Project 23: Black (Frantz Fanon)

This week’s project was to consider Sartre’s introduction to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched Earth (1961) and then read Fanon’s Fact of Blackness from the course reader. The set texts explore the notion that in:

 We have moved away from the concept of ‘the other’ being associated solely with gender and sexuality (Project 20-22) into racial difference.

Task

We were asked to read the chapter Fact of Blackness by Frantz Fanon from the course reader. 

Fanon (1925-1961) was a post-colonial writer who was born in the French colony of Martinique. Following the Second World War he stayed in France and began his academic career. While working in Algeria, the war for independence broke out and he began to align himself with the independence movement; becoming the Ambassador for Ghana for the Provisional Government. He died the year of the publication of The Wretched Earth. 

Notes from the small section extracted as Fact of Blackness from the course reader.

 

Question: Fanon is writing from the point of view of a black colonial, a second-class citizen of his own country. Does this make it more or less difficult?

From my notes I have come to understand that as Fanon is writing from the perspective of a black colonial – a second-class citizen of his own country – makes it more difficult as the imposed Imperial weltanschauung harder for the black citizen to perceive ontology; it creates confusion – a split in the self – as you become what you are perceived. 

How can the issues explored by Fanon be applied to Visual Studies? Well, many artists of Afro-Caribbean, African and Asian decent that work within Britain – the country of their birth – with the issue of ‘blackness’.

Let’s consider the British painter of Nigerian descent, Chris Ofili.  I have chosen two paintings both from 1998: Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars and No Woman, No Cry. 

Left: Ofili, C. 1998. Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars. London: Victoria Miro Gallery.

Right: Ofili, C. 1998. No Woman, No Cry. [Acrylic, oil and mixed media on canvas] London: Victoria Miro Gallery.

 

Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars is both celebratory and ironic. Created by Ofili, the character of Captain Shit is a black superhero and a symbol of black superstardom. He bursts from the flames, showing his power and strength. The painting celebrates blackness but could be seen as ironic as it highlights the absence of black superheroes. 

No Woman, No Cry offers us a different perspective of blackness. A tribute to the murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence, the painting was inspired by Lawrence’s mother crying. Her crying – eyes closed and neutral – shows her dignity in the face of her personal tragedy; a trait which a viewer of the painting could align with blackness. 

Further Study

Reading Fanon for this project has put me in mind of a film I studied at A’ Level. As part of the A2 Film Studies syllabus we had to study – both closely and the wider cultural context - Sweet Sweetback Baadasssss Song (Melvin Van Peebles, Yeah, USA, 1971).

 

The film addressed race but not in the sense of colonialism, instead it focused society of the USA.

The film radically critiques the dominant – “white” – ideology of the time. It presents society as institutionally racist that represses not only the people but also black culture. 

The film is a counters conventional filmmaking of the time in both form and content. In the wider context of civil rights and black power, we are presented with a radical representation of a black protagonist; the character of Sweetback – a gigolo – is not a single protagonist but a representation of the black experience in North America.  

Van Peebles articulates an aggressive style. The film’s crudeness – displayed in the action and emphasised by its form – is deliberate. It provokes shock and revulsion which intentionally distances the audience.  

Ultimately through a strategy of radical form and content the film offered an alternative to conventional “white” Hollywood cinema.  

Reference List

Fanon, F. (1967) Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. In: Evans, J. and Hall, S. (eds.) Visual culture: a reader. (1999) London: Sage Publications pp. 417-420.

Project 22: Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab (the artwork of Sarah Lucas)

This task is to consider the work of the artists Sarah Lucas and to note any references to the theories that have been discussed so far on the course. 

Sarah Lucas was of the ‘Young British Artists’ that emerged on the art scene in the 1990s. Working in a variety of mediums, her works mainly consists of self-portraits; she critiques life as a woman in the modern world. 

In the early 1990s, Lucas began using furniture as a substitute for the human body. Through her career, Lucas has continued to appropriate everyday materials (including, for example, freshly made fried eggs) to make works that use humour, visual puns and sexual metaphors of sex, death, Englishness and gender.

The artworks I will consider are: Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab, Self Portrait with Fried Eggs, Eating a Banana, Au Naturel and Get Hold of This.

Lucas, S. 1992. Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab.

It is clear from the representational display of the female form in Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab that it is ironic; the woman is transformed into commodities. She is something to be possessed and, through the use edible products (i.e. the eggs, the kebabs), to be also consumed. Part of her is literally a piece of meat. This links with Project 21 – images of women – as this is a parody of the film nude; she transformed by our gaze into objects.

Lucas, S. 1996. Self Portrait with Fried Eggs. [Inkjet print on paper] London: Tate Collection.

