BEYOND TOURIST CURIOS AND CARVINGS: CARRIBBEAN ART DEFIES STEREOTYPE

Fifth Annual Art Off the Main Showcases Contemporary Caribbean Art, October 2-5, At New York City’s Historic Metropolitan Pavilion North


Art Off the Main, the ground-breaking exposition showcasing Caribbean art returns to New York City’s Metropolitan Pavilion 110 West 19th Street, October 2- 5, 2008.

In its fifth year, Art Off The Main has served to change public perception of Caribbean art, transforming the widely-held view which equated Caribbean art with tourist curios. Art Off The Main has brought to the American public, the broad spectrum of Caribbean art ranging from the realist to the surrealist, the traditional to the modern, the intuitive to the experimental, and in media ranging from traditional materials to new media.

Art Off The Main is produced by Loris Crawford, the Caribbean-born visionary, founder and Director of Savacou gallery, and a pioneer in the promotion of Caribbean art. In explaining the rationale for Art Off The Main, Crawford, says, “it is the culmination of a long-held dream of staging a fine arts festival that bridges a Pan-African, Pan-Caribbean cultural identity. When we launched the fair four years ago many thought that there would be very little interest in Caribbean art. The farsightedness of this vision has been since been affirmed by the increased interest in Caribbean art among leading art institutions. The Brooklyn Museum curated a major exhibition in 2007 and three other New York museums are collaborating on another major Caribbean art exhibit for 2009. Art Off the Main has profoundly changed and deepened people’s understanding of Caribbean Art”

The artist list from prior years’ Art Off The Main includes Caribbean masters like Wifredo Lam, and Kapo, contemporary giants like Manuel Mendive, Edourd Duval Carrie and Francois Cavin, as well as accomplished Caribbean artists living in the United States such as Bernard Hoyes, Escoffery, Robert Reid, and Eric Girault and Basil Watson, son of Jamaican Master painter, Barrington Watson and Francks Deceus, recently included in the list of top 100 New York artists.

Highlights of the fair includes Paint it Pink, the Opening Night Gala, Thursday October 2, 6-10pm This gala reception raises awareness of breast cancer in young women of color, with ticket sales benefiting the Young Survival Coalition, a community of young breast cancer survivors seeking to educate the public, and the medical, research and legislative communities on the issue of breast cancer in women 40 years old and under.

General admission to the show is $15; admission to Paint It Pink is $100. For tickets or additional information, contact Crawford Billings Associates, Inc., P.O. Box 1659, New York, NY 10276; 646-438-9958 or visit artoffthemain.com

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