This article was previously published in NRC Handelsblad, on October 17, 2018, and was written by Sandra Smets. In the previous blog post the original (Dutch) text of the article.
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Instituto Buena Bista on Curaçao preaches a very different approach to art. Are artists capable of contributing to the development of the island?
Behind the wide road that circles Willemstad like a ring just beyond the residential areas, lies the psychiatric clinic Capriles. It consists of a number of colorful buildings just like the ones you see all around Curaçao, with the only difference being the large entry gate guarded by a gatekeeper. Situated beyond the gate are Divi Divi trees and patient housing facilities in between which lies a path that offers a view of several amazing constructions. Posing on gigantic wooden spools, are black human figures made from painted burlap, and attached to each other with soda-can umbilical cords. In the never ceasing wind, they softly move back and forth.
It is a work by the Ugandan artist Xenson, tells David Bade (blog). On this part of the property, Bade runs a true art institute together with Tirzo Martha: the Instituto Buena Bista (IBB), an art institute for the youth, with four studios for local and international guest artists. In 2014 Xenson was one of them, and together with the students and the patients he would make increasingly extravagant installations. He wanted to present them in Willemstad, with a spontaneous fashion show. “We are of the guerrilla”, says Bade. “But this was taking it a bit far. And it was very short notice. So instead, we put it right outside the property, by the bus stop. Only, we didn’t have a permit, and even on Curaçao you won’t be able to manage it then.”
But then Bade came up with a ruse. What if we call it a monument for Ebola-victims, and send out a press release? It worked. Art is vulnerable, but a monument for a grave illness, just try to touch that. For months, it stood by the bus stop, until the wind started to blow pieces off of it and it was moved towards the two IBB-pavilions after all. Pavilion Esmeralda, a former bed house, is an exhibition space with the art collection of the IBB. Next door, in pavilion Orkidia, is the school.
Lifestyle clichés
It is the middle of September; the new school year has been going on for two weeks. 21 new pupils, alongside 14 second-year students, show the teachers Bade and Marvi Johanna Zapata (Instagram) the results of several drawing assignments. Compliments and critical considerations follow. “These are the clichés of your lifestyle”, says Bade to one of the boys. “That is good, I have a lifestyle too, but I want you to start working more from classical perception.” Have you ever been to a museum, asks Bade, a gallery? No never. This is true for most students. They have never seen art, but now they are making it themselves “It is constructive criticism”, laughs Bade to a disappointed student who is dragging his feet in the back. “You are here to learn.”
What they learn is to make art, develop discipline and other skills, under broad creative guidance. Art is not a goal as it is at an art academy, but it prepares them. Seventy alumni have already moved on to higher education and art academies in the Netherlands. During the two years at the IBB youngsters learn in an environment where everything breathes expression. The walls that hold up the asbestos roof of Orkidia are painted, as if they are not walls, but art that carries this architecture. Between them are rigid iron grid fences, a reminder of the closed psychiatry that was practiced here.
Most of the students have never seen art, but now they are going to make it themselves
After several other locations elsewhere, Martha and Bade were able to move here with the IBB in 2010, for a minimal rent. In return, they allow art and psychiatry to blend into one another. It is ok to be different, they explain to the students who sometimes have their own little ‘baggage’. A 17-year-old Venezuelan who is a refugee, is almost deaf and has Asperger, shyly participates with the class.
Being yourself, free to be different, is the common thread in the IBB, but at the same time it leads to an imagery that strongly resembles that of artists Martha and Bade. That similarity can be either a disadvantage or an advantage. A collective style with self-awareness and re-using materials, which fits with the island, may be desirable for a searching country. Since 2010, Curaçao is autonomous within the Kingdom and is searching for its identity. Populism flourishes here as well. Who knows, maybe art, as a young heritage, can add something different.
A contrasting sound, that is also how Martha looks at the role of art. He hopes that the guest artists at the IBB end up being positive role models for the youngsters studying there. “Creativity is important to show young people that there is much more than just pursuing a career to buy an expensive car”, he says. The luxury of Miami is the great example in these regions, and it encourages a status culture. Buying beautiful cars, but no money to buy gas. This is what his new sculptures in his studio, which is also on the premises of Capriles, are about. They are walls of stone blocks, with chandeliers and cars as well as barbed wire.
