricity poles: Tjon A Meeuw uses "garbage" as his medium. He literally starts from "scratch".



Roberto Tjon A Meeuw in his backyard, with one of his sculptures. Photo by Thomas Meijer zu Schlochtern

"Do you consider yourself an artist?" I ask him. "I am an interpreter," he says. "I translate the messages I receive from the universe any way I can: through the art I make, through the music I play. I am a mailman. And the message I bring is love, pure love. So yes: I am an artist who delivers the mail."

It sounds a bit hippie-ish maybe. But his mischieveous grin gives me the idea that he is for real. What sets Tjon A Meeuw apart, among other things of course, is that he is the first artist I've met participating in an exchange programme who is not talking in a grateful and humble tone about what he hopes to learn from this experience. No, Roberto Tjon A Meeuw is a man on a mission. He is going to get more ammo, to spread the word that a lot of good stuff is happening here in Suriname, and he's going to show the world just so.

"Shoot some flares, bomb da place, we gaan gewoon law!"--"we'll just go crazy!" And again, that smile. Yeah, he knows Rotterdam was bombarded during the Second World War, and that you should be very careful with the words you choose. And then I grin, thinking about the words he chose for one of his t-shirt prints: "pang pang".* High quality pieces of clothing, very stylish design, and words from the gutter. The mailman delivering his message.

* pang pang: Sranan term for female genitalia, often used as an insult



Tjon A Meeuw models one of his "pang pang" t-shirts; image courtesy Roberto Tjon A Meeuw

Meanwhile: July and August 2009

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Notes on other current and upcoming art events in Suriname and elsewhere



Kon u Taki (mixed media on canvas, 148 x 197 cm, 2009), by Marcel Pinas. Photo by William Tsang, courtesy Readytex Art Gallery


= Double Feature: Marcel Pinas and Sri Irodikromo
Readytex Art Gallery, Paramaribo; July 15 to July 25, 2009

Separate collections by two very different artists, each with a distinctive and unique style, although they each choose a strikingly bright colour palette, regularly use pangi textiles, and work from strong culturally inspired themes.

= The Time: solo exhibition by Robbert Enfield
Royal House of Art, Paramaribo; July 25 to August 8, 2009

“Everybody is affected by the time we are living in. But most of them act as if it doesn’t affect them at all. I want to open people’s eyes, tell the spectators: ‘Don’t hide, don’t pretend.’” --Robbert Enfield, July 2009

= Eat the Frame: with work from René Tosari, Carl Pope, Gean Moreno, Jean Bernard Koeman, Anton Vrede, Hamid el Kanbouhi, Dwight Marica, Eric Reding, Miek Hoekzema, Mirjam Kort, Kaleb de Groot and Moshekwa Langa; curator Michael Tedja
Galerie Nouvelles Images, The Hague, the Netherlands; 27 June to August 22, 2009

As the exhibition Eat the Frame was developing, curator Michael Tedja wrote a fictitious story, Hosselen ("to hustle"). The main character is a young curator busy preparing an international exhibition. His path through life is marked by various twists and turns. The novel is written in facets. Like a diamond, a brilliant which has 58 facets, the book is composed of 58 chapters, each telling a story about art and the art world in the Netherlands. By the end of the book, the young curator steps out of the framework of the story and so exits the fiction. The exhibition is being hosted by Nouvelles Images and the catalogue of the exhibition is the final chapter of Hosselen. Eat the Frame is now a reality

= Licht aan Zee AA: with work from Remy Jungerman, Iris Kensmil, Marcel Pinas, Kurt Nahar, David Bade, Tirzo Martha, Papa Adama, Luan Nel, Vitshois Mwilambwe and Meshac Gaba; curator Georges Hanna, guestcurator Remy Jungerman
De Kunstuitleen, Den Helder, The Netherlands; 1 May to August 29, 2009

The theme of Licht aan Zee AA is culture and cultural differences, with a focus on Africa and the Antilles. Guest curator Remy Jungerman, together with Iris Kensmil and Kurt Nahar, has presented a collection under the title "Born on Wednesday", following the Afro-Surinamese tradition of naming babies after the day they are born.

= Togetherness: solo exhibition by Raimen Bijlhout
Cultureel Centrum Suriname (CCS), Paramaribo; August 7 to 13, 2009

Togetherness is about the "unity of the culture of the Afro-Surinamese urban population and the maroon people in the interior". Bijlhout completed his art education at the Nola Hatterman Art Academy in 2006. In 2008 he had his second solo exhibition, New Beginnings, in the Instituto Venezolano para la Cultura y la Cooperacíon (IVCC).

-- Compiled by Marieke Visser and Priscilla Tosari

Conversation: bridges and silences

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Brug

Auto's daveren
over de brug
maar de kreek
voert uit het bos
nieuwe stilten aan

-- Eddy Pinas


Bridge

Vehicles thunder
over the bridge
but the creek
brings new silences
from the forest

-- trans. Marieke Visser


Marieke Visser: The idea is clear: the fact that a bridge can bring worlds together is not necessarily a blessing. It should not be taken lightly.

The bridge over the Suriname River is to me also a strong reminder of the May demonstrations in 1999, when many of us went out on the streets to protest the presidency of Jules Wijdenbosch. He was the one who built this visible bridge, this symbol of hope, of growth, of expansion. We shouted: "We don't want bread with bridge!" But after a few days everything went back to normal. And now, now and then, I notice thoughts in my own head like: "Well, at least he built something tangible for the country!"

Chandra van Binnendijk: I am intrigued by this little poem. Not only because of its simple beauty, but because the poet refers to "silences", indicating there is more than just one silence. The creek supplies us with new silences, he says--and I wonder: Are these more of the same, or do we get a variety, will we get different kinds of silences each time the creek brings them to us?

When playing around with these questions, my image of the bridge changed, it widened the scope of how we could look at a bridge. It is not just a construction which links one bank of a river to the other, but it also has something above it--air--and something underneath it--water or ground. The water brings new silences, but the water itself has many layers--there are the bubbles and the waves on the surface, but there are also the undercurrents. The same goes for the air above the bridge. So looking at a bridge in a wider sense we could see it as one (horizontal) layer of many in its wider surroundings. What does one see when looking at the surroundings while standing on the bridge?

MV: I think of a friend, the visual artist René Tosari, the man behind Waka Tjopu. More than anyone I know, he is at home in both worlds: the artists in the diaspora and the artists at "home", but also the worlds of the older generation and the younger generation. I don't see him as a bridge builder or a bridge--it is more like that he is a person on the bridge, accepted by both worlds as someone who "belongs" to their world.

When I think about this image, a man standing on the bridge, walking to both sides, sharing with people on both sides, I see how this is how I myself feel. That is also why the Wakaman Project was so exciting. It transcends that issue of home or away, of that recurring--and sometimes very irritating and time-consuming--question of which world we belong to. I don't want to choose, I am not willing to defend one world over another. But I do speak both languages, and I do miscommunicate in both languages as well. On both ends of the bridge are sources of inspiration, which I feel free to be inspired by.

I have the feeling that more people are moving in that direction, and I see how the bridge can be a way to get out of a place that has become too limited, and maybe later on it is a means to return with new stuff in your suitcase. But also the bridge itself means a new freedom--it is like an opened window (to the future but also to the past). It is an opportunity to connect and to re-connect and to cut loose (disconnect) as well.



Untitled (1998), by René Tosari; photo by Roy Tjin