History Repeated_Caravan Magazine_Mar 2016

History Repeated

PHOTOGRAPHS BY OMAR VICTOR DIOP

History Repeated

Reanimating portraits of forgotten black Africans PHOTO ESSAY / VISUAL ART PHOTOGRAPHS BY OMAR VICTOR DIOP

opposite page: A recreated portrait of an unnamed Moroccan man.

Original painting from

1913, by the Catalan artist José Tapiro y Baro.

in 1797, the french artist anne-louis girodet painted a portrait of Jean-Baptiste Belley, a statesman and former military officer of the French Republic. A native of Senegal, Belley was sold into slavery at the age of two and taken to the French colony of Saint-Domingue, now Haiti. He saved enough money to purchase his freedom, fought as a commander and captain in the French Revolutionary Army, and later became a deputy representative for Saint-Domingue at France’s National Convention, in Paris. Belley became among the very few black Africans of the period to attain such an elevated status in Europe.

Girodet’s painting depicts him in a nobleman’s finery—a long navy-blue coat, khaki breeches and a white cravat—but also contains a hint of protest; Belley leans on a pedestal that supports a bust of Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, an Enlightenment writer who advocated the abolition of slavery.

More than 200 years later, the artist Omar Victor Diop, also from Senegal, shot a photographic recreation of the painting. In it, Diop adopts a pose and wears clothing similar to Belley’s, but, instead of a bust of Raynal, he leans next to a curiously anachronistic object: a brightly coloured football.

The image is part of a photo series called Project Diaspora, released in 2014, in which Diop recreates pieces of Western art from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries that feature black African subjects. Each photograph swaps out an object from its corresponding original work for an eyecatchingly modern prop related to football: pristine goalkeeper’s gloves, a yellow referee’s whistle, a striped orange cleat.

Inspiration for Project Diaspora came to Diop

while he was researching art history during an artist’s residency in Malaga, Spain, in early 2014.

He became particularly fascinated with various portraits of black Africans by Western artists from between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries. Diop was disappointed to find that the people featured in those pieces were often omitted from historical narratives. “I started to feel the need to celebrate their memory,” he said. He shot the first few photographs for the series in Malaga, and returned home to Dakar to take the rest.

The subjects of the original art pieces had attained a tenuous prestige in their societies, although they were often still regarded with racist xenophobia. The out-of-place props in Diop’s photos connect the past with the present, evoking one way black Africans sometimes attain a similarly fraught celebrity in the West today: playing football. In an interview with The Guardian, he said, “when you look at the way that the African soccer royalty is perceived in Europe, there is a very interesting blend of glory, hero-worship and exclusion.” Sometimes, Diop continued, “you get racist chants or banana skins thrown on the pitch and the whole illusion of integration is shattered in the most brutal way.”

Contemporary racial dynamics aside, Project Diaspora is most deeply concerned with honouring the subjects of the original art pieces. For example, although Diop posed for all the photographs in the series, he is uncomfortable using the term “self-portrait” to describe them. “It’s not me taking pictures of myself,” he said, “it’s more about these historical figures, to whom I lend my body, for a revival performance.”

63

above: Ikhlas Khan was an AfricanIndian who served as a chief minister to the Sultanate of Bijapur, in present-day Karnataka, during the seventeenth century.

Original painting by an unknown artist.

above: August Sabac el Cher was given as a slave to Prince Albert of Prussia when he was just child, in 1843. El Cher grew up to be embraced as a Prussian, and married a white woman.

Original photograph by an unknown artist.

above: Dom Nicolau, a prince of Kongo, a kingdom in west-central Africa, was perhaps the earliest African leader to publicly write in condemnation of colonialism. Nicolau protested Portuguese commercial activity, political intervention and military expansion in a letter published by a newspaper in Lisbon. His exact birth date remains uncertain, but engravings from a visit he made to Lisbon in 1845 suggest that he was then perhaps between 15 and 20 years old.

Original engraving by an unknown artist.

opposite page: Omar ibn Said was an Islamic scholar. Born and raised in Futa Toro, a northern province of what is now Senegal, he studied arithmetic and theology. In 1807, at the age of 25, he was enslaved and brought to the United States. Although he remained a slave for the rest of his life, he authored many works of history and theology, most notably a very famous autobiography.

Original photograph by an unknown artist.

opposite page: Angelo Soliman was born, sometime around 1720, in what is now north Nigeria. He was taken captive as a child and arrived in Marseilles as a slave. In 1734, he was given as a gift to the imperial governor of Sicily, Prince von Lobkowitz.

After the prince died, Soliman was taken into the Vienna household of the prince of Liechtenstein, and eventually became the chief servant and royal tutor of the prince’s heir Original engraving from 1750, by the German artist Gottfried Haid.

above: Don Miguel de Castro was an emissary of Sonho, a province of Kongo, as part of a delegation that arrived in the Netherlands in the mid-seventeenth century. One of his objectives was to resolve an internal conflict in his home kingdom.

Original painting from 1643-50, attributed to either Jaspar Beck or Albert Eckout, both Dutch painters.

above: Frederick Douglass, born in 1818, was a renowned orator, writer and statesman. He escaped from slavery and became a leader of the abolitionist movement. Douglass described his experiences as a slave in several autobiographies, which became bestsellers.

Original photograph from around 1850, by the American artist Samuel J Miller.

above: Malik Ambar was born in Harar, in Ethiopia. Due to poverty, his parents sold him into slavery when he was a child. He was brought to India, where, despite his humble origins, he rose to become a very popular prime minister of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate, in present-day Gujarat. Ambar is also regarded as a pioneer in war strategy.

Original painting from 1620, by the Indian artist Hashim.

above: Henrique Dias was a soldier born to freed slaves, in the Portuguese colony of Brazil. He later became a soldier and militia leader for the Portuguese military. Dias led a group of freed slaves into battle against Dutch forces, playing an important role in two decisive battles. For his courage and leadership, he was knighted by the Portuguese king. He died in 1662.

opposite page: Juan de Pareja was a painter, born in Antequera, Spain. He is primarily known as a member of the household and workshop of the famous Spanish painter Diego Velázquez. He became Velázquez’s assistant sometime after the master returned to Madrid from his first trip to Italy, in January 1631.

Original painting by an unknown artist.

Original painting by Diego Velázquez.

above: Jean-Baptiste Belley was born around 1746, in what is now Senegal.

Sold into slavery and brought to SaintDomingue in the French West Indies, he later bought his freedom with his savings. During the French Revolution, he became a member of the National Convention and the Council of Five Hundred of France.

opposite page: Adolf Ludvig Gustav Fredrik Albert Badin, born around 1750, was a Swedish court-servant and diarist.

Originally a slave, he later became a butler to Queen Louisa Ulrika of Prussia, and then to Princess Sophia Albertine of Sweden. His original name was Couchi, but he was commonly known as Badin, which means mischief-maker or trickster.

Original painting from 1797, by the French artist

Original painting from 1775, by the Swedish artist

Anne-Louis Girodet.

Gustaf Lundberg.