As music fans groove to the sounds of reggae in summer festivals around the world, a small town in Germany is focusing on Jamaican visual art, alongside the famous rhythms.
Bersenbrück (Lower Saxony) is known for its annual Reggae
Jam Festival, one of the most popular music events in Europe, but this year the
town is also hosting a special Jamaican art exhibition, highlighting modern and contemporary art from the island, while paying homage to its musical
genres.
The official exhibition poster features reggae singer
Koffee, from a painting by Richard Gayle, while other works, for example, depict
the iconic music producer Lee Scratch Perry, or honour the ground-breaking film
The Harder They Come - with its venerated soundtrack by Jimmy Cliff and
other reggae legends. Those attending the Reggae Jam Festival (Aug. 1-to- 3)
will be able to view the artworks freely.
The exhibition is the brainchild of Karl Olaf Kaiser, a
German engineer, deejay, and art lover who has forged close ties with Jamaica
and artists over the years. As a first-time curator, he worked with museum
director Katharina Pfaff to bring the show to fruition, overcoming a range of challenges
such as shipping artwork from the Caribbean and obtaining relevant loans of
paintings. Along the way, he received assistance from artists, art collectors,
and from the German art historian Claudia Hucke, who has lived and taught in Jamaica.
In the following edited interview, Kaiser discusses the
road to Bersenbrück with SWAN.
SWAN: What was the inspiration for the
exhibition?
Karl Olaf Kaiser: The
inspiration was to highlight to Germans that Jamaican culture "not
only" consists of reggae music (with its entirely different genre), but that
it is very rich in many other fields, e.g. literature, performing arts, and fine
arts. Often, and all over the world, cultural reception is influenced by
clichés: "German music culture is the Oktoberfestmusic and
Lederhosen", "the typical Frenchman wears a beret, a red scarf and a
sailor shirt”, etc.
Besides the NGJ, I started to visit other galleries in Kingston, MoBay, Ocho Rios, and also attended “underground” pop-up exhibitions, etc. That led to the publishing of several articles about the arts scene of Kingston in a German Reggae magazine (RIDDIM).
Then the final inspiration was
the wonderful exhibition Jamaica Making: The Theresa Roberts Art Collection,
which was curated by Dr Emma Roberts, in Liverpool at the Victoria Gallery &
Museum in 2022. There I thought: “Oh it would be wonderful to present Jamaican
art in such a setting in Germany”.
At that point in time the idea was more a dream, and quite
vague. From there to the opening event on 27 June 2025, several other lucky
coincidences were necessary, namely the request of music writer Helmut Philips
in 2023 for me to be the MC at the opening of his DUB-Music exhibition in the
Museum im Kloster in Bersenbrück. Afterwards Helmut and myself discussed the
possible interest of the Museum im Kloster in a “Jamaican art” exhibition.
Later that year we had a first meeting with Katharina Pfaff,
the director of the Museum. Several potential exhibition contents / concepts
were introduced and discussed. It was obvious that - since the special
exhibition would also be during the Reggae Jam - it should have attractions for
music fans. Different concepts were presented, for example to bring the
exhibition of “50 Years: The Harder They Come” [celebrating the iconic 1972
film] to Germany, an exhibition I visited in June 2022.
Another idea was to show a selection of an exhibition,
which was held at the Übersee-Museum in Bremen years ago, but which would be
limited again to, let’s say, so-called “Rasta art”. However, from the beginning
my intention was always to give the visitor a broad overview and idea of
“classic” and contemporary Jamaican art and not to limit it to a specific art
genre, which - in the case with “Rasta art” - would be again to feed a
German/European cliché. Katharina was on the same page.
In early 2024, it was finally agreed to organize an
exhibition about and with a wide range of Jamaican art in the summer of 2025
and at the Museum im Kloster.
KOK: The preliminary concept of
2023 / early 2024 became more specific as we found a lender who had some
contemporary Jamaican artwork and was willing to lend it - free of charge.
