RESEARCH - EVENT OR WORK

To be misrepresented, one’s image is falsified, distorted, warped, loaded, and perverted.  How does that image get corrected, when is one represented? On Saturday February 19, Rutgers University Newark addressed just these questions at The 31st Anniversary of The Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series Beauty and the Black Body: history, aesthetics and politics. Through five lecturers, a range of historical and contemporary images of African Americans where analyzed showcasing how African Americans re-represented themselves through beauty-focused themes. The opening of Posing Beauty at Newark Museum followed the symposium, leading to a full day of critical appreciation of the portrait in photography by Black Americans.

The curator of the exhibition, Deborah Willis started the symposium by posing the question that has been addressed in her research, “Are you essentializing blackness?” To this, Willis explains that her research as exemplified in the exhibition, and book of the same name, Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present (New York 2009) aims to examine those historical/iconic images that depicted the black body. For Willis and the other scholars, it is important to read the stories behind those images. And that is precisely what Willis does.

She displayed many photographs, some of famous people, others of unknowns. The first sets of pictures were derogatory caricatures of the black female body such as Black Venus or Hottentot as she is also known. These images of Hottentot were based on Saartje Baartman, who was sold as a slave and paraded through European countries to examine her ‘African body’.  Willis used these perverted images of the Black Venus to set a contrast of how the black body was exploited versus how African Americans created their own images of beauty, and tracing the aesthetic transformations of black beauty.

Her first example of black agency in promoting beauty was through the first African American woman millionaire, Madame CJ Walker, who made her millions by creating beauty products for black women. In the portrait of Walker, Willis pointed to Walker’s arms behind her back as a reference to Walker’s desire not to show her hard worked hands. Willis made the connection to Walkers products that aim to allow women who worked hard in the fields to revert the damage done by the work. This explanation of Walker’s products (such as hair growers) is contrary to many current views held about black hair products Europeanizing ‘natural’ black appearance.

The three speakers following Willis’ lecture emphasized beauty as activism through three different lenses. Richard Powell continued Willis’ discussion on African American portraits with more contemporary examples, all from Willis book, Posing Beauty. Powell endearingly encouraged the audience, especially the youth, to hold on to our pictures as some day a scholar like himself can use them to reflect on life today. Maxine Craig discussed the role of African American beauty queens and the contrast of social responsibilities they held in their titles versus white beauty queens who tended to distance themselves from politics or the pride in the crown. Tiffany Gill analyzed the role of black beauty shops throughout history as creating a safe space for women to restore pride. Each scholars examples where coupled with portrait photography that highlighted their points.

The first four speakers each gave riveting historical and contemporary cultural critiques of the images of and by African Americans. Yet, it was odd to end this discussion with the last lecture by Okwui Enwezor. He did not discuss African American beauty through portraits. Instead, he discussed liminality through the photographic portrait in general. Enwezor began with the assertion that photography has been a tool for propaganda. This is because the photographer can never be truly objective as the photograph was an even of a momentary perception.  But his main point was to point to portrait photography as simultaneously placing an individual in a timeless/spaceless position while posing them as a representative for a larger idea. There lies an intersubjectivity in the portrait, as the subject is the individual and the aesthetic that symbolizes a greater concept.
 
The level of organization and complimentary nature of each scholar’s work created a truly engaging symposium that educated the audience on the past and future of envisioning black identity.  Newark Museum’s opening of Posing Beauty depicted many photographs that Willis and the other lecturers highlighted in their presentations. Being in an exhibition space of portraits of African Americans from various periods and wildly different personalities created a conversation. The historical transformations of fashion and beauty throughout the century also showcased the personalities of the individuals that exuded through the frames. As Okwui Enwezor explained, there exists a “Democracy of the photographic image” and in the imaginary community (as realized in the Newark Museum space) a dialogue lingers about how to represent Black Identity.

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Contributed by: Zemen Kidane, Curatorial Fellow

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