ReSignifications: Black Bodies, French Gaze and Noirs
BLACK PORTRAITURES II: Imaging the Black Body and Re-Staging Histories
(This essay is based on remarks made by Professor Francois Verges as a panelist in ReSignifications: Black Bodies, French Gaze and Noirs at the Black Portraitures II: Imaging the Black Body and Restaging Histories Conference in Florence, Italy on May 29, 2015)
The toll in human suffering among African migrants that is currently on view in the Mediterranean Sea and to a lessor extent in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, makes rethinking the meaning of the Black Body “as a signifier of both racial capitalism and emancipatory politics and restaging the story” a very urgent task. The necessity for a new strategy seems evident from the incoherent and confused response by the European countries to the desperation shown by the tens of thousands of immigrants who are stranded on the borders of Europe today. In attempting to escape the unimaginable horrors imposed upon them in their homelands in Africa and the Middle East they risk their lives and the lives of their children seeking safety among their former colonizers in Europe. All of the chaos, death, and destruction in their native lands can be traced back to two sets of agreements made by the Europeans among themselves entirely for the benefit of themselves.
1. The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 which led to the eventual partitioning and colonizing of 90% of the African continent by European countries
2. The agreements made among the European Countries governing the control of the Middle East, including Iraq, Palestine, and Syria, from the beginning of World War I.
The world is now well aware of the disastrous consequences of these agreements to the indigenous peoples in each of these countries. The people from these countries are the refugees that wait at the borders of Europe today.
In her opening remarks Professor Francois Verges argues
Francoisé Verges is the Chair of “Global South(s)” at the College D’etudes mondiales, Paris. She received a B.A. in Women’s Studies and Political Science at UC San Diego and PhD in Political Theory at UC Berkley. She has written extensively on the memories of colonial slavery and colonialism, Aim’e Cesaire, Frantz Fanon, museums, and the processes of creolization.
that emancipatory politics as a tool to free the emancipatory figure i.e. the woman, the gay, the queer, the worker, and the colonized, is being rendered less effective today by several extant factors.
Among these factors are:
1. Consumerism that has evolved the capacity to both absorb and reject the notion of the “emancipatory figure” as previously defined.
2. The rhetoric of emancipation proposed by the new technology that borrows from the emancipatory discourse of the 1960’s (the USA) and that promotes individual rather than collective participation and pluralism. “Be All You Can Be” the kind of Google dream of emancipation which permits a limitless expansion of self – free of constraint i.e. the emphasis on individual freedom rather than social justice and equality for all.
3. The new politics of dispossession and colonization.
4. The new politics of precariousness and disposability that permits a large part of humanity to be defined as surplus.
The Notion of Post Colonization
Professor Verges takes the view that the site of post colonization today is Europe. It seems therefore that in order to find just and durable solutions to the problems created by Europe in Africa and the Middle East it is important to study the impact on Europe, i.e. the post colonial site, today of decisions made by the generation of Europeans who made the decision to colonize.
1. What is the impact on the descendants of the colonizer of the crime of colonization?
2. What is the impact of the crime on the criminal?
3. What is the impact of the crime on the descendants of the criminal?
4. To what extent are the descendants culpable?
5. How does one distinguish legitimate inheritance from the ‘receipt of stolen goods’?
6. What retribution does the descendant of the criminal owe to the victims of the crime?
These are the fundamental questions that sleep at the foot of the European problem today.
The Notion of Forgetfulness
Professor Verges makes a very important observation during her talk at the Black Portraitures II Conference.
“Freud wrote that forgetfulness is not left to psychic arbitrariness but that it follows a lawful and rational path. Forgetfulness is founded on a motive of displeasure. The capacity of the repressed to express itself is part of this mechanism. Forgetfulness is defined in the space between lives that matter and lives that do not matter and is always racialized. The strategy to combat forgetfulness has long been to challenge hegemonic representation of the lives of the forgotten. This strategy is implemented by making the invisible visible, recording in absence… giving voice to the voiceless. This strategy remains urgent and necessary. But can this strategy radically challenge the fabrication of forgetfulness? How can the practice of addition – adding a forgotten chapter or filing a gap – avoid being contained within the European ethical frame?
