Contemporary Art of the Hispanophone Caribbean Islands in an Archipelagic Framework

This essay argues for an archipelagic approach to the twenty-first-century visual arts of the insular Caribbean. While it is common for scholars to stress the region’s heterogeneity, the authors seek out thematic continuities in the art of the Caribbean islands through the trope of the archipelago, challenging the understanding of the Caribbean as discontinuous, isolated, hermetic, and beyond comprehension. Analyzing contemporary art of the hispanophone islands and their diasporas, they reveal shared concerns within the Caribbean archipelago and posit that visual art is uniquely equipped to bridge the region’s language and cultural divides to offer a hemispheric discourse inclusive of the experience of the islands and their diasporic communities.