Black Images in a White World

Essay

Jun 3

Written By Nande Walters

In this project, I compare images of slaves and examples of scientific racism, like the story of the Hottentot Venus, to contemporary images by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. How have black people been used as objects for art and science? How does that reinforce the racial hierarchy of white people being the makers and thinkers while black people are reserved to being primitive beings to be looked at? Has that relationship changed in 200 years, in and outside of the museum space?

For Making/Making Nature - FA ‘19

“Mapplethorpe was well integrated into the black art scene in the 1980s. He was featured in the 1982 Harlem Exhibition Space group show ‘The Black Male Image.’7 In 1988 Robert’s photograph Robert Sherman and Ken Moody was featured on the cover of Harper’s magazine. The featured article was Shelby White’s “I’m Black, You’re White, Who’s Innocent? Race and Power in an Age of Blame. ‘[Mapplethorpe’s] work was championed and defended by the white art world for its transgressive themes.’11 The biggest critique of Mapplethorpe was not around censorship, free speech, or sexually provocative images, it’s around race, power, and representation led by black queer men.11”

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