Ebony G. Patterson. Invisible Presence: Bling Memories, 2014; installation view, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, Georgia. Courtesy of the Artist and Atlanta Contemporary Art Center.

The exhibition consists of twenty elaborately decorated coffins mounted on tall wooden poles, objects that originated from a performance conceived by Patterson for the 2014 Carnival in Kingston, Jamaica.[2] On April 27 of that year, Patterson carried fifty ostentatious coffins on poles with the help of local Jamaicans; accompanying them were several dancers and a drum line from the St. Michael’s Steppers community marching band. Evoking a bling funeral, the procession matched the boisterous and celebratory tone of Carnival.

Patterson’s decision to stage the performance during Carnival is a comment on the deep divide between social classes in Jamaica, as the Carnival celebrations are designed for the island’s upper and middle classes. The performance attempts to provide the working poor not only access to the ceremonies but also an unmistakable presence by using the spectacle of bling funerals. In such celebrations, closely linked to the underclass, the dead are remembered through raucous dancing parties featuring erotic costumes and dancehall music.

Ebony G. Patterson. Invisible Presence: Bling Memories, 2014; installation view, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, Georgia. Courtesy of the Artist and Atlanta Contemporary Art Center.

The elaborately adorned coffins in the exhibition are the only remaining trace of this performance, and they offer insight into the opulent displays of bling funerals. In contrast to typical coffins of black and other somber colors, these coffins feature vivid fabrics with bold patterns, rhinestones, lace, tassels, and plastic foliage, among other materials. The fabric patterns range from bright colors with polka dots to elaborate floral and animal prints. Each coffin features multiple swatches of cloth—usually with a different pattern on each face—and is trimmed with rhinestones and lace.

The construction of the coffins also relates to Jamaica’s working class. Upon close examination, the seams between the fabric swatches are not perfect; on some, strips of ribbon or lace are falling off or running haphazardly through the cloth. Many also show signs of wear, reinforcing the idea that these were integral components of a performance. Such qualities emphasize the handmade aesthetics of the coffins, linking them to the textile industry of Jamaica. While some fabric patterns feature the colors of the nation’s flag—black, green, and yellow—most were chosen for their brilliant designs, linking them culturally to bling funerals rather than a national identity.

Ebony G. Patterson. Invisible Presence: Bling Memories, 2014; installation view, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, Georgia. Courtesy of the Artist and Atlanta Contemporary Art Center.

The installation of these objects in the exhibition is particularly noteworthy, with twenty of them densely arranged in a relatively small gallery. Viewers are invited to walk among them. The bottom of each coffin is about sixty inches from the ground, forcing the viewer’s gaze upward and restricting one’s ability to see the upper portions of the coffins. The resulting mass resembles the earlier performance; the coffins are not presented didactically as individual objects for visual consumption. Instead, the installation beckons viewers to participate, envisioning themselves as part of the procession during Carnival. Additionally, though each coffin is individually decorated, the dense grouping of the installation prevents any one from being viewed on its own. The show eschews object labels or any other classification system that would denote them as works of art. They simply are what they are: markers of the performance in Kingston.

Ebony G. Patterson. Invisible Presence: Bling Memories, 2014; installation view, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, Georgia. Courtesy of the Artist and Atlanta Contemporary Art Center.

Writing about bling funerals, Hope asserts that they “temporarily suspend social boundaries and momentarily rotate the distinctions between those defined as heroes and anti-heroes in Jamaican culture.”[3] The blinged-out coffins in this installation demand attention, and they point to a group of people normally operating at the margins of society. Stretching up toward the sky, the coffins on display in the gallery—as well as during the performance—reinforce Patterson’s motivation to dissolve such social barriers, to include Jamaica’s underclass not only in a typically restricted event such as Carnival but also in the larger society.

Invisible Presence: Bling Memories is on view at Atlanta Contemporary Art Center through April 21, 2016.

[1] Donna P. Hope, “From the Stage to the Grave: Exploring Celebrity Funerals in Dancehall Culture,” International Journal of Cultural Studies 13 (3): 260.

[2] The performance was one of several commissions realized during the 2014 Carnival season in conjunction with the exhibition EN MAS’: Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean, curated by Claire Tancons and Krista Thompson, organized by and on view at the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, March 7–June 7, 2015, and co-organized as a traveling exhibition by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York.

[3] Hope, 265.

Hew Locke. The Nameless, 2010-2014; installation view, Newcomb Art Gallery for Prospect.3: Notes for Now, a Project of Prospect New Orleans, October 25, 2014 – January 25, 2015. Courtesy of the Artist and Hales Gallery, London. Photo © Scott McCrossen/ FIVE65 Design.

