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DO YOU FOLLOW?
Wedgwood’s slave emblem, circulation and African American visibility
Riviere Nastasia
PHD student, Rutgers University, NJ
DO
YOU FOLLOW?[1]
Wedgwood’s slave emblem, circulation and African American visibility
This paper will address the ways in which
mobility of an image lead to new meanings. It will examine the circulation of
the iconic image “Am I not a man and a brother” from its production to its
contemporary use and displays. Although the “slave medallion” is said to be the
most famous image of a black person and the most identifiable image of the abolitionist
movement there is in fact only a small body of literature relating to it. By
exploring the image’s history of circulation, this study intends to shed light
on the various meanings of this image through times and places.
From the standpoint that ‘no visible image reached us
unmediated’ (Belting, 2005: 304), this study explores how location and
relocation affect the meaning of a picture. That is to say that by taking heed
of the material and institutional dimensions of the circulation of images[2], this
research will look at how circulation and the mechanisms or agents of transportation impact the reception, consommation,
use or resistance to an image. It will demonstrate how the channels or networks
of distribution have significant effects on the visualization of an image. Drawing
on Hans Belting’s claim that « images do not exist by themselves, but they happen; they take place
whether they are moving images (where this is so obvious) or not. They happen
through transmission and perception » (2005 : 302) our approach will
be centered on the image itself and its history of circulation, rather than
from the point of view of its producers or audiences. To use the visual expression of J.T
Mitchell, images « have legs, that is, they have a surprising capacity to
generate new directions… » (1996 : 73). Therefore, this study will
retrace the hectic life of the iconic slave emblem in order to grasp the image
in its rich spectrum of meanings and purposes. This line of inquiry implies a
shift from standard methods of image’s analysis as approached by the traditionalist art history discipline. For
this reason, widening the critical look at images, this paper is methodologically
reliant on poststructuralism and on the discipline of visual culture.
Consequently, convinced that in our increasing interconnected globalized world
it is imperative to consider the implication of movement, circulation and
transport in the study of an image, this paper will re-contextualize the slave
emblem in regard to its different locations. Firstly, we will analyze
the slave emblem in its context of creation. Secondly, this study will discuss
the dissemination of this image as it became an icon and how both its representation and significances were altered through reproductions. As a
result, we will see that the slave emblem became a contested symbol within the
African-American community. Thirdly, we will show how the original design has
lost some of its part in its translation as it was being repossessed by African
American individuals.
The Am I not a man and a Brother?
image is formed by a picture and a text. Consequently, the study of the
dissemination of this image will consider the relation between the image, text
and ideology. Indeed, it will be argued that the image functions as a
discourse, which meanings are fluid and are always negotiated and renegotiated,
through its diverse spatial and temporal locations, but also through the
ideological force in which the image as discourse is used or reproduced. Moreover,
it will also analyze what happens when the image is cut off from its text, and
how the text has been re-used independently from the picture. Considering the “Am I not A Man…” image as an
icon, we will address it as an” emptied form” that is not static, but rather revised, reconstructed and refilled
depending of the context the image is used for. We argue that images are embedded
in particular histories as they constitute powerful tools of propaganda to
support the dominant ideology in which they are created.
[1] Do you follow? Art in circulation
was the title of a 2014 exhibition created by
the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) of London
[2] In Kamila Benayada et François Brunet,
« Histoire de l’art et Visual Culture aux États-Unis : quelle
pertinence pour les études de civilisation ? », Revue Française
d’Études Américaines, n°109, septembre 2006, 50.
Description
The slave
emblem represents a nude black figure with his midsections covered by a white
fabric. As a result, his body muscle is emphasized. His musculature functions
as a visual proof of his social status, he does manual labor. Hands and feet
enchained, he is depicted as a slave, kneeling with one knee on the ground,
with his arm lifted up to the sky in prayers or in a supplicant gesture. He is
not represented as foolish or threatening opposing rampant depictions of black
figures at that time. His head is looking upwards as if he was seeking the
mercy of God or Christian followers on earth. His left foot is slightly curved
as to indicate he is ready to go. This gives a dynamic to the picture and this
element juxtaposed to his musculature demonstrate that the black man has some
agency and is not lazy. Moreover, the black figure draws on antique forms (even
though there is only few kneeling figures in antiquity, the graceful
composition, the drapery and the clear musculature suggest an antique model
(Hamilton, 2013: 638), it is thus enforced with the superiority, grace and
idealized beauty granted to classic models. Cynthia S. Hamilton argues that
Wedgwood’s black figure is indebted to Hercules as he was known as the ‘kneeler’
in astronomy and she remarks that he was also represented with developed muscles
connected to his forced labor. The association with the classical figure of Hercules
brings virtue, strength and agency to the slave figure. In addition, at the
bottom of his figure runs a caption with the inscription ‘Am I not a man and a
brother’. This text is constructed as a question with the inversion verb
subject and the question mark as punctuation. Therefore it implies that this man
is addressing someone. Therefore, even though he shows agency in uttering
words, the fact that he is asking for his freedom in contrast with a person who
will affirm his rights to freedom or take his freedom, the black figure here is
still represented as a patient questioner, docile and dominated waiting to be
offered liberation from his master (God or Christians). While the picture of
this black figure gave a visibility to Blacks during the slavery period, counterattacking
the paucity of positive images of Blacks, the text provides them with a voice,
which the Black man was usually deprived of. Since the voice is often perceived
as the mirror of the thought and of the soul, two elements Blacks were said to
be deficient of, this image restores and rehabilitates his identity with
humanity. Used to create empathy in its beholder, the image will also raise
controversy as it shifted from being viewed as a statement of equality in
humanity to the lamentation of a supplicant.
