Rastafarian Art

The Rastafarian religion of Jamaica came into prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was given international exposure through the music of one of its main exponents - Bob Marley. Music, and Reggae music in particular, was the centrepiece of Rasta creativity but Rastafarianism gave rise to a whole new cultural movement of which visual art was one of the many components. 'Official' recognition of Rasta art may be traced to the year 1980 when the National Gallery of Jamaica installed a new section dedicated to 'intuitive' artists, that is, untrained artists who were previously described as primitive or naïve. The works of Rastafarians were prominent among these intuitive including those of Albert Artwell, Ras Dizzy, Ras Daniel Hartman and Leonard Daley, to name a few. Beyond that however, little recognition has been given to Rastafarian art as a particular genre within Jamaica, and the only known attempt to document and survey the art and handicraft of Rastafarians was in the form of an exhibition catalogue prepared for an exhibition in Germany in 1980 and later updated for a second exhibition in Germany. Decades after that first catalogue was produced, comes its first English translation - Rastafarian Art by Wolfgang Bender, an ethnomusicologist and ector of the African Music Archives in the Institute for Ethnology and African Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany. The works presented in this volume are meant to introduce a selection of Rastafarian artists from Jamaica. The collection is accompanied by photographs that depict everyday life among Rastas and scenes from the environment in which the artists live. In addition, there are interviews with a number of the artists, a chronology of events in the development of the Rastafarian movement and Rastafarian art, and an index of the artists and their works.

The Rastafarian religion of Jamaica came to prominence through the music of one of its main exponents - Bob Marley. Although music was the centerpiece of Rasta creativity, the whole cultural movement spawned many components. This book looks at Rasta art, profiling some of Jamaica's most prominent artists.

Traces the history of the Rastafarian movement, discussing the impact it has had on Jamaican society, its successful expansion to North America, the British Isles, and Africa, its role as a dominant cultural force in the world, and other related topics.

Drawing on literary, musical, and visual representations of and by Rastafari, Darren J. N. Middleton provides an introduction to Rasta through the arts, broadly conceived. The religious underpinnings of the Rasta movement are often overshadowed by Rasta’s association with reggae music, dub, and performance poetry. Rastafari and the Arts: An Introduction takes a fresh view of Rasta, considering the relationship between the artistic and religious dimensions of the movement in depth. Middleton’s analysis complements current introductions to Afro-Caribbean religions and offers an engaging example of the role of popular culture in illuminating the beliefs and practices of emerging religions. Recognizing that outsiders as well as insiders have shaped the Rasta movement since its modest beginnings in Jamaica, Middleton includes interviews with members of both groups, including: Ejay Khan, Barbara Makeda Blake Hannah, Geoffrey Philp, Asante Amen, Reggae Rajahs, Benjamin Zephaniah, Monica Haim, Blakk Rasta, Rocky Dawuni, and Marvin D. Sterling.

Illuminates how the Rastafari movement managed to evolve in the face of severe biases Misunderstood, misappropriated, belittled: though the Rastafari feature frequently in media and culture, they have most often been misrepresented, their political and religious significance minimized. But they have not been vanquished. Charles Price’s Rastafari: The Evolution of a People and Their Identity reclaims the rich history of this relatively new world religion. Charting its humble and rebellious roots in Jamaica’s backcountry in the late nineteenth century to the present day, Price explains how Jamaicans’ obsession with the Rastafari wavered from campaigns of violence to appeasement and cooptation. Indeed, he argues that the Rastafari as a political, religious, and cultural movement survived the biases and violence they faced through their race consciousness and uncanny ability to ride the waves of anti-colonialism and Black Power. This social movement traveled throughout the Caribbean, Africa, Central America, and the United States, capturing the heart and imagination of much of the African diaspora. Rastafari spans the movement’s struggle for autonomy, its multiple campaigns for repatriation to Africa, and its leading role in the Black consciousness movements of the twentieth century. Not satisfied with simply narrating the past, Rastafari also takes on the challenges of gender equality and the commodification of Rastafari culture in the twenty-first century without abandoning its message of equality and empowering the downpressed. Rastafari shows how this cultural and political context helped to shape the development of a Black collective identity, demonstrating how Rastafarians confronted society-wide ridicule and oppression and emerged prouder and more united, steadfast in their conviction that they were a chosen people.

The classic work on the history and beliefs of the Rastafarians, whose roots of protest go back to the seventeenth-century maroon societies of escaped slaves in Jamaica. Based on an extensive study of the Rastafarians, their history, their ideology, and their influence in Jamaica, The Rastafarians is an important contribution to the sociology of religion and to our knowledge of the variety of religious expressions that have grown up during the West African Diaspora in the Western Hemisphere.

Caribbean Art presents and discusses the diverse, fascinating and highly accomplished work of Caribbean artists, whether indigenous or from the diaspora, popular or high culture, rural or urban based, politically radical or religious. This expanded edition has a new preface, and has been updated to reflect on recent challenges to the ideological premises and institutions of conventional art-historical practice and their connections to histories of colonialism, Eurocentricity and race. Two new chapters focus on public monuments linked to the history of the Caribbean, and the intersections between art and tourism, raising important questions about cultural representation. Featuring the work of internationally recognized artists such as Sonia Boyce, Christopher Cozier, Wifredo Lam, Ana Mendieta, Ebony G. Patterson, Hervé Télémaque, and more than 100 others working across a variety of media, this new edition makes an important contribution to the understanding of Caribbean art and its context, in ways that invite and encourage further explorations on the subject.

From its obscure beginnings in Jamaica in the early 1930s, Rastafari has grown into an international socio-religious movement. It is estimated that 700,000 to 1 million people worldwide have embraced Rastafari, and adherents of the movement can be found in most of the major population centres and many outposts of the world. Rastafari: A Very Short Introduction provides an account of this widespread but often poorly understood movement. Ennis B. Edmonds looks at the essential history of Rastafari, including its principles and practices and its internal character and configuration. He examines its global spread, and its far-reaching influence on cultural and artistic production in the Caribbean and beyond. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.