Lizards and humming birds
While the students are being taught, and while Bade makes coffee for several patients who walk in, and humming birds and lizards are the only ones not struggling with the clammy heat, the shutters in Esmeralda are closed a bit more. Inside, paintings of Dolf Henkes are hung. Work from the Netherlands, by this painter from Rotterdam, is being shown at three locations on Curaçao. In 1945 Henkes fled from the gloomy post-war Rotterdam and sailed to Curaçao like a Dutch Gauguin. The IBB shows, among other things, his portraits of psychiatric patients. The brave lender of these, the ‘Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed’, knew that there was no glass in the windows. But he didn’t realize that so much dust would blow inside.
Being yourself, free to be different, that is the common thread in Instituto Buena Bista
Henkes was an early ‘passantkunstenaar’ (passing artists), as they are called on Curaçao, but many would follow. Artist-in-residencies are beloved ways to find inspiration – and fill résumés. But what these passers-by do in return, is the subject of a symposium prior to the exhibition. There, it is determined that the IBB believes in exchange. Guest artists have to work together with the students, and leave work behind for the art collection in Esmeralda. So, if there ever comes a museum for contemporary art on Curaçao, then it can be filled with art based on Curaçao.
A group walks in for the symposium, but generally speaking the IBB is not in the loop. The institute receives funds from the ‘BankGiroLoterij’ and the ‘Mondriaan Fonds‘, not from the government of Curaçao. Also, there is very little art-scene to take part of. That takes some getting used to for the guest artists, notices Bade: “If you come to work here as an artist, there is nobody to write a serious review of your exhibition. Nobody is going to google you. As an artist, you find yourself with both feet firmly on the ground.” Participation – now hip – has been happening at the IBB for the longest time, because otherwise you don’t exist here in the periphery of the art world. Nobody sees you.
This is why the IBB and the guest artists seek out contact with the island themselves. Creations can be found throughout Willemstad. Years ago already, during carnival, the IBB, together with psychiatric patients, carried along a caravan of car sculptures to reduce the taboo around psychiatry. They now stand next to the old juvenile prison.
Taboos are capable of feeding art. In 2009 artist Kathrin Schlegel stayed at the IBB. She was touched by the existence of a cemetery for outcasts, a bit outside Willemstad. The graves here have no names, only numbers. Nobody looks at them, and the IBB students didn’t dare go there. Schlegel did. From a more prominent cemetery she borrowed a broken entrance sculpture, an angel that had lost a wing. Of that she made two casts. In Esmeralda, one ‘One Winged Angel’ now looks out over the art collection. She placed the other one at the lonely cemetery without burial monuments. Since then, there is one sculpture on this barren place, a flawed guardian angel, to watch over forgotten souls.
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Instituto Buena Bista
Visitor address: Mohikanenweg 8 , Curacao, N.A. Open during week days between 13:00 and 18:00 hrs / Tel.: +59997363605 / E-mail: info@institutobuenabista.com / Website /Facebook
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TEXT Sandra Smets. Sandra Smets (Haarlem, 1970) is an art historian, and writes mostly about contemporary art, including art in public spaces. She has worked at the Centrum Beeldende Kunst Rotterdam for over ten years and is, since 2006, a visual arts employee at the NRC Handelsblad. She also writes for various magazines, artist catalogues and publications, about the art of the reconstruction and developments in the twentieth century. Website: www.sandrasmets.nl.
In July 2015 she shared an article with the followers of the Sranan Art Xposed blog, about Remy Jungerman: ‘Surinamese Art with Magic Powers’.
TRANSLATION Cassandra Gummels-Relyveld. Cassandra Gummels-Relyveld is a freelance writer. Aside from her work for Sranan Art Xposed, she writes primarily for the Readytex Art Gallery in Paramaribo, Suriname. She writes press releases, website texts and takes care of the publicity materials surrounding the exhibitions and other activities of the gallery.
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This article was published previously as ‘Curaçao zet je als kunstenaar met twee voeten op de grond’ in NRC Handelsblad, October 17, 2018.