Exploring the Black Venus Figure in Aesthetic Practices

229 Pages·2019·3.059 MB·English

by  Jorunn Svensen Gjerden

Exploring the Black Venus Figure in Aesthetic Practices
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Cross/Cultures
Readings In Post/Colonial
Literatures And Cultures In English
Edited by
Bénédicte Ledent and Delphine Munos
Co-founding Editors
Gordon Collier
Geoffrey Davis†
Hena Maes-Jelinek†
Advisory Board
David Callahan (University of Aveira) – Stephen Clingman (University of
Massachusetts) – Marc Delrez (Université de Liège) – Gaurav Desai (University
of Michigan) – Russell McDougall (University of New England) – John McLeod
(University of Leeds) – Irikidzayi Manase (University of the Free State) –
Caryl Phillips (Yale University) – Diana Brydon (University of Manitoba) –
Pilar Cuder-Dominguez (University of Huelva) – Wendy Knepper (Brunel
University) – Carine Mardorossian (University of Buffalo) – Maria Olaussen
(University of Gothenburg) – Chris Prentice (Otago University) – Cheryl Stobie
(University of KwaZulu-Natal) – Daria Tunca (Université de Liège)
volume 210
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/cc
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Exploring the Black Venus Figure
in Aesthetic Practices
Edited by
Jorunn S. Gjerden
Kari Jegerstedt
Željka Švrljuga
leiden | boston
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Cover illustration: “Black Venus” (2005) by Mark Bradford. Mixed media collage. Courtesy the artist and
Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Bruce White.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
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ISBN 978-90-04-39520-6 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-40791-6 (e-book)
Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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Contents
1 Refiguring Black Venus
Preliminary Considerations 1
Jorunn S. Gjerden, Kari Jegerstedt and Željka Švrljuga
Part 1
Histories
2 Venus from A to Z in Beryl Gilroy’s Inkle and Yarico 19
Željka Švrljuga
3 H.C. Andersen’s Black Venus Fairy Tale
“The Marsh King’s Daughter” and the Aftermath of
Danish Colonialism 41
Kjersti Aarstein
4 The Finger That Mocks the World
Kara Walker’s Sugar Baby and Images of African American
Womanhood 63
Carmen Birkle
5 The Italian Gaze on Black Venus 89
Camilla Erichsen Skalle
6 The Voice of Venus
Angela Carter’s “Black Venus” and the Democratization
of Literature 108
Kari Jegerstedt
Part 2
Epistemologies
7 Epic Theatre and the Culture of Spectacle
Aesthetic Figuration of Body and Race in Suzan-Lori Parks’
Venus 129
Ljubica Matek
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vi Contents
8 The Wild Woman, the Little Mistress, the Hottentot Venus, and the
Pedestal Monster
Living Curiosities and Their Counter-spaces in Two Texts by Charles
Baudelaire 149
Margery Vibe Skagen
9 Colonial Bodies in Display Cases and Spectating Bodies
A Contemporary Art Critique 173
Ulla Angkjær Jørgensen
10 Gazes, Faces, Hands
Othering Objectification and Spectatorial Surrender in
Abdellatif Kechiche’s Vénus noire and Carl Th. Dreyer’s
La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc 193
Jorunn S. Gjerden
Index 217
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Chapter 1
Refiguring Black Venus
Preliminary Considerations
Jorunn S. Gjerden, Kari Jegerstedt and Željka Švrljuga
The early twenty-first century bears several marks indicating that it stands
in the sign of Black Venus. Symbolically apt, the century started out with the
2002 repatriation and subsequent burial of perhaps the most famous Black
Venus figure of all, South African Sara Baartman1 – infamously exploited for her
steatopygia and the so-called ‘Hottentot Apron’ in early nineteenth-century
Europe. Although her story had originally been brought to the general public’s
attention by Stephen Gould and Sander L. Gilman in 1985, it was the return
of her remains to the newly-formed post-apartheid South Africa – after eight
years of diplomatic squabbling with France – that revivified it. The return was
invested with high political stakes and surrounded by great publicity. “The story
of Sarah Bartmann is the story of the African people,” the then South African
president, Thabo Mbeki, said at Baartman’s funeral:
It is a story of the loss of our ancient freedom […] a story of our reduc-
tion to the status of object that could be owned, used and disposed of by
others, who claimed for themselves a manifest destiny “to run the empire
of the globe” […]. Our presence at her graveside demands that we act to
ensure that what happened to her should never be repeated.2
Since then, an already resurgent interest in the Black Venus figure in popular,
academic, and artistic culture has skyrocketed, making her a key symbol in
current attempts to restore the abjected, racialized female body in feminist,
1 Despite the fact that the historical person in question is known under different names and
with various spellings (from Sara, or, its Dutch diminutive, Saartjie Baartman, but also as
Sarah Bartmann, according to her baptismal certificate), we adopt Sara Baartman, a neutral
version of her name that neither signifies on her tiny stature nor on a church document,
whose authenticity is verifiable though not her reasons for taking the sacrament. See “Sa-
rah Bartmann in Manchester: 200 Years on #BlackHistoryMonth” Archives+ (11 October 201)
https://manchesterarchiveplus.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/sarah-bartmann-in-manchester-
200-years-on-blackhistorymonth/ The page is no longer available.
