Caribbean national pavilions at the Venice Biennale.

What is it about?

In recent years, the sporadic presence of various Caribbean national pavilions at the Venice Biennale has on each occasion been almost unanimously applauded as marking some sort of moment of ‘arrival’ or ‘becoming’ for artists of the Caribbean and the local institutional structures and professionals that surround them.

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Why is it important?

This paper seeks to critically explore what the gains are of such a presence beyond the fleeting ‘Venice Effect’ – of mega-hyped exposure to international audiences, curators, gallerists and other market actors. The alleged benefits-for-all of contemporary cultural exchange, in an expanding globalizing field such as Venice, are by no means shared equally and such discourses gloss over layers of uneven privilege embedded within the institution.