Visualising Slavery LiverpooL StudieS in internationaL SLavery, 9 Visualising Slavery Art Across the African Diaspora Edited by Celeste-Marie Bernier and Hannah Durkin visualising Slavery Liverpool university press First published 2016 by Liverpool university press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7Zu Copyright © 2016 Liverpool university press The right of Celeste-Marie Bernier and Hannah durkin to be identified as the editors of this book has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, designs and patents act 1988. all rights reserved. no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-publication data a British Library Cip record is available print iSBn 978-1-78138-267-7 cased epdf iSBn 978-1-78138-429-9 typeset by Carnegie Book production, Lancaster printed and bound in poland by BooksFactory.co.uk In Memory of Donald Rodney (1961–98) Contents Contents List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgements xv introduction: ‘inside the invisible’: african diasporic artists visualise transatlantic Slavery Celeste-Marie Bernier and Hannah Durkin 1 Part I Slavery and Memory in Contemporary African Diasporic Art Chapter 1: Lost and Found at the Swap Meet: Betye Saar and the everyday object Lubaina Himid 17 Chapter 2: Preserves Debra Priestly 29 Chapter 3: What Goes without Saying Hank Willis Thomas 34 Chapter 4: Spectres in the postcolonies: reimagining violence and resistance Roshini Kempadoo 48 Chapter 5: Strategic remembering and tactical Forgetfulness in depicting the plantation: a personal account Keith Piper 62 Part II Historical Iconography and Visualising Transatlantic Slavery Chapter 6: The Chattel record: visualising the archive in diasporan art Fionnghuala Sweeney 81 • vii • Visualising Slavery Chapter 7: Henry Box Brown, african atlantic artists and radical interventions Alan Rice 104 Chapter 8: uncle tom and the problem of ‘Soft’ resistance to Slavery David Bindman 119 Chapter 9: The after-image: Frederick douglass in visual Culture Zoe Trodd 129 Part III African Diasporic Monuments and Memorialisation Chapter 10: Siting the Circum-atlantic: nelson in a Bottle in trafalgar Square Geoff Quilley 155 Chapter 11: art and Caribbean Slavery: Modern visions of the 1763 Guyana rebellion Leon Wainwright 168 Chapter 12: ‘The Greatest negro Monuments on earth’: richmond Barthé’s Memorials to toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques dessalines Hannah Durkin 184 Part IV Contemporary Legacies in African Diasporic Art Chapter 13: We Might not Be Surprised: visualising Slavery and the Slave Ship in the Works of Charles Campbell and Mary evans Eddie Chambers 203 Chapter 14: ‘X is for X ray, X Slave, X Colony’: a ‘Lexicon of Liberation’ versus ‘My Slave History’ in the paintings, instal- lations and Sketchbooks of donald rodney Celeste-Marie Bernier 218 Chapter 15: reconfiguring african trade Beads: The Most Beautiful, Bountiful and Marginalised Sculptural Legacy to Have Survived the Middle passage Marcus Wood 248 afterword: against the Grain: Contingency and Found objects Nathan Grant 274 Notes on Contributors 280 Index 285 • viii • List of Illustrations List of illustrations Black-and-White Illustrations Figure 1: roshini Kempadoo, still image from Amendments: Becoming Venezuela (2007) 51 Figure 2: roshini Kempadoo, still image from Ghosting: Aunt Ruth Calls to Mind All That Happened (2004) 54 Figure 3: roshini Kempadoo, still image from Amendments: Tragarete Road, Port-of-Spain (2007) 56 Figure 4: roshini Kempadoo, Virtual Exiles: Frontlines/Backyards (1) (2000), digital photograph 59 Figure 5: roshini Kempadoo, Virtual Exiles: Frontlines/Backyards (3) (2000), digital photograph 61 Figure 6: Keith piper, The Seven Rages of Man: Panel 2 (1984), mixed media 67 Figure 7: Keith piper, Go West Young Man: Panel 6 (1987), photograph and handwritten and printed text 73 Figure 8: Keith piper, Lost Vitrines (2007), installation 75 Figure 9: Keith piper, Running Away from Lost Vitrines (2007), installation 77 Figure 10: eldzier Cortor, Southern Gate (1942–43), oil on canvas © Smithsonian institute of american art 91 • ix • Visualising Slavery Figure 11: William Blake (after J. G. Stedman), Flagellation of a Female Samboe Slave (c.1791), engraving 95 Figure 12: Henry Box Brown, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself (1st english ed.) (Manchester: Lee and Glynn, 1851), screenshot 107 Figure 13: Simeon Barclay presents his reconstruction of Henry Box Brown’s 1851 visit to Leeds (october 2009). photographs by permission of Simeon Barclay 117 Figure 14: John anster Fitzgerald, Uncle Tom ‘Is God Here?’ (1853), engraving, British Museum 121 Figure 15: eleanor vere Boyle, Nina Reading to Children and Tiff (n.d.), lithograph, private collection 124 Figure 16: Lunar new year, I am / yo soy (2013), rochester mural. Courtesy Lny, CC By-nC-Sa 148 Figure 17: Leroy Foster, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1972), detroit mural 152 Figure 18: yinka Shonibare, Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle (2010), mixed media, royal Museums Greenwich 164 Figure 19: yinka Shonibare, Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle (2010), mixed media, royal Museums Greenwich: showing its placement outside the Sammy ofer Wing of the national Maritime Museum 165 Figure 20: aubrey Williams, Revolt (1960), oil on canvas, 134 × 165cm, © estate of aubrey Williams. all rights reserved, daCS 2014 169 Figure 21: philip Moore, 1763 Monument (‘the Cuffy monument’) (1976), Square of the revolution, Georgetown, Guyana. photographs by Jynell osborne 170 Figure 22: richmond Barthé’s toussaint Louverture monument (1952) surrounded by earthquake shelters (2012). Bronze, over life size. national palace, port-au-prince, Haiti. photograph by Kate Hodgson 185 Figure 23: Charles Campbell, Transformation Set (2004), oil on canvas, 18 × 54in 207 • x •