Moreover, I was in contact with several persons in Germany whom I knew owned
Jamaican art. Many telephone calls and visits followed, and in late summer 2024,
we had a decent potential small collection with which we could proceed. Still
my - in hindsight - naïve idea was to borrow art in Jamaica to bring it over to
Germany.
Some background: that summer I spotted five Jamaican art
pieces at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin at the 2024 Quilomboso
exhibition, which they’d got from the National Gallery of Jamaica. If they could
manage it, it’s generally possible, I thought. And where there’s a will, there’s
a way – if makka nah jook you … and you have a budget, team and
background like the HKW.
In October 2024 I introduced the idea of a Jamaican art
exhibition at the annual conference of the Deutsch-Jamaikanische Gesellschaft [a
friendship organization] in Königswinter. There I asked the audience about the
idea and whether attendees knew potential - honorary pro bono - lenders of
Jamaican art, located in the EU.
It was striking that most people I spoke to loved the idea
and concept of the planned exhibition and encouraged us/me to continue; but
many also were hesitant to lend their art, for individual reasons.
During my regular “snow bird” time in Jamaica during winter 2024, and while researching and doing the conceptional preparation for the exhibition, I became aware of a Jamaican art exhibition, held in 2017 in Stuttgart. Through the list of artists, who were showcased at that time, I realized that many of them would fit into the concept of our exhibition. The curator of that exhibition was Miss Petra Schmidt [an art collector and former diplomat].
She agreed to lend pieces from
her art collection. This, and also the generous support by the painter Judy Ann
MacMillan, the art historian Dr. Claudia Hucke from Germany, the Jamaican
author and painter Alecia McKenzie, who is based in France, and sculptor Barbara
Walker, who’s based in Berlin - all helped to shape the possible collection
more and more.
Moreover, in Jamaica I contacted the estates of several
artists, for example Barrington Watson, Osmond Watson, Edna Manley, John
Dunkley, Mallica Kapo Reynolds. Everybody was willing to give support - but at
the end, it was also a matter of time and budget. Then the cost for transport,
insurance, custom fees and on top of that, the “cherry on the pie”: the whole
bureaucratic process in Jamaica to export the art for an exhibition and to
import it into Germany.
That was one of the main sad experiences: The
disappointment of some artists who couldn’t be integrated, because there are so
many exceptional artists in Jamaica, and the space we had was quite small, about
160 square metres. And we are just speaking about the artists in Jamaica and
not touching on the broad field of Jamaican artists living in the European
Diaspora. Furthermore, I did this whole project in my “leisure time”. It needed
already a whole heap of passion, was time-consuming and, from the beginning of
2025, more or less a full time job - pro bono.
SWAN: That’s a massive undertaking. Will the
show now travel elsewhere?
KOK: Personally, I would be happy if
the show could travel and be exhibited in other museums - either in Germany and
/ or elsewhere in the EU. We definitely need adequate security and safety
measures as well as proper conservation conditions. Moreover, it would require
the continued generosity of the lenders, since all pieces are from private
collections.
Or, we would need financial support from cultural funds,
public foundations, etc. I can proudly state that we could exhibit much more
Jamaican artists and pieces, and that it could also be showcased in a larger
museum. So, any museum, institution and or foundation, which is interested in
Jamaican art, the Jamaican art scene, background of Jamaican art history, etc.
and have a passion for Jamaica and a project like this: please don’t hesitate
to contact me.
However, on a year-to-year basis, many thousands of reggae-music lovers
pilgrim to Bersenbrück for a reason: That’s the Reggae Jam Festival. And
likewise, I hope, at least hundreds of Jamaican art connoisseurs and those who
want to see Jamaican art will be motivated to travel to this wonderful part of
Germany. Definitely it’s worth it. The feedback from people I’ve spoken to, who
visited the show, is that they love it.
Photos by AM / SWAN (top to bottom): The exhibition poster at the Museum im Kloster; Karl Olaf Kaiser speaks at the official opening of the exhibition; a view of the exhibition hall; Karl Olaf Kaiser moderates a panel with artists, art collectors and art historians; museum director Katharina Pfaff with art historian Claudia Hucke; a section of the exhibition featuring literature.
