16 August 2001, 826 words
It's been over three weeks since the statue was erected at the St. Ann's roundabout and two weeks since the head was replaced. It is still only a statue at the St. Ann's roundabout: nobody would recognize it as The Mighty Sparrow.
Everybody, from ordinary citizens to Sprangalang, have had their say about the statue. Nobody has said anything good. But I find it rather odd that the people most qualified to make a public pronouncement - our visual artists - have remained completely silent.
I can think of only four reasons for this strange reticence. One: that the artists think the statue is a fine work. Two: that they are indifferent to the controversy. Three: that they think the work is shoddy but don't want to badtalk a brother artist. Four: that they don't want to offend Clico, or any other companies, who may in the future be shelling out mucho dinero for artistic projects.
Any of the first three reasons means that our artists have abdicated their responsibility. An artist, if he is of any worth, must be a truthful commentator. For the artistic community to remain silent in the midst of such passionate public denunciation is to fiddle while Trinidad burns.
But the fourth reason - which, in my opinion, is the most likely one - is more than just abdication. It is betrayal. Nothing is wrong with an artist wanting money, even wealth: but the artist who is mercenary can never produce great art. For great artists, artistic integrity and professional competence are synonymous.
The St. Ann's roundabout statue is dead proof of this rule. When I first heard that an Indian sculptor had been hired to do a statue of Sparrow, I was impressed. I foolishly thought that a non-Caribbean person was being used because his ability was great enough to cross cultural chasms. I even dotishly assumed that Madan Gopaul's crude, simple statue at the Divali Nagar site was an anomaly: the result, perhaps, of local limitations of equipment and materials.
But that statue and the St. Ann's roundabout one are an accurate reflection of the sculptor's competence - or, more accurately, his lack thereof. Gopaul doesn't even have the technical ability to sculpt a facial likeness, and his work reflects no artistic flair.
So why was he hired? Certainly, it is quite possible that no Trinidadian sculptors capable of doing this project exist. But the obvious alternative was to look further afield within the Caribbean: to Cuba or Haiti, maybe Martinique, perhaps even Jamaica. Instead, they hired Gopaul, and I can think of only one reason for such an execrable choice. Somebody, whether on the Sparrow statue committee or at Clico, thought that using an Indian artist would be a good way to curry favour with the "Indian" government of Trinidad and Tobago.
The result is what it inevitably must be when politics directs art: complete and utter mediocrity. But the irony here is something that David Rudder has often said: that such mediocrity is in fact a true reflection of our culture.
A related point was made recently by one of the most intelligent Trinidadian men I know. At a playwrighting workshop, he told the handful of mostly young participants that, because mediocrity was the standard in every other aspect of life in this country, they had a particular duty as creative people to strive for excellence. His implication was that excellence in art would serve as a counterpoint which would throw mediocrity elsewhere into stark relief. His hope was that such excellence would pervade other areas of the society.
In my opinion, though, this can happen only if there are enough good artists, in all areas of the arts, to form a critical core: and our artists who truly embrace excellence are so few that I can list them on the fingers of one hand.
We mustn't think that this issue is merely esoteric. Our very future may well depend on the quality of our artists. In a 1960 essay titled "Economics and Art", the great economist John Kenneth Galbraith, referring to the decline in American exports, asserted, "It is not the artist who has suffered from the alienation of art from economics, but the reverse." He also noted that New York city was regarded as a world capital "not because of the quality of our soldiers or scientists or statesmen, but because of the quality of our actors, playwrights, composers, artists and architects."
What is true of New York is truer of Trinidad and Tobago. The oil and gas will not make us the capital of the Caribbean and, in any case, the energy dollars will most likely run out within a century, probably sooner. When Minshall criticises the bikini mas, he is saying the same thing as Galbraith. There will come a time when all we will have to offer the world will be our culture: and you can bet the world won't be interested in third-class fare.
Copyright ©2002 Kevin Baldeosingh