ART TALK
THE BLACK BODY TEXT AN D PHOTOS BY KEMI BASSEN E
Last month, the Departments of African American studies and Arts of Harvard University and NYU offered a series of conferences addressing the imaginary, the construction, and the display of the black body in the West It was across 20 panels, that artists, curators and thinkers, discussed the Western portray of the black body, for three days, in Paris. The first day was an autopsy of legendary
e nve l op e t h ro u g h con q ue s t s . Rom a n
black skin color in several subcategories
images and written monstrosities on the
and Ot toman empire s, Argentinian and
go i n g f ro m d a r k b l ac k to ye l l ow i s h ,
B lack body t hrough panels reminding
Nor th American wars of independence,
bluish or between red and yellow ( Anie
exoticism, construc tion of the “savage”,
have a ll dre s s e d t he B lack body wit h
Montig ny on The Black s of Qat ar). The
fant a sie s of t he European ethnologis t
t heir unifor ms , af ter having deprive d
complexity of co-habit ation is a subjec t
photographer and the immense heritage
it of freedom. The panel Curating The
until now carefully avoided by both par t s
of European mu seums on work s of ar t
B lack Body showed how complex and
in Africa . But how will a loud and visible
and African archive s .
s t ill pre co ciou s it is to appro ach t h e
n ew B l ac k s e g m ent i n contem p or a r y
s u b je c t w i t h N o r t h Af r i c a . T h e c a s e
ar t de al wit h a g rowing and rich , but
c an be e x pande d in all A r abic worl d ,
s t i l l h u r t f u l m i d d l e - e a s t e r n m a r ke t?
where “the Black body pains to lose it s
A not her point is t hat black A rabs are
dark mystical soul”, a s Algerian panelist
Arabs pre-eminently in identity.
In exile, without it s cultural instrument s Roman Catholicism combined with
Nadira L AGGOUNE said . While Europe
repre s sive A rab M u slim culture s have
perceived only one color on the Black
moved, mu z zled and renamed the Black
body, the Arabs showed dif ference s on
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An inventor y of Aesthetic s and the Black body