Visual culture and popular politics: the Creation of the
slave medallion and the Abolitionist movement
The “Am I not a man and brother” design was not
created in the United States as it is frequently assumed. Indeed, it was
created in England by the London Committee of the Society for Effecting the
Abolition of the Slave Trade (SEAST). SEATS’s mission was to inform people
about the ill-treatment of enslaved African and to campaign against the slave
trade. To do so, they spread words of freedom and changed mainly through an
efficient network of books, pamphlets, prints and artifacts. On May 22, 1787,
the committee of the SEAST gathered to agree for the design of the seal of the
society for stamping the wax used to close envelops. Although the society was
formed by a majority of Quakers[1] who
generally despised art as a frivolous and luxurious activity, they were
convinced that such an image could have moralizing capacity. One of the
founding Fathers of SEAST’ s experience with African goods and slaves’ s
artifact is informative of how the society came to regard the visual imagery as
powerful instruments in their struggle against the slave trade. Thomas
Clarkson’s (1760-1846) visit of the Lively, an African trading ship involved in
the Transatlantic slave trade[2],
based on the North West England river The Mersey, had a powerful impact on him
that is continuously repeated in his various autobiographies. In an effort to
gather evidence of the slave trade, he visited many ports. Faced to the
beautiful goods of the Lively, he perceived the craftsmanship and skills that
were required to produce such items. He collected some of these goods believing
that these artifacts could appeal to people’s consciousness in the same way it
impacted him[3]. He carried a "box" featuring
his collection( figure 1 annex), which became an important part of his public
meetings. It was an early example of a visual aid. As a result, SEAST used the
same strategy to communicate their political ideas by creating the design of
the slave emblem on October 16, 1787 in an effort to mobilize humanitarian emotions in
the service of their moral cause. An image (figure 2) of the seal is inserted in Clarkson’s History of the Rise, Progress, and
Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade (1808: 450)
along with its description:
Yet who created the
design and what visual sources they consulted are nowadays unknown. SEAST then
commissioned the Wedgwood’s factory to realize a cameo of the design, and by
the end of the year Frederick William Hackwood, a modeler for the Etruria
factory, finished the cameo. Cameos were already fashionable consumer goods;
therefore it was judged adequate to publicize the movement. Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795),
a prominent abolitionist was also a member of the Society, and a famous skillful
pottery designer (he was even appointed the Queen’s potter[1]).
Wedgwood played a central place in the dissemination of the slave emblem.
Indeed, a philanthropist, Wedgwood covered the cost of production and
distribution of the medallion. Moreover, he was significantly instrumental in
the distribution of this symbolically charged symbol when he created a whole
merchandizing circuit around the design, reproducing it on china jasperware,
enamels, tea caddie, plates, boxes…(figure 3). This constitutes an early
example of what we now call cross media marketing or again a marketing tie-in. Furthermore,
Wedgwood marketed the slave emblem through Wedgwood’ trade catalogues, “showrooms,
and his small team of travelling salesmen” (156). Yet, the ‘Slave Medallion’
seems to be an early example of what Arvidsson (2008) term as ‘ethical
economy,’ an economic system where moral values (instead of current capitalist
profit) lead the production of material goods.
Also, Wedgwood offered to pay for an illustration
of the kneeling slave to adorn the title page of William Fox[1]’s
An Address to the People of Great Britain,
on the Utility of Refraining from the Use of West India Sugar and Rum
(1792). In less than a year,
Fox’s Address became the most widely circulated pamphlet of the
eighteenth century with more than 200,000 copies distributed in Great Britain
and America (Jennings, 2013 : 176[2]). Wedgwood is notably known today as the 19th most influential
businessman of all times (Forbes, 2005), as if he was able to transform a
common design into a very famous brand and more importantly, an object of
desire. Indeed, the slave emblem was very successful across social and
political divide. The slave emblem was an instant hit. Also, Cynthia S. Hamilton (2013) informs us that Clarkson noted that he had
received some 500 such medallions for distribution (633[3]).
