September 27, 2017

The Leonard Pearlstein Gallery kicks off the fall season with The Expanded Caribbean: Contemporary Photograph at the Crossroads, an exhibition featuring work from sixteen emerging and established artists with projects based in several different nations and communities neighboring the Caribbean Sea, bringing together over 50 photographs and related sculptural and video installations. Collectively, this body of work interrogates, challenges, and engages a rich and complex history that's been steeped in exploration and conquest, voluntary and forced migration, trade, travel, and tourism. The exhibition considers the greater Caribbean region to be a shared environment and it features artists with a range of heritages and cultural experiences.

Artists include Byron Wolfe, William Earle Williams, Ron Tarver, Kara Springer, Ivette Spradlin, Sheena Rose, Erika P. Rodríguez, Tony Rocco, Karyn Olivier, Conrad Louis-Charles, Matt Levitch, O’Neil Lawrence, Adrián Fernández, John E. Dowell Jr., Vincent Dixon, and Susan S. Bank. Responding to cultural, historical, mythological, and personal aspects of the region, they initiate dialogues about how events of the past inform contemporary experience in a continually shifting and evolving environment.

For attendees interested in contributing to hurricane relief, the Pearlstein Gallery will be collecting donations to be distributed by GlobalGiving, the number one ranked grassroots charity.

The Expanded Caribbean runs from September 19 through December 10, with gallery hours Tuesday-Sunday from 11AM to 6PM weekly.  

The exhibition is accompanied by a quality print and electronic catalog that includes images of all works as well as contextual scholarly essays by Dr. Mimi Sheller, Professor of Sociology at Drexel University, and Dr. Susanna W. Gold, Curator.

This publication was supported in part by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. 

View the full exhibition catalog online by clicking here.