The Black Female Body: A Photographic History. - book review

Afterimage, May, 2002 by Stephanie Dinkins

Deborah Willis and Carla Williams

Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2002

The Black Female Body is a fascinating survey of photographic representations of black women of African descent. Authors Deborah Willis and Carla Williams, both practicing photographers and prolific writers, present a spectrum of images that range from early ethnographic documents of "Hottentot Venuses, whose generous buttocks made them popular specimens in zoological gardens at the world expositions of nineteenth-century Europe, to the self-aware images of Renee Cox who photographs her nude, physically-fit body to create icons of strength and beauty for the twenty-first century. The accompanying text seeks to deconstruct and (re)contextualize the images presented to reveal the ways in which perceptions of black women have been informed and constructed by Western photographic practice.

In the preface of their book, Willis and Williams assert; "in Western art the representation of the black female has been largely determined by prevailing attitudes toward race, gender and sexuality...." They support this claim with a rigorous text, that deftly addresses issues of power and responsibility as they pertain to the creation and dissemination of photographic representations of black women, and more than 180 beautifully reproduced images, some rarely seen in a public arena, that span the entire breadth of photographic history.

Rather than adhere to a strict timeline the authors have organized The Black Female Body around three major themes-"Colonial Conquest," "The Cultural Body" and "The Body Beautiful"--that allow them to draw conclusions and follow threads of visual kinship over decades. In doing so, they have infused their book with a historical agility that effectively illuminates photographic tropes that repeatedly inscribe notions of an objectified, negated and/or sexualized black female body onto the Western psyche. This is not to suggest that the authors should have avoided reprinting some of the more derogatory or titillating images in the book with the hope that they would thereby render them obsolete. After all, it is only by revisiting and confronting difficult pictures, as many contemporary artists included in the book do, that such images can be persuasively reimagined to forge a broader, self-determined vision of the black female physique.

Willis and Williams position their book as a comprehensive introduction to the history of black women as framed by photographs of their bodies. The Black Female Body: A Photographic History is exactly that and more. On one level, it is a winding excursion through an under-examined photographic legacy that continues to influence how black women are viewed by themselves and others. On another level, it is an adroit study of the role representation plays in the construction of identity, perpetuation of culture and distribution of power. And, perhaps most importantly, The Black Female Body is a gateway-an open invitation to the continued research of the imaging of black women in all mediums.

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