There is a reason that the Europeans and the West want to forget various aspect of their collective past. Discourses on slavery and colonization are primarily the preoccupation of the people most affected by these institutions and who still suffer in their aftermath. The descendants of the slave masters and the colonizers have little interest in resurrection those memories. Forgetfulness is convenient and necessary to justify their status quo. The victims however, can never forget, especially as long as they continue to suffer the consequences of the victimization. In the meantime hundreds of thousands, to ultimately become millions, of victimized people with their children, are at the door! The European problem will escalate. The return of the oppressed is inevitable and will continue indefinitely until retribution is made. The time has come for the descendants of the criminal and the descendants of the victim to reconcile and end this cycle.
ReSignifications: European Blackamoors- An Art Exhibition at Museo Bardini, Villa La Pietra, and Galleria Biagiotti Progetto Art in Florence, Italy. (Curated by Awam Ampka, Professor, NYU)
ReSignifications: European Blackamoors, Africana Readings and More
Moderator:
Michael Gomez (New York University)
Professor Michael Gomez, History Professor New York University
“While most of us arrived here from elsewhere by way of plane there is another body of Black Folk trying to get into Italy by way of rickety boats and unseaworthy vessels – thousands of whom have lost their lives”.
With these words Professor Michael Gomez opened the first
panel of presentations at the Black Portraiture{s} II conference as its moderator. In recognizing the plight of the tens of thousands of African migrants and refugees who are trying to enter Italy by crossing the Mediterranean Sea
Professor Gomez addresses the African Migrant issue in Italy.
Professor Gomez brings
into clear focus the longstanding issue of African migration in the relationship between Italy and Africa. The recent and massive increase in this migration has brought this issue to the forefront of the discussion of legality, morality, and modernity.
Professor Michael Gomez, – History Department
at NYU, has produced a highly regarded body of work on Africa and the African Diaspora including, “African Dominion” a two volume work on early and medieval West Africa. Gomez has published “Pragmatism in the Age of Jihad: The Precolonial State of Bundu”, “Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South”, “Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora”, “Diaspora Africa: A Reader”, and “Black Crescent: African Muslims in the Americas”.
“Resignifications: European Blackamoors, Africana
Readings and More”
Blackamoors and More: Blackamoor Statuary at NYU’s Villa La Pietra.
The Blackamoors are the highly stylized, decorative,
The most famous of the Blackamoors the “Moor with Emerald Cluster” by Balthasar Permoser in the collection of the Grünes Gewölbe around 1724.
wood carvings of richly attired and bejeweled African men and women dressed as servants that seem to be ubiquitous in Italy today. These wooden statues were made to represent the African people who appeared in wealthy households of the rich and powerful in Renaissance Europe during the 15th century. The Blackamoor statues may have first been ‘mass produced’ among the high end wood furniture carvings in the 18th century studios of Andre Brustolon in Venice, Italy. Sculptured chiefly from ebony and boxwood, these centuries old relics of a bygone era still survive among the objects d’art of wealthy homeowners throughout the world today. Blackamoors are made today in wood as well as glass and ceramics. They are often encrusted with precious stones and cased in gold or silver and sold in jewelry stores.
Robert Holmes started his presentation on this topic with this provocative request.
Prior to his twenty-five years as Executive Vice President of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Music Group and President of it’s music publishing companies Holmes was Vice President of the Arista Music Publishing Group and General Counsel of Motown Records and Film Works.provocative request.
“Will all the Blackamoors in the audience raise your hands? Not too many hands were raised. Why is that?”