The image of Fried Eggs becomes a motif. In Self Portrait with Fried Eggs the humour of the eggs replacing breasts is continued; though now it is juxtaposed with the actual female form. Lucas’s androgynous appearance – the short hair, t-shirt and ripped jeans – and open posture supports the irony of picture.  Could the mirror phase be attached to this picture? She seems not to align herself with the mother in this image but instead defies.

Lucas, S. 1994. Au Naturel.

Humour and irony continues. Au Naturel deconstructs the sexual act. Like Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab, genitals are replaced with commodities; they are replaced by signs. The union of two individuals is signified in a single double mattress. This has a relationship with the previous section, ‘Signs and Symbols’ and could be applied to Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab. 

Lucas, S. 1990. Eating a Banana. [Inkjet print on paper] London: Tate Collection.

Eating a Banana ironically comments on castration anxiety explored in Project 17. Lucas is again androgynous. She gazes indifferently at the spectator and with her image already challenges the male gaze. She eschews the phallic symbol by her biting of the banana directly threatens castration. Does her challenge fail due to a possible hegemony of false-consciousness allowed women in Western patriarchal society? Clearly she is challenging Berger’s argument in Project 21. 

Project 21: Images of Women (John Berger)

This week’s tasks were to read and make notes from chapter two and three from John Berger’s Ways of Seeing. 

In this Berger takes a similar view from Mulvey in Project 20, though not from a radical feminist perspective i.e. patriarchy is the fundamental problem. Instead, Berger takes on images of women from a neo-Marxian perspective; linking power with ownership and other economic relationships. 

While a post-feminist may consider the representation of the naked female body as now in their control – they can do with it what they wish – others believe this to be a false consciousness that, through a process of hegemony, men have convinced women of this for their own means. 

Berger argues that the tradition of the nude in painting is almost exclusively that of the female form which then was presented to the male spectator.  As an object the female nude is possessed not only by the male collector but also the male spectators. Viewing a woman is defined by their appearance and thus the male gaze still operates.

Task One: The Visualisation of Women Today

It was asked – using newspapers and magazines as my source – to construct a visual essay illustrating the visualisation of women today. This consists of two collages: collage one is images of women taken from female magazines; collage two is images of women taken from ‘lads’ magazines.

Collage One: the female form from a 'female' perspective

Collage two: the female form from a 'male' perspective

It is interesting to note that while Collage One reflect Lacan’s mirror phase – the inadequate of oneself results in a projection on the images – , the representation of women in Collage Two seems to confirm Berger’s argument.Collage One appeals to female desire while Collage Two appeals to male.

Courbet, A. 1866. Woman with a Parrot. [Oil on canvas] New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Anton Courbet’s Woman with a Parrot confirms Berger’s argument. Here is the female form on display. Not for her own pleasure, as the picture would suggest, but for that of the male spectator. Although she gazes at the parrot, her body turns to one side towards the viewer.  This is so that is clearly displayed for the benefit of the collector; through his purchase and through his gaze he objectifies the female form.  It could be also seen as a form possession on part of the artist. 

Bronzino, A. 1545. Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time. [Oil on wood] London: National Gallery.

Angelo Bronzino’s Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time is used by Berger as an example. It is similar to the purpose of the second collage – constructed from images from men’s magazines – in that has nothing to do with the female figures sexuality; it is all about the male spectators’ sexuality. This is because of the position of the female form in regards to the viewer. Despite the display of the Venus’s body towards the spectator in Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time this is implicit in comparison to the covers of Sophie and Sophie from Nuts; while they stare directly acknowledging their sexuality, Venus’s gaze is directed towards cupid.   

Von Aachen, H. 1600. Bacchus, Ceres and Cupid. [Oil on canvas] Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum.

In relation to Brozino’s Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time, Von Aachen’s Bacchus, Ceres and Cupid acknowledges the spectator. Ceres’s attention is not on Bacchus but is directed towards the male spectator. This pose allows the male artist, and by extension, the male spectator to posses the female. A power relationship is created; the male spectators possess the female form. Like Bacchus within the image, the possessed becomes objectified by the male gaze. 

Freud, L. 1966. Girl on a Turkish Sofa.

Compared to all other images chosen as part of this project the female form is not idealised in Lucian Freud’s Girl on a Turkish Sofa. Freud’s style could be seen – in regards to conventional representation – to find new meaning in the female form by de-sexualising the nude. Turned away from the spectator, the girl shuns any knowledge of the male gaze.

Bibliography

Berger, J.  (1972) Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Publishing.

Cartwright, L., Sturken, M. (2001) Practices of looking: an introduction to visual culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.