Interview with David Knight for ARC Magazine

I was recently interviewed by David Knight for ARC Magazine.  What' nice about doing interviews (not that I've done a ton of them) is that they get you thinking about your work and making connections. Here is one that I made made for myself in our conversation:

DK: You’ve said that you ‘re interested in “the provincial and the domestic”. What does this mean?

LVB: The provincial often has a negative connotation. People think of small towns, small islands, small mindedness. But I am interested in all the things that make a culture and a people who they are – the idiosyncrasies of a place. I had a class once in semiotics that taught that in every culture there is a “semiosphere” that only the people of that culture can understand. My interest in the provincial is about wanting to know that space as best I can.
In terms of the domestic, I’m obsessed with houses. How they are made, how people decorate them, what they mean to different people. A lot of my work touches on these issues. I suppose you might say that the “provincial and the domestic” are the same space. They are both a type of semiosphere.

Check link for complete interview.

I'm in this show, Caribbean: Crossroads of the World. If you are in NY between June and December 2012. Check it out. My piece is in the Museo del Barrio, Hideaway, a small handmade book of cutouts I produced while in Denmark in 2008.

I am really amazed at how big this show is and what a massive undertaking it must have been. I look forward to seeing the catalog and dialoguing with more artists who were a part of the show and went to the openings in NY.

I do have to say that I thought I was the only artist from the Virgin Islands in the show and later learned that among the over 300 artists is Camille Pisarro. Interesting.

Hideaway, handmade book of cut-outs, 2008, La Vaughn Belle 

Andree Bagoo writes about the "NEW MEDIA" show at TNT's 2011 Film Festival

Muhe Frida (right) and La Vaughn Belle (left) at Medulla Gallery, Trinidad & Tobago

Andre Bagoo writes:
"La Vaughn Belle‘s ‘Somebody’s Been Sitting in My Chair’ worked well in the space. The video work showed the artist re-enacting the scenes of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, wandering an 18th century colonial great house, dressed in casual wear. The idea of the house echoed the space, which is itself a kind of house with wandering viewers encountering work and asking: who owns the work? For whom are these pieces intended? These complex questions mirror the complex issues in the piece which throws up ideas of ownership, identity, ‘beauty’, colonialism, race and class struggle. Is the artist/walker an intruder or the real owner reclaiming the space? Does she reclaim the space or is the space reclaiming her? In other words: what power does she really have? Who is she?"
To read the full article click here.

New Media Exhibition in TnT Film Festival

I was in the exhibit a few months ago. My video work "Somebody's Been Sitting in My Chair, Somebody's Been Sleeping in My Bed" was shown. Here is an interview by the curators at ARC magazine talking about the motivations behind the show and the work.

Making Connections

I have been spending a lot of time working on my documentary, "The House That Freedom Built" and looking at these historical images of hucksters and market women. Some of the women who lived in my house were hucksters and were able to purchase their freedom with the money they made as an itinerant seller. Looking at these images made me think about the relationship between these women and their surroundings, their bodies as landscape, their relationship to the buildings. It made me think a little of Carrie Mae Weems "Roaming" series where she questions the edifice of power. I saw some similarities with my video work "Somebody's Been Sitting In My Chair, Somebody's Been Sleeping in My Bed" (2011) and a work that I have never shown "I Have a Dream" (2005). I haven't shown this work because I wasn't sure of the direction to go. I knew I was interested in inserting my body in these real estate magazine "dreamscapes", but after I did the first one, I wasn't sure if I should be washing clothes in the pool or lounging at the poolside. For where I am in my life right now this would be a really interesting series to revisit and complete.

Trinidad + Tobago Film Festival

Very excited about this! It's the first time this piece, "Somebody's Been Sitting In My Chair, Somebody's Been Sleeping in My Bed", is traveling!

ARC and T+T Film Festival present "New Media", a collection of ten artists’ works. These works explore a range of themes and issues, while pushing and blurring the boundaries between film and art.

New Media will be the opening exhibition at the brand-new Medulla Gallery, 37 Fitt Street, Woodbrook. After a launch on Friday 23 September at 7pm, the exhibition takes place on Saturday 24 September and Sunday 25 September, 10am to 7pm daily.

For more info: http://www.ttfilmfestival.com/new-media

Paradise Lost

Monica Marin curated this show which originally was at the Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts. It travelled to Puerto Rico this summer. Check out the opening reception here. I showed for the first time a video piece, "Moving Pictures" which investigated Hollywood films shot in the Virgin Islands. The image above is from "The Island of Dr. Moreau".

"Paradise Lost", an art show that commemorates US Virgin Islands-Puerto Rico Friendship Day opens on May 27, 2011, in Caguas, Puerto Rico after being on view last fall at Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts in St. Croix, Virgin Islands. Curated by Monica Marin, the exhibition features artists from the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Denmark. The artists, through their art, raise issues of the 'paradoxes of paradise' and the precarious balance between preserving the natural environment and economic development.

"Paradise Lost" presents photos, installations, videos, documentary, artist's book, mixed media and multimedia art works by nine artists: Virgin Islanders LaVaughn Belle, Janet Cook-Rutnik, Monica Marin, and William Stelzer; Danish artist Nanna Debois Buhl; and Puerto Rican artists Luis Carle, Jason Mena, Carmen Mojica, Josué Pellot, and Rafael Trellis.

Johanna Bermúdez-Ruiz's short film documents the ongoing resistance movement against the U.S. Navy's bombing practices on the island of Vieques.

Luis Carle digitally creates surreal scenarios by combining different photographs from his travels to create his ominous landscapes.

Jason Mena's conceptual work also uses words to remind us that looks can be deceiving, and to reveal the complexities and contradictions of urban life.

Rafael Trelles projects the words a "Monument to Failure" over the industrial ruins of the old Peñuelas petrochemical complex (CORCO) in Puerto Rico, to show how the industrial remains serve as a symbol of the islands' present economic crisis.

Carmen Mojica presents an array of photos that show that emptiness and silence unite at the same time that they divide.

La Vaughn Belle's video investigates Hollywood movies that have been filmed in the US Virgin Islands by re-editing them to examine and reconstruct the narrative of a virgin paradise.

Nanna Dubois Buhl's illustrations and writing document the importance of various native plants used by St. Croix's Maroons, or escaped slaves, in their acts of resistance while offering an insightful and poetic impression of colonialism in the islands.

Janet Cook Rutnik's multi-media work attempts to highlight the paradox found in paradise in a three-dimensional installation and a video, entitled, "Moments in Time".

Finally, William Stelzer's interactive piece consists of a hypothetically proposed US Virgin Islands' advertisement campaign in which the viewer is challenged to look deeper and appreciate the islands for their sublime and spiritual relevance.

Every year in October, the US Virgin Islands celebrate the VI-PR Friendship Day and the contribution of the large Puerto Rican population living on the Virgin Islands.

"Paradise Lost" opens at ÁREA in Caguas, Puerto Rico on Friday, May 27, at 7 PM, followed by an artists' talk at 8:30 PM. It will be on view until June 30, 2011.