“…Only art penetrates what pride, passion, intelligence and habit erect on all sides – the seeming realities of this world. There is another reality, the genuine one, which we lose sight of. This other reality is always sending us hints, which without art, we can’t receive. [Marcel] Proust [French novelist] calls these hints our ‘true impressions’. The true impressions, our persistent intuitions, will, without art, be hidden from us and we will be left with nothing but a ‘terminology for practical ends’ which we falsely call life.” — Saul Bellow, during his acceptance speech for the 1976 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Art and its relevance in Guyana’s society have once again been drawn to our attention by two letters to the editor of this publication in the last week. The focus of the letters was the delayed return of artwork sent from Guyana to the “Benedicto IV: Mighty Echo of the Amazon Rainforest – Revelations of the Guianas Exhibi-tion”, which was held in September, 2020 (and subsequently extended to November) in Delft, the Netherlands.
The first scribe, Ryhaan Shah, who loaned one of the paintings, lamented that the collection of Guyanese artwork was languishing in a storage facility in the Netherlands, awaiting the payment of shipping fees to facilitate the return trip to Guyana. Shah noted that the forwarding fees for the art pieces had been funded by the Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Sport, and she appealed to the minister for his intervention in the matter.
Renowned Guyanese artist Stanley Greaves, whose work was among the exhibits, penned the second letter. In it, he duly observed, “The artists involved must be most upset and distressed by the manner in which their collective contribution to help establish Guyana on the international scene, has been treated.” He further pointed out that it raised the question whether representing Guyana in art had become meaningless, and did it include other activities in the creative arts?
It appears as though with each successive government, creative arts and culture are being pushed further and further away from any centre of importance. Why are these barbaric acts of abandoning the arts continuously being perpetrated? The arts are essential in the understanding and appreciation of who we are as a young developing nation. The long list of faux pas committed in recent memory by successive governments is just too embarrassing to mention in full detail, but the crème de la crème should be noted for posterity, as ironic as it may sound.
In August 2016, the APNU+AFC coalition announced the relocation of the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology to the western wing of the Guyana National Museum. As this column (SN 14th August, 2016) observed, “… because they thought they would like the space next to State House, and it was a simple matter to move everything out. There was no preliminary investigative work to see what the Walter Roth held; whether in fact there was space for the artefacts and documents in the National Museum; what the difficulties were in transferring the holdings from the Walter Roth, and whether we had the expertise in this country to accomplish that; what the nature and significance of the collection was…” This whimsical move, fortunately, was thwarted by the many howls of protest from better enlightened folks, several of which, were made through the Letters to the Editor column of this publication.
It was also during the coalition’s tenure that the Guyana Prize for Literature was apparently quietly laid to rest. The Prize, which was first presented in 1987, was last awarded in 2015. It is ironic that it was paused or discontinued on the APNU+AFC’s watch since it was the brainchild of the PNC’s Desmond Hoyte and the PNC is the largest party in the coalition and the one with the most say. Long serving Secretary of the Prize’s Management Council Al Creighton had observed in December 2019, “it is inconceivable that this priceless institution be shut down.”
Why would the government of the day smother a national treasure of such high standing, the first of its kind in the English-speaking Caribbean? It only serves to befuddle the mind and leads to one concocting all kinds of conspiracy theories. The feeble drivel of an excuse tabled was that of money. Yet, millions of dollars were expended on several useless commissions of inquiry, whose only products were mountains of worthless paper.
The near shaves from complete destruction that the Timehri murals, painted by the brilliant artist and son of the soil, Aubrey Williams, encountered at our international airport, on more than one occasion, can be directly attributed to the two previous governments’ complete lack of understanding and total disregard for the arts and our heritage. Which prompts the inevitable question. Why? Why do successive governments disregard the arts? Is it a lack of understanding? Is it worthless to them? Do they not appreciate the value? Or are they just simply intimidated by the subject? Why are national institutions, such as Castellani House, subject to intense micro management and heavy political scrutiny, thus stifling the freedom and artistic flair of their heads?
Fifty short years ago, in February 1970, Guyana hosted “A Caribbean Writers and Artists Conven-tion”, the first of its kind. From this conference the idea of Carifesta was spawned, with Guyana hosting the initial festival in 1972. Today, it is unfathomable that this same country is plummeting to these depths of lack of appreciation for the arts.