In answer to his own provocation he related the following story. “I’ve been traveling in Europe for over 50 years. I’ve
been visiting the Villa La Pietra since 2001. From time to time
I’ve seen Blackamoor statues in museum shops and hotel lobbys .. but never so many as I saw at Villa La Pietra. In 2004 I happened to be seated next to Ellyn Toscano (the Executive Director) at the Villa. We had a conversation about
“An Allegory of Strength” Carved by Andrea Brustolon for the Venir family before 1706. Brustolon” the ebonist from Belluno”, made the greatest of all the Renaissance era wood sculptures. This piece depicts Hercules holding up a magnificent gueradon with three Africans (carved in ebony) holding up a large oriental porcelain vase and two European slaves (carved in boxwood) holding smaller porcelain vases.
the Blackamoors. We knew about the name moors as a people who swept into Spain in the 8th century…but were expelled in the 15th century.” During the conversation Holmes and Toscano agreed that they had “never heard of the name being racialized during the occupation by the moors. “Never a mention of Whiteamoors”. Bob conjectured that Blackamoors is a “name invented to create a distinction between ourselves and those people who invaded Spain.
Holmes suggested that a way to further the conversation
and make the conversation more widely visible would be perhaps, to stage an exhibition in which the Blackamoors at the Villa were “juxtaposed with contemporary art pieces in a museum setting”. At that point Professor Awam Ampka, in a conversation with Ellyn Toscano heard of Bob Holmes’ Idea. Professor Ampka spoke to Professor Deborah Willis who had recently completed the very successful Black Portraitures I
Karl van Mander III. A Moor Ca. 1640. Oil on Canvas 137×108 cm Copenhagen, kStatens Museum for Kunst Inv. kms 7956 image 22 of 32
conference in Paris, France in 2013 and had not yet formulated a program for a second Black Portraitures conference. The moment could not have been more propitious!
Bob Holmes agreed to finance a mini planning session to be hosted by Ellyn Toscano at Villa La Pietra in the spring of 2014 to include Professors Deborah Willis and Awam Ampka along with a select group of artists and scholars, to plan an art exhibition that would highlight the Blackamoor collection at Villa La Pietra and be included as part of the Black Portraitures II conference. Professor Awam Ampka has curated the
The African man that we rarely see depicted in Western art… Andre Brustolon – Black Warrior Italy (c. 1715) Carved Ebony, 270 cm. Venezia, Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Ca’Rezzonico. Salone da Ballo. The Image of the Black in Western Art Research Project and Photo Archive, W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University
Resignifications Exhibition. It has opened coincident with the opening of the Black Portraitures II Conference and now extends to three venues in Florence, Italy. The exhibition has received extensive media coverage and very positive critical review in Europe and in North America including the United States and Canada.
Robert Earnest Holmes earned a BA from Washington Square College and a JD from NYU School of Law. He practiced law in the entertainment department of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison. He received NYU’s
The audience focuses with rapt attention in anticipation of the question and answer period to follow the presentations by the scholars.
Alumni Achievement Award in 1998 and Washington Square College’s Alumni Distinguished Service Award in 1992. He is past President of the Black Entertainment and Sports Lawyers Association and is an original co-founder of the Black American Law Students Association. Holmes has served on the boards of the Constitutional Rights Foundation and the Liberace Foundation in Las Vegas.
BLACK PORTRAITURE{S} II: IMAGING THE BLACK BODY AND RESTAGING HISTORIES
BLACK PORTRAITURE{S} II: IMAGING THE BLACK BODY AND RESTAGING HISTORIES at NYU’s 57 Acre Campus/Estate in Florence, Italy
CONFERENCE OPENING
Roadway from entry gate to Villa La Pietra
CONFERENCE: DAY #1
VILLA LA PIETRA
VIA BOLOGNESE, 120, 50139
FIRENZE, ITALY
Sponsored by New York University and Harvard University and hosted at NYU’s 57 acre Villa La Pietra campus in Florence, Italy, all attendees at the conference were invited to “explore diverse visual readings of the Black Portrait while challenging conventional perspectives on identity, beauty, gender, sexuality, cosmopolitanism, and community in Africa and its diaspora”.
