Detail from Anarcha by Ayana V Jackson, 2017. Photograph: Courtesy of the Artist and Mariane Ibrahim
Black Venus review – female bodies reclaimed in spectacular style
Reflecting on the shocking representation of the ‘Hottentot Venus’ in the 19th century, 18 artists refocus the othering of Black women. Reproductions of historical exhibit flyers depicting caricatures of Baartman and advertising these public displays of her body are the historical starting point for Black Venus, a new iteration of a touring exhibition curated by Aindrea Emelife, exploring how Black women make images of their bodies after a long and horrifying history of racism and objectification.
Using intensely detailed costumes and staging, Ayana V. Jackson’s Anarcha, from the American artist’s 2017 series Intimate Justice in the Stolen Moment, reworks art historical depictions such as the Odalisque, common in 19th-century Orientalist painting. To counter the images of Black women’s bodies in the 19th century as mute, subservient or enslaved, Jackson embodies moments of reprieve, dignity and solace.
Costume, pageantry and performativity are tools shared by many other artists shown here, aligning with feminist strategies in photography to examine gender, sex and beauty, but here also concerned with constructing intersectional narratives about Black women in the colonial era beyond the ethnographic, colonised and enslaved.
Black Venus is at Somerset House, London, from 20 July until 24 September.