Claire Tancons, associate curator of Prospect.1 and curator of the recent Up Hill Down Hall: An Indoor Carnival at the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, has written extensively about the relationship between Carnival and the canon of art history: “By and large, Carnival has been marginalized at best, left out at worst in contemporary Caribbean art exhibitions in the United States and the United Kingdom, where most such exhibitions are organized.”[2] Sirmans addresses this predominant oversight by including Andrea Fraser’s installation Um Monumento as Fantasias Descartadas (A Monument to Discarded Fantasies) (2003). The installation, made of discarded Brazilian Carnival costumes, is piled chaotically into a tower of brightly colored sequins, feathers, shoes, and outfits. The glittery pandemonium recalls the alternate identities adopted during Carnival—a time to shift and expand the representation of our selves, as well as the abandonment of those temporary identities. In fact, the concept of Carnival itself is one that can shift precariously in and out of a fine-art context.

Andrea Fraser. Um Monumento às Fantasias Descartadas (A Monument to Discarded Fantasies), 2003; installation view, Newcomb Art Gallery for Prospect.3: Notes for Now, a Project of Prospect New Orleans, October 25, 2014 – January 25, 2015. Courtesy of the Artist. Photo © Scott McCrossen/ FIVE65 Design.

Monir Farmanfarmaian’s incredibly detailed and alluring mosaic wall pieces are more ambiguously related to Carnival, creating a balancing contrast with Fraser’s direct conversation. Convertible Series Group 10 (2011) is made of mirrored pieces and reverse-painted glass, sliced to create elaborate geometric frameworks that recall a hybrid where traditional Persian designs meet Western modernism. Farmanfarmaian’s works, like Fraser’s, suggest an inherent multiplicity of selves. Viewers are left with hundreds of tiny reflections of themselves, an ode to the infinite possibilities of the future—as if today is the first day of history.

Monir Farmanfarmaian. Convertible Series, Group 10, 2011; mirror and reverse glass painting on plaster and wood; 4 parts, dimensions variable; 19.75 x 32 x 1.25 in. each; as shown: 47 x 47 x 1.25 in. Courtesy of the Artist and Haines Gallery/San Francisco.

London-based artist Hew Locke was raised in Scotland and Guyana and brings a multivalent perspective to his work. His installation The Nameless (2014) is in its fourth iteration here.[3] Using black rope and black Mardi Gras beads, Locke creates a raucous parade of characters across geographic traditions: Angels, Inca gods, queens of Benin, gargoyles, baboons, and a marching band fill the room. In the 2011 monograph Hew Locke: Stranger in Paradise, Kobena Mercer writes, “By assembling sources from vastly different times and places, Locke lays bare the way state power is vulnerable to the passage of time and the inevitability of decay.”[4] But Locke may also be suggesting that Carnival parades are places where anything is possible and everyone is welcome to join as a participant. In this way, Carnival has outcomes similar to—though much more temporary than—that of revolution. Carnival, in Locke’s vision, can challenge preexisting ideas and conventions and invert the status quo.

Ebony Patterson. In Di Grass-Beyond the Bladez, 2014; mixed media on paper; 4 x 8 ft. Courtesy of the Artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago.

Ebony G. Patterson’s five mixed-media collages focus on costume and theatricality in Caribbean culture. Patterson creates these large-scale works out of photos, textiles, wallpaper, rhinestones, sequins, brooches, and embellishments that are based on the tradition of Voodoo flags and sequined textiles found in Haiti. In Di Grass-Beyond the Bladez (2014) is ornate: Fields of green, yellow, and red obscure a prostrate black male figure with a bleached face. In this work, Patterson recalls the tradition of Carnival masking and explores the concept of costuming as a method for both self-determination and release from conventions.

Mikhail Bakhtin’s famous definition underscores what is problematic about Sirmans’ (or potentially any curator’s) exploration of Carnival in this contemporary art context: “Carnival celebrated temporary liberation from the prevailing truth and from the established order; it marked the suspension of all hierarchical rank, privileges, norms, and prohibitions. Carnival was the true feast of time, the feast of becoming, change, and renewal.”[5] Each of these works, while thoughtful meditations on Carnival traditions, are made specifically for a fine-art context. The chaos and glitter and confusion found in the middle of Carnival streets will always be more aggressively anarchical, continuously leading to an infinite sense of possibility rarely found inside a gallery.

[1] Jermayne MacAgy. “Flight of the Image: An Exhibition of Feathers,” California Palace of the Legion of Honor Bulletin, Vol. 10, No. 7 (November 1952).

[2] Claire Tancons. “Curating Carnival? Performance in Contemporary Caribbean Art” in Curating in the Caribbean (Berlin: The Green Box; 2012), pp 37-62.

[3] Other installations included the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center; Hales Gallery, London; and KAdE Kunsthal in Amersfoort, The Netherlands.

[4] Kobena Mercer. Hew Locke: Stranger in Paradise. (Black Dog Press: London; 2011).

[5] Mikhail Bakhtin. Rabelais and His World. Translated by Hélène Iswolsky. (IU Press; 2008).