The self image of people of the African diaspora is inextricably tied to the knowledge, or lack thereof, that these people have of their own history. It is self evident that, given the widespread negative bias, both conscious and unconscious, that civilizations of the western world have shown toward the people of Africa and of the African Diaspora, any discussion by elements of those western civilizations, of the culture or history of African people or their descendants in any media, must be seen as suspect and therefore requiring closer examination. The recent advances made by Africans and the people of the African diaspora, in gaining widespread access to education in all disciplines, and to higher education in particular, now make possible direct intervention into this discussion at the highest levels of intellectual discourse. The number of people of African descent with doctorate degrees from the most prestigious universities in the western world, have increased exponentially during the past 50 years. Many of these scholars have devoted themselves to teaching and to doing research on the history of their ancestors. These scholars are producing a prodigious body of work that shows a marked contrast to the images of the Black Body as historically portrayed by non-African, western scholars in their cultural narratives. Some non-African scholars of the younger generation in western cultures have also begun to make serious contributions toward a more enlightened view of the history and culture of the African people and the diaspora. This conference is energized by the quality of scholarship that is being produced by all these new scholars in this new body of work. One goal of this conference is to provide enlightenment for scholars everywhere, and to stimulate younger scholars of all cultures to embrace and to continue the work. The conference was conceived and presented in a continuing effort to show a “comparative perspective on the historical and contemporary roles that visual art, film, literature, and music play in constructing the image of the Black Body in Western culture” and to encourage the reconstruction of this image as necessary, to present a realistic “Black Portraiture”.
Guests arrive for registration
Black Portraiture{s} II: Imaging the Black Body and Restaging Histories.Guests and Panelists arrive at Villa La Pietra for the opening of the Conference.
A view of the city of Florence from the grounds of Villa La Pietra.
Young Scholars at the conference – Brilliant and Beautiful !
Black Portraitures II: Ellyn Toscano – Director /Villa La Pietra, escorts the First Lady of the City of New York into the opening day reception.Black Portraitures Day 1 Attendees and Scholars gathered for the opening day Reception at Villa Pietra.Opening Reception at Villa La Pietra.Black Portraitures{} II: Scholars arrive for the opening day reception.Badara Seck with a six person band performed for the reception Badara is Senegalese and lives in Rome
“Resignifications” An Exhibition of Art Featuring the Black Body as Subject
Awam Ampka (Associate Professor of Drama at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and Associate Professor in Africana Studies Social and Cultural Analysis in NYU’s College of Arts and Sciences) has organized and curated the “Resignifications Exhibition” as a newly added component
Museo Stafano Bardini, the site of the Resignifications exhibition, was developed from an old church by antiquities collector Stefano Bardini in 1881.
to the Black Portraiture{s} series. Professor Ampka has focused the attention in the Resignifications Exhibition, on the 35 Blackamoor statures that are a part of the Villa La Pietra’s collection of arts and antiques. He has augmented the original collection of Blackamoors with works from contemporary artists who, as Professor Ampka says, “Use the Black Body as subject rather than as object”. By introducing the discussion of the Blackamoor into the Black Portraitures conference by way of an art exhibitions in local museums and galleries i.e.
Fondazione Biagiotti Progetto Arte – site for the Resignifications Exhibition – opened in 1997 by American Carole Biagiotti and his daughterCatherine.
“institutions with long histories of representations and art”, Professor Ampka challenges the way in which these institutions have historically classified and placed the Black Body as he has introduced the Blackamoor into the art museum.
The “Resignifications” art exhibition brings a new dimension to the investigation of the way in which the Black body is depicted in Western Culture.
The Resignifications Exhibitions were presented at the Museo Stefano Bardini and at Fondazione Biagiotti Progetto Arte in Florence and runs through November 2015.
