L’esthétique au prisme de la trans‑caribéanité : Perspectives décoloniales sur l’art jamaïcain et martiniquais

Could New World Art constitute the locus of the transfer between antagonistic libidinal, poly-traumatic economies? If the artist born in the Americas cannot overlook the weight of the slave trade, of slavery and colonization, in virtue of their quality as founding traumas, then the fragmentation ind...

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Main Author: Frédéric Lefrançois
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Association Française d'Etudes Américaines 2019-05-01
Series:Transatlantica
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/10076
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author Frédéric Lefrançois
author_facet Frédéric Lefrançois
author_sort Frédéric Lefrançois
collection DOAJ
description Could New World Art constitute the locus of the transfer between antagonistic libidinal, poly-traumatic economies? If the artist born in the Americas cannot overlook the weight of the slave trade, of slavery and colonization, in virtue of their quality as founding traumas, then the fragmentation induced by all their breaking-lines represents a real aesthetic and political challenge. Consequently, two opposite paths can be envisaged: to opt for unconscious scarring by way of oblivion, or to accept traumatic memory so as to aestheticize resistance against cultural genocide. In the French and English-speaking Caribbean, this dilemma has tormented the aesthetic consciousness of three successive generations of artists inheriting a traumatic bequeathal, like the Jewish artists-legatees of the Shoah. What should be done with this inheritance? Should one engage oneself on the path of oblivion, or even negation, and thus follow the example of amnesia proselytes, under the pretext of “progress”? Or should one assume fully the burden of this heritage and transmute it into a principle of aesthetic creation helping to preserve cultural memories and identities? It is a contention of this essay to answer this question by correlating the evolution of two Caribbean artistic movements with similar aspirations: the Atelier 45, born in Martinique, and the Jamaican Art Movement which appeared in Jamaica.
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spelling doaj-art-0024ed713a9e4377955a44483ef63fef2025-01-30T10:45:27ZengAssociation Française d'Etudes AméricainesTransatlantica1765-27662019-05-01210.4000/transatlantica.10076L’esthétique au prisme de la trans‑caribéanité : Perspectives décoloniales sur l’art jamaïcain et martiniquaisFrédéric LefrançoisCould New World Art constitute the locus of the transfer between antagonistic libidinal, poly-traumatic economies? If the artist born in the Americas cannot overlook the weight of the slave trade, of slavery and colonization, in virtue of their quality as founding traumas, then the fragmentation induced by all their breaking-lines represents a real aesthetic and political challenge. Consequently, two opposite paths can be envisaged: to opt for unconscious scarring by way of oblivion, or to accept traumatic memory so as to aestheticize resistance against cultural genocide. In the French and English-speaking Caribbean, this dilemma has tormented the aesthetic consciousness of three successive generations of artists inheriting a traumatic bequeathal, like the Jewish artists-legatees of the Shoah. What should be done with this inheritance? Should one engage oneself on the path of oblivion, or even negation, and thus follow the example of amnesia proselytes, under the pretext of “progress”? Or should one assume fully the burden of this heritage and transmute it into a principle of aesthetic creation helping to preserve cultural memories and identities? It is a contention of this essay to answer this question by correlating the evolution of two Caribbean artistic movements with similar aspirations: the Atelier 45, born in Martinique, and the Jamaican Art Movement which appeared in Jamaica.https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/10076Slavery and colonizationtraumatic memoryCaribbean artcultural genocidedecolonizationaesthetic memory
spellingShingle Frédéric Lefrançois
L’esthétique au prisme de la trans‑caribéanité : Perspectives décoloniales sur l’art jamaïcain et martiniquais
Transatlantica
Slavery and colonization
traumatic memory
Caribbean art
cultural genocide
decolonization
aesthetic memory
title L’esthétique au prisme de la trans‑caribéanité : Perspectives décoloniales sur l’art jamaïcain et martiniquais
title_full L’esthétique au prisme de la trans‑caribéanité : Perspectives décoloniales sur l’art jamaïcain et martiniquais
title_fullStr L’esthétique au prisme de la trans‑caribéanité : Perspectives décoloniales sur l’art jamaïcain et martiniquais
title_full_unstemmed L’esthétique au prisme de la trans‑caribéanité : Perspectives décoloniales sur l’art jamaïcain et martiniquais
title_short L’esthétique au prisme de la trans‑caribéanité : Perspectives décoloniales sur l’art jamaïcain et martiniquais
title_sort l esthetique au prisme de la trans caribeanite perspectives decoloniales sur l art jamaicain et martiniquais
topic Slavery and colonization
traumatic memory
Caribbean art
cultural genocide
decolonization
aesthetic memory
url https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/10076
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