Output details

'Gauguin and the Opacity of the Other: The Case of Martinique'

Context and contribution: This output comprises the essay Garb wrote for the catalogue of the Tate exhibition Gauguin: Maker of Myth (Tate Modern 2010, National Gallery of Art Washington 2011), for which she was also consultant editor (involved in soliciting, editing and proofing all contributions). The catalogue constitutes a contribution to Gauguin scholarship, focussing on Gauguins own self-mythologization, his writing, embeddedness in 19th C narratives and fictions as well as the reception of his work in relation to the grand narratives of Modernism and Colonialism.

Research imperatives and process: Garb’s own essay ‘Gauguin and the Opacity of the Other' is the first ambitious, theoretically informed study of the artist’s stay in Martinique in relation to post-colonial theory, utilizing the writing of the Martinican politician and theorist Edouard Glissant to understand the productive anxiety that Gauguin’s alterity produced. Garb’s involvement with the exhibition and catalogue was as a consultant curator as well as editor, playing a major role in defining the terms for this reevaluation of Gauguin. Garb was involved with the project at every stage, from inception, conceptualization of theme, content and through realization, suggesting the themes of ‘narrative’ and self-mythologization to Tate curators, and working with the external curator Belinda Thompson to realise the project.