Sandro Botticelli’s Fifteenth-century painting, “The Birth of Venus”, has long been considered the apex of female beauty. But there are only so many ladies who can relate to a unadorned blonde woman, birthed from sea foam and emerging from an enormous clam shell. Women who don’t see themselves reflected in Venus’ narrow image have needed to reckon with problematic representations stemming from racism, othering, misogyny, sexualisation and fetishisation.

BLACK VENUS, an exhibition opening at Somerset House on July 20, counters this by showcasing the plurality of Black femininity. Curated by Aindrea Emelife, BLACK VENUS celebrates the pioneering works of 18 women and non-binary artists, including Carrie Mae Weems, Renee Cox, Sonia Boyce, Zanele Muholi, Ming Smith and Lorna Simpson, in addition to an emerging generation of artists constructing on their legacies. Three archetypes lay the foundations for the show: the Hottentot Venus, the Sable Venus, and the Jezebel dating between 1793 and 1930. Each is used as a departure point to look at the depictions of Black women throughout visual culture, while bringing forth alternative images of femininity true to the Black women and non-binary artists behind their making.

Because the show prepares to open – with tickets priced as pay-what-you-can – Emelife speaks with Dazed concerning the show’s personal significance, whether these depictions have modified over time, and the poignancy of the show.

Congratulations on the show. BLACK VENUS tackles an evolving topic and an ongoing conversation. It have to be hard to attract a line when a lot latest work or ideas always surface.

Aindrea Emelife: There are infinite things so as to add. It’s an enormous topic with an expansive history and storytelling that, as you’re saying, hasn’t been touched on. I believe concerning the exhibition, and the book, as a catalyst for further investigation. [I’ve included] some artists who haven’t been regarded for some time but who I consider vital. There are non-binary perspectives because, where there are great Black feminist discourses and Black women discourses in art history, due to the timings of those ideas, there’s not at all times an inclusion of those perspectives. I didn’t wish to fall into the trap of just eager about the normative female body, so I used the word ‘woman’ relatively than ‘female’, as ‘woman’ feels all-encompassing and ‘female’ feels too rigid.

Was there a moment or experience that sparked the concept for the show, more specifically?

Aindrea Emelife: It’s something that’s been in me for some time. Once I was seven or eight years old, my mum taught me the story of the Hottentot Venus. Regardless that I probably brushed it off at first, it stuck in my head at some level, and it popped up so much throughout many steps in my life.

As I grew older, I began to grasp the makings of the world, whether gender politics or how Black women are seen, and these stories became very impactful and a option to understand the entire Black womanhood before me. For several years, I’ve been very curious, reading and researching topics related to this story, whether about Jeanne Duval, Baudelaire’s mistress who was painted commonly by a number of the Impressionists, or looking more on the Hottentot story, or trying to search out incidences of the Black woman throughout other art historical periods.

All of it crystallised just a few years ago after I got here across one in every of Deborah Willis’ texts while eager about the representation of the Black woman in realms of visual culture, whether music videos or fashion, that are other puncture points throughout the exhibition. As you noted, there have been, after all, other shows that checked out Black women, but nothing that spoke pointedly about agency, which I actually have found very central as a curator, but in addition how I desired to move on this planet as a Black woman. I used to be asking, how can I reclaim my agency to be who I’m without restriction?

Why did she let you know the Hottentot story?

Aindrea Emelife: My mother was at all times inquisitive about Black and African history, and I believe she was reading about it and desired to tell me the story. I wasn’t going to be taught about these kind of stories at college, so I believe it was a way of constructing the notice that there’s greater than you’re told, which became a part of my curatorial practice.

The Hottentot Venus is one in every of three archetypes that the show is guided by. The others are the Sable Venus and the Jezebel. How do those two come into play within the show?

Aindrea Emelife: The Sable Venus is one other catalysing moment. It’s this incredible etching of Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’ but replaced with the face of a Black slave woman. It’s an enchanting and emblematic image the perceptions of beauty and idolised beauty.