DAY #2
On Day #2 the conference moved to Metropolitan Florence. The historic center of the city is noted for the architecture and great works of renaissance art on public display in the many parks and open squares of the city. Cars are allowed by special permit only making the city very pedestrian friendly.
This 16′ marble statue of ‘Hercules and Cacus’ by Bandinelli stands on it’s pedestal in the Piazzo Della Signoria in Metropolitan Florence.
The Odeon Theatre is located in Plazzo Strozinno. The Palace was originally built in 1462 as the home of the Strozzi Family. The Odeon retains the original sculptures, tapestries, and the stained glass cupola. The theatre seats over 600 persons.
WELCOME
At 9:30 AM on the 2nd day of the conference the lobby of the
Carrie Mae Weems is greeted by Ellyn Toscano and Deborah Willis as she arrives at the Odeon Theatre to register on Day #2 of the conference.
Odeon Theatre quickly filled with the sound of many voices
Scholars and panelists arrive at the Odeon theatre to begin the presentations
as the newly arrived panelists and guests register for the first scheduled panel presentations.
Inside of the theatre previously registered guests and panelists had already taken their seats to await the anticipated welcoming speeches.
The adience waits for the start of Day #2 at the conference
A few minutes later Cornell University’s Professor Cheryl Finley rose from her seat at a long conference table on the stage, walked a few steps over to the podium,
Professor Cheryl Finley introduces Ellyn Toscano
grasped the microphone and exclaimed, “Buon giorno!” to officially open the conference. Professor Finley offered specific welcomes to the scholars, artists, filmmakers, teachers, writers, and students who made up the audience seated in the theatre. She proposed a “weekend of rich conversation and debate”. Professor Finley continued by offering thanks to the organizers and the conference staff for the yearlong effort that they had expended to make the conference possible. She made a special tribute to Bob Holmes whose support had been, and continues to be, universally acclaimed as the pivotal element that allowed the idea of the Blackamoor exhibition “Resignifications” to evolve from a dream to become the current reality at the conference. Professor Finley concluded by introducing Ellyn Toscano, Executive Director of NYU Italy and the host for the Black Portraiture{s} II conference in Florence.
Ellyn Toscano followed Professor Finley’s welcoming remarks with a similar “thank you” to Bob Holmes and also to Awam Ampka with whom she had been discussing the possibility of an academic exploitation of the Blackamoor presence at Villa La Pietra for a number of years.
Ellyn Toscano Opens the Conference and introduces the First Lady of New York.
Ms Toscano reaffirmed the importance of the role that Bob Holmes played in making it possible to mount an exhibition in which the research on the significance of the Blackamoors would be presented. In this context she points out that the primary reason that the Black Portraiture{s} conference is being held in Florence, Italy at this time is because of NYU’s ownership of the Blackamoors at La Pietra. An examination of the origins and the evolution of the Blackamoor concept over it’s history could perhaps provide a fertile environment for the discussion of this particular portrayal of the Black Body in European Culture as well as the evolving relationship between Italy and Africa. Ms Toscano’s description of the way that Blackamoors are typically seen in European culture is particularly instructive. The Blackamoors are viewed as “unimportant pieces of decorative art whose function is to provide a framework for the more important artwork with which they are displayed”. Blackamoors are “generally not read as depicting Africans as subjects of history”. “They exist within a complicated history of exchange between Italy and Africa: the fifteenth century African slavery or servitude that they represent, the period of colonization during which they were collected and displayed at La Pietra, and twenty-first century Italy struggling with a new influx of Africans migrating to Italy.” Her conclusion that “The context is never neutral!” sets a definitive framework for further examination and discussion as is the aim of several important panels at this conference.
As Director of the Villa La Pietra and the host of the Black Portraiture{s} II conference, Ms Toscano then welcomed and introduced the First Lady of New York City – Ms. Chirlane McCray.
The First Lady of New York City – Ms Chirlane McCray is a writer, poet, and lifelong advocate for the arts. As Chair of the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City Ms McCray is directly involved with the Mayor’s program to broaden the demographic reach of the cultural institutions of the City of New York from both the audience and the employment points of view.
