“The Politics of Paradise,” examines the marketing practices often associated with the colorful and fantastic work that has become associated with Caribbean art. By casting on the “local” art a tourist gaze, we are examining our own intricate relationship with the Haitian and Caribbean art market. While the use of the language of Pop Art seems point to the tawdry commercialization of the art industry points, by tediously hand painting bolts of canvases to be sold by the yard; and adorning rolls of paper towel with iconic “naïve” paintings and patterns of tropical vignettes we are pointing to the relationship of the art industry to inexpensive labor. Similarly, echoing our own distaste toward many “third-world” countries current subservient political practices “1805 for $999.99” offers the first Haitian constitution in its entirety, overlapping the repeated images of the Haitian founding father that adorns the pastel-colored paper towel rolls. In contrast, “Peddler’s Romance” is an affirmative work that underscores the will to embody through our memory the sense of our own social, cultural and historical experiences. In fact (since it memory contains repeated graphite illustrations based on photographs of ourselves), the work is also an extended self-portrait of ourselves as peddlers moving across the historical and art-historical memory.
