NEW YORK, NY.- – In an unprecedented collaboration organized by El Museo del Barrio with the Queens Museum of Art and The Studio Museum in Harlem, CARIBBEAN: Crossroads of the World, an ambitious and trailblazing exhibition, will highlight over two centuries of rarely-seen works from the Haitian Revolution (c. 1804) to the present. The show features more than 400 works including painting, sculpture, prints, books, photography, film, video and historic artifacts from various Caribbean nations, Europe and the United States. Transcendent in scope, CARIBBEAN: Crossroads examines the exchange of people, goods, ideas and information between the Caribbean basin, Europe and North America and explores the impact of these relationships on the Caribbean and how it is imagined. This citywide endeavor, supported by a major grant from MetLife Foundation, opens in the midst of Caribbean-American Heritage Month, observed nationally during the month of June.

CARIBBEAN: Crossroads will be on view to the public at all three institutions. To encourage viewers to visit the entire exhibition, paid admission to any of the venues will include a ticket good for complimentary entry to the other two sites.

El Museo del Barrio: June 12, 2012 to January 6, 2013
Queens Museum of Art: June 17, 2012 to January 6, 2013
The Studio Museum in Harlem: June 14, 2012 to October 21, 2012

This exhibition will offer a compelling and dramatic exploration of the Caribbean and its Diaspora from the Haitian Revolution to the present. Using a variety of objects from the collections of distinguished international institutions and archives, the exhibition will explore the transformation experienced by the region from the late eighteenth century on. Drawing upon new research of the last decades conducted here and abroad, the project will advance understanding of the Caribbean as a crossroads for the modern world within the Western hemisphere. It will break new ground in areas of scholarship that have been neglected, such as the intense and complex dialogue between the Caribbean and the United States. Furthermore, it will address a series of themes inspired by geopolitical, ethnographic, historical and cultural events that have influenced the way the Caribbean looks—and the way it is imagined. Several institutions, including the Americas Society, Bronx Museum and Nathan Cummings Foundation, among others, will mount related, concurrent exhibitions throughout the city.

Margarita Aguilar, Director of El Museo del Barrio, notes: “El Museo del Barrio is very proud to be leading groundbreaking research into the artistic heritage of a region that scholars have too often overlooked. With our visionary collaborators, we are expanding our understanding of the region. The rich history of the Caribbean and its global impact is astonishing, and we look forward to celebrating this with our communities through the arts.”

Among the many featured artists are Janine Antoni, John James Audubon, Jean Michel Basquiat, David Bade, Myrna Báez, Alvaro Barrios, José Bedia, Ernest Breleur, Agostino Brunias, José Campeche, Tony Capellán, Esteban Chartrand, Jaime Colson, Winfred Dania, Edouard DuvalCarrié, Sandra Eleta, Paul Gauguin, Felix Gonzalez Torres, Enrique Grau, May Henriquez, Winslow Homer, Hector Hyppolite, Yubi Kirindongo, Wifredo Lam, Hugo Larsen, Mark Latamie, Norman Lewis, Elvis Lopez, Edna Manley, Leo Matiz, Isaac Mendes Belisario, Ana Mendieta, Jesús “Bubu” Negrón, Ebony G. Patterson, Amelia Peláez, Marcel Pinas, Camille Pissarro, Ryan Oduber, Francisco Oller, Armando Reverón, Arnaldo Roche Rabell and Ernesto Salmerón.

“We’ve employed a polyphonic perspective to deal with a huge archipelago that it is as diverse and complex as New York City, which is, to many, the largest Caribbean city,” reflects Project Director Elvis Fuentes. “For the first time ever, this project will examine the impact of Africa, South Asia and Europe on the visual culture of the Caribbean, including painters that were part of the Impressionists and Surrealists in France, to homegrown schools recovering popular traditions and developing original styles…the public will realize how intertwined the Caribbean and American experiences truly are.”