The decision to attend the conference by the First Lady of New York was a surprise in that she was not in the original program. Her presence however, added a new dimension for conference attendees. Most conference attendees met, or at least saw the First Lady at the opening reception on the previous evening at Villa La Pietra. When she appeared on the stage the next morning to speak at the conference the excitement to hear her was quite audible.
The First Lady noted in her opening remarks that “Italy, NYU, and thought provoking art” are three of her family’s favorite topics. This trip gave her the opportunity to have them all at once. She made good use of the opportunity.
Ms. McCray described “the intersection of Blackness and Beauty”, to be a topic to which she has given a lot of
First-Lady-of-New-York-City – Ms Chirlane McCray
thought. To further this point Ms. McCray related a story from her school years as a teenager at a predominantly white, all girls, high school. In her attempt, as a naive young girl, to realize the depiction of beauty as defined by the ubiquitous flood of media and advertising to which she had been subjected in growing up, she donned a black ‘Shirley Temple’ type wig with the classic curls. From her reflection in the mirror she felt quite comfortable with the image thinking that she had in deed ‘closed the gap’ and that people would now see her beauty. Derisive snickers furtively shared among her erstwhile ‘girl friends’ at school however, made her rethink that concept of beauty for herself. She was eventually able to find new models of beauty among the cultural icons of her own community that more closely matched her own physiognomy and in the process, to readjust and recover whom a deep seated rejection of herself as beautiful. She delivered a well told story and sent a powerful message. As The First Lady said, “As artists and art lovers we have the power to create new images of blackness… and to redefine old ones”. In this way she went to the very heart, to the essential essence, to the ‘raison d’etre’ for this conference.
Professor Deb Willis Welcomes the Conference to Florence and Opens the Panel Presentations
THE CONFERENCE: A SUMMARY
Panels were typically composed of 5-6 panelists and a moderator. Each panelist presented an essay based on original research and designed to be delivered to a live audience in a total of 12-15 minutes.
The presentations began at 9:30 AM on Friday, May 28th. The final presentation concluded on Sunday May 31st. Presentations were made from 36 panels with an average of 6 presenters and one moderator per panel. During the same time period there were two receptions, one open house, one exhibition of art and sculpture, one full length motion picture screening, and one complete theatrical performance.
The Friday program included 5 panel discussions, one art exhibition, and one reception. The presentations continued on Saturday with 4 panels and the early evening screening of the motion picture “Belle”. The program concluded on Sunday with 27 panel presentations and a theatrical performance of James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”.
The Thursday opening day registration and reception were held at Villa La Pietra. Friday and Saturday panel presentations took place at the famed Odeon Theatre in the city of Florence. The final panel presentations and the theatrical production took place on Sunday at Villa La Pietra.
There were 585 registered conference participants from six continents including Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe, and Australia, England and the Caribbean Islands.
During the next six weeks I intend to review each panel and report the discussion as it occurred during the presentations at the conference.
The program was created, organized, and physically managed by Professor Deborah Willis Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and Evelyn Toscano, Executive Director of New York University, Florence, Italy and Director of New York University’s “Villa La Pietra” site of the New York University campus in Florence, Italy, and their respective staffs:
Ellyn Toscano and Deb Willis organized and produced Black Portraiture{s} II: Imaging the Black Body and Re-staging Histories
Ellyn Toscano is Executive Director of New York University Florence. She is the founder of ‘La Pietra Dialogues’, a center at NYU Florence which organizes and sponsors public policy conferences, and the producer of ‘The Season at Villa La Pietra’, a summer festival which assembles artists, writers, musicians and public intellectuals to produce new works or reinterpretations of classics. Before arriving at New York University Florence, Toscano served as Chief of Staff and Counsel to Congressman Jose Serrano of New York for two decades, was his chief policy advisor on legislative, political and media concerns, directed his work on the Appropriations Committee, and represented the Congressman in delegations around the world. She also served as counsel to the New York State Assembly Committee on Education for 9 years, drafting and negotiating legislation and budget on elementary and secondary education and served on the boards of several prominent arts and cultural institutions. She is currently on the board of trustees of the International School of Florence, Italy. A lawyer by training, Toscano earned an LLM in International Law from New York University School of Law.
