The subject of women's body objectification is frequently discussed and the Hottentot Venus can serve as a notable example of both objectification and racism.
This epithet was given to Saartje Baartman, a woman enslaved by Dutch colonists. Born in 1789 in South Africa, Baartman was exhibited in Europe as part of a "freak show" due to her non-Western body type, leading to caricatured depictions that perpetuated the exoticization and othering of Black women in Western culture. The prints and engravings of the Hottentot Venus usually portray her in a nonconfrontational side profile, like an object under scrutiny.
Artist Renee Cox moved from these representations to upturn the tables: in her portrait entitled "HOTT-EN-TOT" (1994), Cox poses like the Hottentot Venus, but she looks directly at the viewer, locking eyes, reversing that objectifying gaze.
Both the images are part of the "Black Venus" exhibition (closing on 24th September) at London's Somerset House.
Curated by Aindrea Emelife, "Black Venus" is another version of the 2022 exhibition presented at New York's Fotografiska and includes over 40 contemporary mainly photographic artworks, a selection of archival images from 1793 to 1930, over 19 new works and 6 UK-based artists.
The event examines the historical representation of Black women and aims to establish a legacy and track the evolution of how Black women have been perceived and allowed agency over their own image throughout history.
The exhibition takes into consideration three key figures that influenced Western perceptions of the Black female body: Saartje Baartman, "The Voyage of the Sable Venus, from Angola to the West Indies", a 1793 etching by Thomas Stothard, and the Jezebel.
The etching was a prominent illustration in a highly circulated 1798 book about the history of the British Colonies, written by Bryan Edwards, an amateur historian, British expatriate and enslaver who owned seven plantations in Jamaica.
The illustrator, as explained by Emelife, represents a way to whitewashing and even romanticize the transatlantic slave trade.
Drawing inspiration from Sandro Botticelli's renowned work, "The Birth of Venus" (1485-1486), the artist portrays a Black woman, referred to as the "Sable Venus" by the artist himself, standing on a seashell. She is surrounded by white cherubs and is being pulled by a mythical pair of fish harnessed to the reins she holds. To her left, Triton carries the British flag and guides the procession across the ocean, gazing at the woman with apparent desire.
This widely circulated image simultaneously fetishized and erased the real-life horrors that a Black woman would have endured during such a journey. It perpetuated a violently inaccurate narrative among the educated Western elite at a time when alternative visual information on the subject would have been scarce and similarly distorted (think also about fascist expeditions in Africa, and at the ways Black women were portrayed by Mussolini's regime and sexually exploited by his soldiers).
The show's third inspiring figure is the Jezebel, incarnated by Josephine Baker, who represented a new vision of Black female sexuality.
Baker's journey from the Midwest to Paris in 1925 transformed her into a new archetype of Black womanhood in popular culture, challenging racial stereotypes.
In New York, Baker's initial publicized role in The Chocolate Dandies (1924) involved darkening her skin tone and adopting caricatured traits to amuse the audience.
Upon arriving in Paris, Baker maintained a playful and self-deprecating style, that at the same time satirized Western’s audiences limited views of Black beauty, but evolved into a burlesque sex symbol, fulfilling colonialist sexual fantasies with her body and persona. Reviews of her iconic 1925 French debut, La Revue Nègre, often described her using animalistic metaphors. Emelife suggests that Baker used self-awareness as a tool to challenge racial prejudice.
Josephine Baker also turned into a civil rights icon and played a crucial role in the French resistance during the Nazi occupation. She remains the only American-born woman to receive full French military honors at her funeral. Her influence extended to a wide range of creative figures, from Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso to Mick Jagger and Diana Ross.
Ming Smith's portrait "Me as Josephine" (1986), showing the artist posing as Baker, is an investigation of how Black women's sexuality has been demonized due to its power.
The show's artists span generations, from Amber Pinkerton, born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1997, to Coreen Simpson, born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1942. Simpson's images of nude Black women in African masks from the early 1990s are particularly poignant, given the context of her life at the time.
One key aspect of the exhibition is the emphasis on the diversity of the contemporary Black female experience – check out for example Zanele Muholi's empowering "Miss (Black) Lesbian" series.
Ayana V. Jackson's work is inspired by Dr. Shatema Threadcraft's 2018 scholarly papers and presents counterimages that challenge the historical oppression of Black women. Jackson's images subvert colonial depictions of the forcibly labored Black body and capture moments of leisure and repose in the lives of 19th and early 20th century Black women.
Carrie Mae Weem's "When and Where I Enter, the British Museum" (2007) tackles instead European colonialism with Weems placing herself among the museum's tourists and ionic columns, invisible and anonymous, yet conspicuous at the same time.
The show invites therefore visitors to confront racial and sexual objectification and embodied resistance in the Black woman's experience. While celebrating the progress made by Black women in various fields and emphasizing the resilience, power, and multiplicity of Black women's identities and acknowledging the historical stereotypes they have faced, it is also a call to action.
Hopefully, we will see this event expanding and travelling to other European countries: it is indeed impossible to think about Black women slaves throughout history without pondering about the modern odyssey of migrant women from Africa, some of them pregnant or accompanied by their children, embarking on treacherous journeys to cross the Mediterranean and arriving by boat in Italy, where they may end up being vulnerable to exploitation. So, while "Black Venus" is a due celebration, it is also a way to raise awareness about the present-day challenges that Black women have to face.
Image credits for this post
1, 3, 6, 12 and 13. Installation views of "Black Venus" at Somerset House, copyright Tim Bowditch
2. Renee Cox, HOTT-EN-TOT (1993-1994)
4. Amber Pinkerton Photo Booth, Sabah, Girls Next Door , 2020, © Courtesy the Artist and Alice Black
5. Ayana V. Jackson, "Anarcha" , 2017 © Courtesy of the Artist and Mariane Ibrahim
7. Coreen Simpson, "Black Girl with Eye" (1992) from "About Face" series, Courtesy of the artist
8. Carrie Mae Weems – "Not Manet's Type" (2010) © Carrie Mae Weems, Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York)
9. Ming Smith, Instant Model, 1976 © Courtesy of the artist and Pippy H ouldsworth Gallery, London.
10. Zanele Muholi, "Miss Lesbian I, Amsterdam", from the series "Miss (Black) Lesbian" (2009)
11. Ming Smith, "Me as Marilyn", 1991 © Courtesy of the artist and Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London