New views Island Nations, Abstraction Pure and Simple, and more BY BILL RODRIGUEZ

Standing out from some interesting fall offerings on the local art scene is a particularly ambitious exhibition at the RISDMuseum. Complementing an already substantial collection of contemporary Latin American art will be "Island Nations: New Art From Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and the Diaspora" (October 29 through January 30).

The museum’s curator of contemporary art, Judith Tannenbaum, and curatorial assistant René Morales traveled to Havana, San Juan, and Santo Domingo to visit artist’s studios. Works by 23 artists were selected for the show, as well as several of the museum’s holdings.

One concern of the selection process was to help dispel the stereotype of the Caribbean islands as a "tropical paradise." For example, Tony Capellán’s "Mar Caribe (Caribbean Sea)" symbolizes social pain, displaying colorful rubber sandals that on close examination reveal barbed wire toe straps. Similarly, "Bocinas (Speakers)," by Cuban artist Esterio Segura, refers to censorship as it presents a steel birdcage filled with dismantled stereo speakers.

"People who live there certainly have very different lives from those who go there after seeing a TV promotion," Tannenbaum said. "So a number of the artists do deal with subverting stereotypes." She expects that many who go to the show will be surprised to see works that are not in the primitive art folk tradition encountered in tourist art galleries.

"When we were selecting the work, we really tried to look first and categorize after," the curator said. "We were really interested in seeing as much as we could without coming to it with a preconceived theory. We didn’t have things that we were looking for to plug in."

The insular quality of islands is not what it was in the days before Web access and when international travel was not as inexpensive as today. So there has been much cross-fertilization among artists in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Though there are more commonalities than differences among the three groups of artists, the Cubans often draw themes from their distinct difficulties with censorship and economic hardship.

"I don’t think there are formal differences so much," Tannenbaum said. "With the Cuban artists, the content tends to be about their difficulties and a certain way of life in Cuba. There are shortages of things. There’s less freedom of expression."

Yet even many Cuban artists are well-traveled, though not to the US, so their experiences and concerns hardly remain provincial. At the Havana Biennial art exhibition, Tannenbaum and Morales encountered artists from the other two countries as well.

As far as the curator knows, this is the first show outside the Caribbean to group together artists from these three places. In fact, Latin America as a whole has been neglected in American collections. RISD, on the other hand, since 1964 has the Nancy Sayles Day Collection of Modern Latin American Art, featuring about 300 works.

"You go to most museums in the country and that’s just not the case," Tannenbaum noted. "So everybody’s doing catch-up now." She was also interested in doing this show because there is a large Latino population here. Tannenbaum wanted them and the community at large to know that "this sophisticated, interesting" art is being created in the Caribbean.

"There’s an enormous amount of great work being made, and it really does deserve to be better known than it is," she declared.

This fall, there is plenty more to interest gallery-goers.

"Invisible Silence" at Brown University’s David Winton Bell Gallery (through October 24) is an interesting concept: to select works that visually imply silence, and evoke speechlessness. Works by seven artists from around the world have been selected. In the DVD projection "Echo," Luxembourg-born Su-Mei Tse places a cellist far off, playing on the lime-green edge of a precipice, overlooking a shadowed mountain valley. Swiss artist Regi Muller has fossil-like forms emerging from a wall installation of white hydrostone, the title "Galaxies" bringing in the vacuum hush of space.

At Rhode Island College’s Bannister Gallery, "Engaging the Speculum" (October 7 through 28) is an exhibition of video and film artists whose works address issues of identity, gender, and sexuality. In an accompanying series, RIC will present films and related lectures on such subjects as environmentalist videography and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s thoughts on film. For the schedule, go to www.ric.edu/bannister.

Seven contemporary artists will be represented in "Abstraction Pure and Simple" (October 12 through December 8) at the University of Rhode Island’s Main Gallery in Kingston. This is a thematic survey of non-representational painting emerging on the art scene nationally, curated by Judith Tolnick. The focus is on artists commenting visually on modernist standard-bearers.

"Hera Gallery,: The First Thirty Years" will be presented in October and November in Providence and Wakefield. Part I will open at AS220 Project Space on October 1 at the Rhode Island Foundation in Providence. Part II will open on October 9 at Hera in Wakefield. The exhibit will feature the work of former and current members and include archival video, photographs, and other documentation.

At Providence Art Club, the annual "Little Pictures Show" (December 5 through 23) will present affordable artwork by club members, all priced $225 or less. These aren’t miniatures, ranging in size up to the 11x14" watercolor "Tiverton Backyard" by Harley Bartlett, and the 12x16" oil "Steeple Street" by Anthony Tomaselli.

Some shows stand out at commercial galleries. The art scene institution Virginia Lynch Gallery in Tiverton will be closing for good come December after 21 years, because of its eponymous founder’s ill health. "Highlights," a retrospective show of 51 of the gallery’s contributors over the two decades, will run October 3 through 31. In contrast, Gallery Agniel has reopened in conjunction with Martina & Co., the contemporary jewelry gallery at 120 North Main Street in Providence. Showing through October 9 are paintings by Thomas Sgouros and jewelry by Barbara Seidenath.

At Sandy Nesbitt’s Blink Gallery in Newport, some of his arresting photographs taken in Namibia will be up for an undetermined period. The show is titled "Welcome to Medium Life — Travels in Namibia," after a wall sign he encountered. At BankRI Galleries in Providence at the Turk’s Head and Pitman Street branches and in North Kingstown, works by Ken Speiser, Holly Ewald, and Michele Chisholm Leavitt, respectively, will be on display until early October.

At AS220 through October 16, the featured artists are Robert Cinami, Richard Hanson, Catherine Norris, Samuel Ames, and David Lineberger. At the Newport Art Museum, "Designing Women: Portraits and Figures from Newport Collections" will be presented in Cushing Gallery (October 9 through January 2). There will be an "Avant Garde/Abstract Art Open Juried Show" at Wickford Art Association (November 5 through 25). At the South County Art Association in Kingston, an "All Media Open Juried Show" will take place October 14 through November 6.

As usual, Gallery Night Providence happens on the third Thursday of each month from 5 to 9 p.m., with free parking and shuttles running to 25 galleries, museums, and historic sites. For details, go to gallerynight. info. Newport Gallery Night continues on the second Thursday of every month into December from 5 to 8 p.m. For a walking map, go to newportgallerynight.com or call (401) 848-8200. Westerly Gallery Night is held on the first Wednesday of each month from 5 to 8 p.m.