Professor Deborah Willis, is University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Professor Willis has an affiliated appointment with the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Social & Cultural, Africana Studies. Professor Willis has been Co-Director for each of the six conferences that make up this series. She has authored many of the seminal works that provide the platform upon which this series of conferences is based. Professor Deborah Willis or Dr. Deb as she is affectionately know by her students, has had and continues to have, an extraordinaire career having literally written dozens of books and essays, lectured extensively both nationally and internationally, and continued to see her own work as photographer exhibited nationally in the United States and internationally.
Professor Willis has been the recipient of Guggenheim, Fletcher, and MacArthur fellowships, the Infinity Award in Writing from the International Center for Photography, and recipient of the Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation Award. Named one of the “100 Most Important People in Photography” by American Photography magazine she is one of the nation’s leading historians of African American photography and curators of African American culture. Willis’s books include Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery, with Barbara Krauthamer, Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present, and many others.
Her newest book, Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty was released by the Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington Press, and a co-authored project, Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery, was released by Temple University Press. Among her other notable projects are Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers – 1840 to the Present, A Small Nation of People: W.E.B. DuBois and African American Portraits of Progress, The Black Female Body in Photography, Let Your Motto be Resistance, and Obama: the Historic Campaign in Photographs. This fall, Dr. Willis curated the traveling exhibition Posing Beauty in African American Culture, which was based on her book Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890’s to the Present and has been on tour in the United States for four years. Michelle Obama, The First Lady in Photographs received the 2010 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work Biography/Autobiography.
BLACK PORTRAITURE{S} II: IMAGING THE BLACK BODY AND RESTAGING HISTORIES is the sixth in a series of conferences originated by Professor Henry Gates at Harvard University in November 2004. Professor Deborah Willis as the Chairman of the Photography and Imaging Department at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU has been Co-Chairman in the six conferences.
Each of the six conferences has made major contributions to understanding the way that Blacks are portrayed through the arts in Western Society. The conceptualizing, development, and management of these conferences along with the quality of scholarship as evidenced in the presentations by scholars from Asia, Africa, The Caribbean, North America, South America, Australia, and Europe have made these conferences high on the list for attendance by professionals with interest in these topics.
The first conference, “Bridging the Gaps: African American Art Conference 2014” was hosted by The Fogg Museum and sponsored by the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. The stated aim of this conference was :“to explore the generational, methodological, and
ideological gaps that exist within the field of African American art and to examine such gaps that arise from differing definitions of the field of African American art and art of the African Diaspora”.
The second conference, “Here and Now: African and African American Art and Film Conference” was organized and hosted by Professor Deborah Willis and the Tisch School of the Arts along with the Institute for African American Affairs at New York University. The conference was co-sponsored by the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Whitney Museum of American Art and the Friends of MOMA.
The third conference“THINK TANK 2010 and Beyond: New Directions in African American Art: Transformative Aesthetic Curriculum Design”was hosted by Dr. Leslie King-Hammond and the Center for Race and Culture (CRC) at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) as part of an initiative sponsored in conjunction with the National Art Education Association (NAEA) Issues Group, Committee on Multiethnic Concerns.
The fourth conference: “Beauty and Fashion: The Black Portrait Symposium” opened in April 2011 and the featured topics were, “Body & Image”, “Fashioning Beauty”, “Reshaping the Public Imaginary through Art” and “Performing Beauty”. The conference was organized and hosted by Professor Deborah Willis and the Tisch School of the Arts and the Institute for African American Affairs at New York University. The conference was Co-sponsored by The W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.
