(The Root) — Considering the large Caribbean demographic in New York City, it is appropriate that a three-museum exhibition displaying the island region's art and history would take place in one of the most diverse cities in the country.
"Caribbean: Crossroads of the World" — an exhibit that the New York Times called "the big art event of the summer" — presents more than 500 works that explore Caribbean culture and politics in a trio of concurrent displays at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the El Museo del Barrio and the Queens Museum of Art.
The exhibition features images and paintings by modern artists and those trained in the 18th and 19th centuries, from Jean-Michel Basquiat, Renee Cox and Hank Willis Thomas to Isaac Mendes Belisario and Camille Pissarro. The breadth of the pieces is sure to get people talking about their own identities and relation to the region.
Visitors can purchase a single "Passport to the Caribbean" (pdf) at any of the three institutions that will allow admission to all three venues for the duration of the exhibition. The shows are running now at El Museo del Barrio and the Queens Museum of Art until Jan. 6, 2013, and at the Studio Museum in Harlem until Oct. 21, 2012.
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