2 Thabo Mbeki, “Speech at the Funeral of Sarah Bartmann, 9 August 2002,” http://www.sahistory
.org.za/archive/speech-funeral-sarah-bartmann-9-august-2002 (accessed 10 August 2017).
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:�0.��63/97890044079�6_00�
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2 Gjerden, Jegerstedt and Švrljuga
anti-racist and postcolonial terms. As such, the early twenty-first century can
boast a series of high points, not only in relation to the re-figuring of Sara
Baartman, but also in the refiguring of the Black Venus figure in general – and
not only in its relation to Africa, but in its various manifestations on the global
scene. 2010, for instance, saw the premiere of the French film Vénus noire
by Abdellatif Kechiche and the South African mini opera Sartjie by Hendrick
Hofmeyer, as well as the publication of Deborah Willis’ anthology Black Ve-
nus 2010: They Called Her “Hottentot” in the US, one of the first comprehensive
collections of articles on Black Venus as representation. Whereas the film and
the opera re-imagine Baartman’s life-story from different vantage points, the
anthology presents a range of academic, literary and historical contributions
written over the two preceding decades, as well as a catalogue of photographs
of Baartman-inspired works of art. Willis notes that “Baartman has become a
focal point of reference for contemporary black artists, particularly women,”3
presenting works by, among others, Hank Willis Thomas, Roshini Kempadoo,
Lorna Simpson, Carla Williams, Carrie Mae Weems, Penny Siopis, Renée Green,
Kara Walker, Simone Leigh, Tracey Rose, and Petrushka A. Bazin.
The influence of Black Venus is not only noticeable in “high art” but can
also be seen in the world of fashion, social media, and reality shows, perhaps
in more disturbing terms. In September 2014, for example, thematizing the lat-
est global trends and changing conceptions of female beauty and sex appeal,
Vogue declared that “[w]e’re officially in the Era of the big booty.”4 As examples
of this trend, journalist Patricia Garcia refers to instances such as Nicki Minaj’s
“Anaconda” rap-video – a feminist remix of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s 1992 hit “Baby Got
Back,” which explicitly parodies and redeploys the white fascination with the
posterior of Black Venus; images of Kim Kardashian’s much discussed buttocks
on Instagram, generating up to a million likes; and the CrossFit movement’s
recent obsession with squats, designed to enlarge and tone the butt muscles.
While Garcia might have overlooked the racialized implications of her dis-
cussion, they were not lost on her readers, who comment online: “Get over
yourself, Vogue. Black women are the reason why white women are suddenly
obsessed with large asses. […] You want our lips, our asses, our breasts, our
music, OUR EVERYTHING.”5 Simultaneously, on an internet message board,
3 Deborah Willis, Introduction, in Black Venus 2010. They Called Her “Hottentot,” ed. Deborah
Willis (Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2010): 3.
4 Patricia Garcia, “We’re officially in the era of the big booty” Vogue (9 September 2014)
http://www.vogue.com/1342927/booty-in-pop-culture-jennifer-lopez-iggy-azalea/ (This page
is no longer available).
5 Emma Akberain, “Vogue under fire for ‘Big Booty’ article,” Independent (15 September
2014) http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/news/vogue-under-fire-for-big
-booty-article-9734218.html (accessed 18 March 2016). Moreover, an article entitled “Vogue
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Refiguring Black Venus 3
anonymous Norwegian posters approached this current global fixation on fe-
male posteriors in a thread entitled “Large butts everywhere!”6 The starter of
the thread asks: “Why has this become a phenomenon? Is it because African
women are now considered as sex symbols more than they used to be?”7
More than signalling something new, the above-mentioned examples tes-
tify to a longstanding fascination with the black female body within colonial
(and postcolonial) history where the figure of Black Venus has been the ob-
ject of sexual desire, envy, anxiety, and disgust. In many ways, then, not much
seems to have changed. Whereas Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” video can be read
as a feminist, self-assertive, funny and exuberant re-appropriation of Sir Mix-a-
Lot’s anti-racist yet disturbingly masculinist redeployment of the Black Venus
trope, the Norwegian commentators uncannily echo the very racialist reac-
tions that his video parodies.8 Trading hyperlinks to photos and videos that
document the trend, posters go on to speculate as to whether the said bodily
feature (“my fat ass,” to quote Minaj) – that challenges the white woman’s body
as the epitome of female beauty – can be anything but the result of plastic
surgery. In fact, when the participants in the exchange use expressions like “un-
natural and terrifying,” “deformed and weird,” “horse-like,” or a “baboon’s ass,”9
their underlying assumptions about feminine beauty and its repulsive yet
enticing borders are strangely reminiscent of French naturalist and z oologist
George Cuvier’s autopsy report on Sara Baartman, “la Vénus Hottentote”
under fire for ‘Big Booty’ article” published in the Independent a few days later shows that
these commentators were not the only ones to react in this way to the Vogue article. The
Independent journalist reports, for instance, that shortly after the publication of Garcia’s arti-
cle, the hashtag #VogueArticles was created specifically on Twitter to sarcastically mock the
racialized subtext of her assertions.