The fifth conference: “BLACK PORTRAITURE[S]: THE BLACK BODY IN THE WEST” Opened in Paris, France in January, 2013 to an unexpectedly large response from the African and African American Disapora as well as from the international community of artists and intellectuals. The organizers, an international group, included Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Deborah Willis, Manthia Diawara, Jean-Paul Colleyn, Lydie Diakhate, Awam Amkpa, Cheryl Finley, Anne-Christine Taylor-Descola, Anna Laban, Christine Barthe, Caroline Montel-Glenisson, Raissa Laheine, Thelma Golden, and Nicholas Bourriaud. It is both important and significant that this project represented the collaboration among such a diverse group of distinguished international scholars, artists, and intellectuals. One aim of this conference was to encourage a broader discussion of the contributions from Africa and the African diaspora in the popular discourse.
The sixth Conference:BLACK PORTRAITURE{S} II: IMAGING THE BLACK BODY AND RE-STAGING HISTORIES following the resounding success of the Paris conference Professor Willis again teamed with Henry Gates of Harvard, Awam Ampka of NYU, and Cheryl Finley of Cornell. New additions to the team were Ellyn Toscano on NYU/Italy, Bob Holmes – NYU, Ulie Baer, NYU.
Kneeling Front Row: Liz Andrews Graduate Student, George Mason University, Hank Thomas Sr. Musician, Hank Willis Thomas Conceptual Artist, Standing First Row: Vera Grant Director Cooper Galleries, Kalia Brooks Adjunct Professor, NYU, Evelyn Toscano Executive Director NYU Italy, Director Villa La Pietra, Mary Schmidt Campbell President, Spelman College, Chirlane McCray First Lady, City of New York, Deborah Willis University Professor, Photography Department Chairman, NYU, Roxanne John Chief of Staff to First Lady Chirlane McCray, Kellie Jones Professor Art History, Columbia University, Lonnie Graham Professor Photography, Penn State University, with Rujecko Hockley Curator, Brooklyn Museum, Johnny Nelson Economist, State of New York, Paulette Young Art Historian, Noura Finley, Cheryl Finley, Professor Art History, Cornell University, Michaela Angela Davis, Cultural Critic, Sanford Biggers Professor, Artist, Columbia University, Lewis Watts Photographer San Francisco, Mario Gooden Architect, New York : Photographed by Terrence Jennings
“A Conversation with Melvin Van Peebles & Walter Mosley”
A CONVERSATION WITH MELVIN VAN PEEBLES AND WALTER MOSLEY
“A Conversation with Melvin Van Peebles and Walter Mosley” took place on Monday night, April 6, 2015 at the Global Center’s Grand Hall at New York University to a full house. It was indeed wonderful to see such a turnout for these two “masters of their crafts”. The event was arranged and moderated by scholar, filmmaker, art historian and Director of the Institute of African American Affairs at New York University, Professor Manthia Diawara. Famed best selling novelist Walter Mosley introduced Melvin.
Melvin Van Peebles in his inimitable style, speaks words of encouragement to the audience at New York University.
It seemed that the night belonged to Melvin. Always as relaxed and comfortable before an audience of thousands as he is before an audience of one, Melvin punctuated film clips of his early films, “Story of a Three Day Pass”, “Sweetback’s Badass Song”, and “Watermelon Man” with his patently humorous background narratives depicting many daily realities of his life on and off the set during each project. Unmasking the wisdom that comes with experience and age, these anecdotes seemed to be both enlightening and entertaining for the audience who, like me, seemed to be unabashedly among the fondest of his fans. One of the things that sticks out in my memory of the evening and that I had not appreciated until that moment was a comment from Gordon Parks in one of the film clips. Gordon Parks remarked that Melvin had been very “courageous” in his work. I think that is “Right On!” for Melvin. The word “courageous” encapsulates the essence of the man in his work and in his life. Good to see an old friend doing good!
Other commitments required me to leave before the conclusion, but I have no doubt that the event will be well remembered by all those in attendance.
