/ARTS WEEKLY/MUSIC-JAMAICA: Scorned Bob Marley Statue Finally Gets Freedom

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Howard Campbell

KINGSTON, Oct 29 2002 (IPS) - For nearly 20 years, sculptor Christopher Gonzalez endured the pain of watching one of his best works gather dust at the National Gallery in Jamaica’s capitol.

But on Oct. 21, the piece, a controversial statue of reggae legend Bob Marley, was unveiled at the Island Village in Ocho Rios, two decades after it was rejected by the Jamaican government.

Based on an agreement between the National Gallery and administrators at Island Village, the bronze depiction of the Rastafarian singer will stand at its new home for one year. There are no subsequent plans, but Gonzalez is relieved that his work is finally being viewed by the public.

"It means a whole lot. It was made for outdoors so it’s good to know that its open to a wider audience than the National Gallery," said the 59-year old painter and sculptor.

The statue was never officially unveiled. Shortly after it arrived in Jamaica from Atlanta in 1982, Gonzalez said he sensed that government officials and members of the Marley family were not pleased with the work, which they said bore little resemblance to the singer who died in 1981.

"I don’t think Mrs. Booker (Marley’s mother) liked it; the prime minister (Edward Seaga) declared that was a great piece of art work but said that it wasn’t appropriate for what they had planned," Gonzalez recalled. "It was very obvious from then that they had no intentions of putting it up."

As indifference towards the statue grew, the Seaga government commissioned eminent Jamaica sculptor, Alvin Marriott, to start work on another monument. Marriott’s piece, which was far more conventional than the Gonzalez structure, was unveiled in 1984 and faces the National Stadium, where similar forms of Jamaican athletic heroes stand.

While tourists flocked to the Marriott statue year-round to take photos, the Gonzalez work languished in obscurity at the National Gallery, much to the sculptor’s frustration.

"Everytime I went there and saw it I got pissed off," Gonzalez said. "Last year in a meeting I raised hell with officials there about the disrespect they have shown the piece," he added. "They have never seen it fit to put it on a pedestal or a base, it just sat on the raw concrete."

Gonzalez, rated as one of Jamaica’s leading art figures, says his reputation has suffered as a result of the controversy surrounding the statue.

"They (the government) have not given me a commission since that work, they have never called me.” He says requests for private commissions have also dried up and added that most of his income comes from independently mounted exhibitions locally and in the United States.

Born in Kingston to a Puerto Rican father and Jamaican mother, Gonzalez studied at the Jamaica School of Art in the mid 1960s and forged a reputation as a sculptor of talent shortly after graduation.

He was commissioned by the government to work on several notable projects, including a concrete bust of George William Gordon, a national hero. He migrated to Atlanta in 1979, and when Marley died, he heard of Seaga’s plans to build a statue to honour the singer.

"I wrote to them and told them that I would be honoured to do it because personally I loved the man’s music before he even got big," Gonzalez related. "I was very passionate in my determination."

Once the government gave the go-ahead, Gonzalez spent the next six months fashioning the statue at his Atlanta home. He remembers the curator of the National Gallery visiting him midway through construction and expressing satisfaction at the work’s progress.

It was a different story when Gonzalez brought his monument to Jamaica, where it was ridiculed by citizens and scorned by some who were close to Marley, including his widow Rita and singer Bunny Wailer, his former colleague in The Wailers.

Gonzalez, who moved back to Jamaica in 1984, now lives in Runaway Bay, a seaside town near Ocho Rios. He still bristles when discussion of his Marley statue comes up, but says now that it is finally on display, he would not mind cashing in on the once-villified work.

"I’d like to embark on a money-making thing for it because I never made anything from it," he said. "It was a true labour of love."

/ARTS WEEKLY/MUSIC-JAMAICA: Scorned Bob Marley Statue Finally Gets Freedom

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Howard Campbell

KINGSTON, Oct 29 2002 (IPS) - For nearly 20 years, sculptor Christopher Gonzalez endured the pain of watching one of his best works gather dust at the National Gallery in Jamaica’s capitol.
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