Throughout art history, Venus has been an emblem of beauty: porcelain skin, blonde hair, birthed from a shell. Replacing that image with the Black woman allows us to query what the world could be like if our icons of beauty in art history, which feed right into a wider visual culture, were more expansive. What if there have been more examples of Asian women or Black women? It also looks at colonial ideas of Black women and allows us to grasp how they were seen.

The ‘Black Venus’ was almost seen as an impossibility. Regardless that I’ve chosen to make use of the title as an empowering phrase, historically, it could have been laughable because a Venus could never be Black. It’s almost a parody of the concept. The phrase is a reclamation, saying, after all, a Venus might be Black.

The Jezebel feeds into the identical idea, which is the sexualisation of Black women, which starts with the Hottentot Venus after which shifts into colonial ideas and really harsh truths about how Black women were seen when enslaved. It also seeps into more moderen features of history, whether it’s how Black women are sexualised in additional contemporary spheres or the exoticisation of Black women and their association with otherness or ‘tribalness’, or with a gaze afforded to other women. What’s great concerning the contemporary artists (within the show) is that many confront these narratives head-on and tackle the emotional labour of these uncomfortable ideas and the way they still come up in contemporary life.

“The ‘Black Venus’ was almost seen as an impossibility. Regardless that I’ve chosen to make use of the title as an empowering phrase, historically, it could have been laughable because a Venus could never be Black” – Aindrea Emelife

Most of the works in BLACK VENUS are photographic, was that a selection attributable to the politics of the camera?

Aindrea Emelife: It was a pointed selection. Photography allows us to grasp the early agency of the Black woman in history. There’s something so interesting about photography and who holds the camera that’s so immediate and all-encompassing. Within the London exhibition, I still strongly concentrate on photography, but I’ve added other modes of creativity and visual culture. There’s installation work, film work, and just a few paintings, so it’s more diverse in medium, and that was a natural progression to have a look at a wider scope of how artists are making today.

I used to be also inspired by just a few key artists initially of my research, equivalent to Carrie Mae Weems and Renee Cox. But additionally into non-women artists like Frederick Douglas and the way he desired to be probably the most photographed Black person, and the way in that activism, there’s a way that the more you’re seen, the more visibility that’s afforded to an individual or kind of person, the more that impacts the world at large. I believe that’s also the facility of photography.

Photography is nearly a more democratic way of seeing that I believe is a extremely vital lens for this topic. There are examples of nice art photography and just a few instances of fashion photography, and the mixture of those two subcategories of photography allows us to grasp the shifting or subliminal messaging that photography has in our day by day lives and the way these artists create counter-narratives.

Lastly, the show is absolutely a who’s who of incredible Black women artists. It’s so exciting to see. How did it feel to work with these artists? 

Aindrea Emelife: It’s the most effective things about this job to interact with artists I like and who’ve been so central in my making as a curator has been very humbling. The opposite thing concerning the exhibition is it’s very near my very own story and experience, and that makes it more sentimental and spiritually moving: it’s concerning the Black woman in art history, but by curating it, I’m learning more about myself day by day and the way my story matches into the exhibition.

Having these artists coming together multi-generationally and geographically will show just how big, boisterous, and expansive all these stories and concepts are. It was vital to be multigenerational because I wanted to grasp the progression of time and sensibility, and in addition the dearth thereof. It shows the nuances of exoticisation, fetishisation, and sexualisation of the Black woman’s body change only by the subtleties of society. Whether it is the Hottentot Venus, a pop star, or someone in our contemporary life. Once you see the exhibition, you’ll understand the passing of time, but not the passing of perception – only a refashioning of it.

It’s not only vital for us to grasp how expansive Black women’s history is and has been, however it proves there’s a lot concerning the world we don’t know and haven’t been shown. Even if you happen to’re not a Black woman or a girl, going to the exhibition, seeing artists wrangling with and articulating this takes the blinders off. You’ll start to grasp that, wow, it’s 2023, and there are still so many other strands of history and experience that we haven’t tackled. 

BLACK VENUS runs at London’s Somerset House from July 20 until September 24

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