6 “Svære rumper overalt!” Kvinneguiden Forum (29 September 2014), http://forum.kvinne-
guiden.no/topic/874404-sv%C3%A6re-rumper-overalt/ (accessed 18 March 2016).
7 “Hvorfor har dette blitt et fenomen? Er det fordi afrikanske kvinner i større grad oppfattes
som sex-symboler nå enn før?” “Svære rumper overalt!” Kvinneguiden Forum (29 September
2014), http://forum.kvinneguiden.no/topic/874404-sv%C3%A6re-rumper-overalt/ (accessed
18 March 2016).
8 The video opens with two white girls staring at and commenting on a black woman who
turns on a pedestal, showing off her features: “Oh my God, Becky, look at her butt /It is so
big, she looks like/One of those rap guys’ girlfriends/But, ya know, who understands those
rap guys? /They only talk to her, because, /She looks like a total prostitute, ‘kay? /I mean,
her butt, is just so big /I can’t believe it’s just so round, it’s like out there/I mean gross, look/
She’s just so, black.” Sir Mix-a-Lot, “Baby Got Back,” YouTube (3 February 2010), https://www
.youtube.com/watch?v=_JphDdGV2TU. The scene is reminiscent of early nineteenth- century
caricature drawings of Hottentot Venus and her audience.
9 Our translation of “unaturlig og skremmende,” “vanskapt[e] og rar[e],” “som en hest,” and
“bavian-rumpe.” In “Svære rumper overalt!” Kvinneguiden Forum (29 September 2014), http://
forum.kvinneguiden.no/topic/874404-sv%C3%A6re-rumper-overalt/ (accessed 18 March
2016).
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4 Gjerden, Jegerstedt and Švrljuga
(1817).10 Cuvier’s report aimed to create a ‘scientific’ underpinning for the myth
of a racial hierarchy. In key passages of the document, critically considered by
T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting as “the master text on the black female body,”11
Cuvier likens Baartman’s body to that of different apes (orangutans, mandrills)
and to bestial features in general, based precisely on a thorough analysis of
the shape of her behind – which he characterizes as “excessively protuberant,”
“really monstrous,” “bizarre,” and “extraordinary.”12 In particular (not unlike the
Norwegian message board debaters), he is eager to establish whether her bod-
ily appearance can in fact be a work of nature, or whether it must be under-
stood as a “product of art.”13
The present collection of articles ventures into a selection of globally trace-
able explorations of the Black Venus figure from the vantage point that she,
indeed, is a figure – a node in which a rhetorical figure, or trope, and the shape
of a female body converge – and thus a true “product of art.” The nine contribu-
tions to this volume – that come from the fields of art history, literature, film
studies, and gender studies – focus on the way in which the colonial archive
has preserved, impacted, and refigured Black Venus in art, cinema, literature,
10 Mae G. Henderson has also pointed out the role of hip-hop culture and rap music videos
for “marking a transition from a western aesthetic of the female body that emphasizes
the breasts as the principal signifier of femininity, to one fashioned by the ‘bootifica-
tion’ of the female body” that valorizes “the glorified and vilified nature of a sometimes
oppositional black female body aesthetic” (160). Establishing parallels between the perfor-
mances of the contemporary video vixen and those of her “forebears,” Sara Baartman
and Josephine Baker, Henderson discusses how this emerging “booty revolution” in the
Western imaginary pertains to the dilemmas of revising/repeating stereotypes: “Do
contemporary female video models subversively parody a hegemonic Euro-American
white male stereotype of the black female body or do such performances embrace an
ambiguously non-hegemonic African American male aesthetic of the female body? Do
these performances simply reinscribe the historical stereotypes of black women as sexu-
ally available, perverse, or excessive—or do they function to deconstruct dominant and
hegemonic notions of femininity represented by the thin (anorexic) esthete images still
predominant among supermodels (black, white, and Other) on the world’s leading run-
ways?” See Mae G. Henderson, “About Face, or, What Is This ‘Back’ in B(l)ack Popular
Culture? From Venus Hottentot to Video Hottie,” in Understanding Blackness through
Performance, ed. A. Crémieux, x. Lemoine & J.P. Rocchi (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2013): 163.
11 T. Denean Sharpley–Whiting. Black Venus: Sexualized Savages, Primal Fears, and Primitive
Narratives in French (Durham NC: Duke UP, 1999): 24.
12 “L’énorme protubérance de ses fesses,” “un accroissement vraiment monstrueux,” “cette
confirmation assez bizarre,” and “cette surcharge extraordinaire,” in Georges Cuvier, “Ex-
trait d’observations faites sur le cadavre d’une femme connue à Paris et à Londres sous le
nom de Vénus Hottentote.” (Mémoires d’Histoire natuelle 3. Paris: G Doufour, 1817): 263–69.
13 “Extrait d’observations faites sur le cadavre d’une femme connue à Paris et à Londres sous
le nom de Vénus Hottentote,” 268.
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