The portrayal of the nude body, particularly the nude African American body, carries a complex history deeply intertwined with themes of exploitation, objectification, and more recently, empowerment and cultural affirmation. This article explores the evolution of this representation in art, highlighting the works of several key African American artists who challenge traditional norms and celebrate Black identity.
Naked Black bodies are not new to American history or art.
From images of captured Africans chained on slave ships or being violated at slave auctions to magazine and movie images portraying the tribal attire of certain African tribes as the nakedness of immoral savages, the Black body exposed like chattel is well documented.
What is relatively new in Western culture is the portrayal of naked Black bodies as symbols of beauty, art and culture, willing vulnerability, and motivators of social justice.
These are the portrayals that can awaken and inspire to action any individual, especially individuals committed to social justice and/or to being people who put faith into action.
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This also is the art that can empower, inspire, and in both conscious and unconscious ways have a positive impact on the self-image of Black women of all ages.
When the portrayals of Black bodies in photographs and paintings are used in these ways, they become acts of moral agency. They become acts in which the artist is challenging and broadening the way we view what is normal, appropriate, and ethical.
Spaces such as Gallery...
Lacking representation in mainstream institutions, African American artists opened their own venues in the 1960s and 1970s.
Augusta Savage: A Pioneer of Black Art
Augusta Savage was a highly regarded civil rights activist, educator, community leader, and artist.
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She came to New York in the 1920s and earned an art degree from Cooper Union.
Savage sculpted Nude Torso, in academic realist style, after returning from studies at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris.
A sculpture of painted plaster depicting a the torso of a nude woman.
Painted a dark gold, the body is shown from mid-thigh to the neck.
The figure bends slightly forward and to the right, with the left hand placed above the breast, palm flat and fingers spead.
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The right arm is held straight and slightly to the rear of the right side.
Dimensions:
- H x W x D (statue): 16 1/4 × 9 × 9 in.
- H x W x D (base): 2 5/8 × 10 × 7 3/4 in.
Augusta Savage, Bust of Mercy, Obelisk
Nona Faustine: Confronting Historical Trauma
Nona Faustine investigates the dissonance between the past and the present of these complex spaces. One self-portrait of the artist, shows her ascending the stairs of City Hall, whose site was an original African burial ground.
“The concept of ‘We the People’ was undermined and sullied from the beginning by slavery.
Nona Faustine, Of My Body I will Make Monuments in Your Honor (2014).
“Standing at Wall Street at the exact spot where they sold Native and African men, women, and children 150 years ago, I wasn’t able to feel any of the horrific sorrow and pain of the activities that once went on there,” Faustine told the Huffington Post.
“Perhaps it was a defense mechanism that wouldn’t allow me to tap into that for fear of crumbling.
What I did feel was the energy of New York City, an incredible force.
There I found myself at the curtain of time between two eras, past and present.
Nona Faustine, From Her Body Sprang Their Greatest Wealth (2013).
Nona Faustine, White Shoes at Wall Street
Amoako Boafo: Celebrating Blackness
Amoako Boafo’s paintings emerge from direct touch.
To create his lush portraits, he combines intricate brushwork and thick, finger-painted strokes.
Swirling ribbons of paint add depth and dimension to the faces and hands of his subjects.
Understated backgrounds draw attention to contemplative and unguarded figures who look intently at the viewer.
Amoako Boafo: Soul of Black Folks is the artist’s debut solo museum exhibition in the United States.
The show’s title is inspired by The Souls of Black Folk, the seminal ethnographic study of Black life published in 1903 by the sociologist and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois.
Born in 1984 and raised in Accra, Ghana, Amoako Boafo makes art with tenderness and conviction.
Intimately connected to his experience living and working between Africa and Europe, his paintings are deeply personal.
They serve as a means of self-preservation and self-affirmation-a celebration of his identity and Blackness.
I want them to own the space.
Boafo gives us a glimpse into his solitary subject’s domestic space.
The spare scene contrasts with the rich texture of the artist’s painterly technique, which gives the seated figure a palpable energy.
Her confident gaze suggests a woman unapologetically owning the body and space she inhabits.
Basquiat-Buttoned Jacket portrays the American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent.
Basquiat rose to fame in New York City in the 1980s with energetic paintings that disclosed issues of wealth inequality, colonialism, and the lack of representation of Black people in art.
This lack of instrumental barrier sets me free and diffuses a barrier between myself and the subject.
Personal style and fashion are recurring themes in Boafo’s work.
His titles often direct our attention to a specific garment worn by his subjects.
Dressed in black and donning a black beret, the figure in this painting recalls images of the Black Panther Party, a Black power political organization founded in Oakland, California, in 1966.
Boafo renders the figure’s skin with brown and blue tones.
Umber Brown Belt demonstrates the textiles and patterns that have become synonymous with Boafo’s practice.
Here, the artist employs a photo-transfer technique to add an ornate flower pattern to the women’s creamy tunic.
Fashion is also a big thing for me: It’s a way of saying something without actually saying it.
Amoako Boafo