As Thomas Clarkson accounts:
There were soon as the Negro’s complaint, in different parts
of the Kingdom. Some had them inlaid in gold on the lid of their snuff-boxes.
Of the ladies several wore them in bracelets, and others had them fitted up in
ornamental manner as pins for their hair»
He thus remarked:
At lenghts, the taste for wearing them became
general ; and thus fashion, which usually confines itself to worthless
things, was seen for once in the honorable office of promoting the cause of
justice, humanity and freedom ( 1808 : 154[4]).
Women, who were at
that time banned from voting, could visually voice their opinion by wearing a
slave emblem pins hair. Notwithstanding a tea set enables people to display
their convictions and beliefs, it was also a way to fashion one’s identity in solidarity
with the abolitionists rather than to take an active part in the movement. Yet, as Adam Hochschild noted, Wedgwood’s
slave emblem was « probably the first widespread use of a logo designed
for a political cause » served as the « equivalent of the label
buttons we wear for electoral campaigns » (2006 : 128[5]) ;
All in all, Wedgwood’s products were imported by lot of country, such as USA,
Germany, and France, disseminating slave’s
suffering and humanity. Moreover, In February 29, 1788, Wedgwood sent Benjamin Franklin, then
President of the Abolition Society in America, a package of his jasper cameos
and slave emblem ‘Am I not a Man and a Brother?’ and wrote:
‘I embrace the
opportunity to enclose for the use of your Excellency and friends, a few cameos
on a subject which, I am happy to acquaint you, is daily more and more taking
the possession of men's minds on this side of the Atlantic as well as with you.
It gives me a great pleasure to be embarked on this occasion in the same great
and good cause with you, Sir, and I ardently hope for the final completion of
our wishes.’
to what Franklyn replied in a
letter dated 15 May 1789:
“ I have seen in their
viewers’ countenances such mark of being affected by contemplating the figure
of the Suppliant that I am persuaded it may have an effect equal to that of he
best written pamphlet, in procuring favour to those oppressed People”.
As early than November
1788, the Connecticut newspapers the New Haven Gazette notified the public that
the ‘American Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade have the following
device for their seal – A Negro naked, bound in fetters, and kneeling in a
suppliant posture – the motto, Am I Not a Man and a Brother!’[6]
and in 1837, Wedgwood’s kneeling slave appeared on John Greenleaf Withers’s
anti-slavery poem Our
countrymen in chains. Wither was an American Quaker poet and advocate of
the abolition of slavery. On the 1837 broadside publication of the poem, we
can read that leaflets of the poem were « Sold at the Anti-Slavery
Office, 144 Nassau Street. Price TWO CENTS Single; or
$1.00 per hundred. ». The poem was therefore used as a powerful of
propaganda, appealing to the reader through the choice of words but also
through the image of the supplicant slave. Also, a note at the bottom of the
poem informs the explicited comparison establishes throughout the poem between
England kingdom and the Free United States : * ENGLAND has 800,000 Slaves,
and she has made them FREE. America has 2,250,000!—and she HOLDS THEM FAST!!!. Most
importantly, the religious reading of the image « Am I not a man » is
reinforced by the poem, where appears at the very end the quotation from the
Bible: “ He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand,
he shall surely be put to death (Exodus. xxi. 16)”. This association of text
with the Wedgwood’s slave emblem renders more explicit the un-christianity of
the slavery system that the original image was trying to convey. Yet, if the
design penetrated the American soil, it was not long before creating raging
debates and for active measures to curtail this surge of free speech. Indeed, the
image was deemed « incendiary » (Patton, 75). In the summer of 1835,
while antislavery partisans were organizing and distributing propagandist tracks,
including the slave emblem on them, through the mail boxes of the South, At Charleston, South Carolina, on 29 July,
a mob of three hundred citizens decided to seize the abolitionist materials and
to burn them. Correspondingly, the « mail controversy » led President
Andrew Jackson to call for a law to prohibit « under severe penalty »
the circulation of abolitionist tracks in the South[7].
However, it is significant to mention that the myriad of representations
copying Wedgwood’s black figure altered some features of the original and as a
result its significance shifted. Indeed, the slave was represented with a more
caricatured set of African features unlike the original that represented a more
universal man as to convey universal human rights. Conversely, through its
multiple reproductions, the slave emblem was being reframed as the Other. Also, his musculature was less prominent and
he is standing both on his knees which consequently, Hamilton argued, gave « him less potential to rise
unassisted » (2013 : 642). Therefore, he was being represented as a less
graceful and a less potently able being, but rather as the Other or victim in
need of rescue from the White man. As a result, the slave emblem became less an
emblem of a common humanity than an emblem for abolitionists to display their
convictions and actions and to fashion them as good believers and potent
saviors. It enabled abolitionists to affirm their own agency.
The
study of the circulation of the Wedgwood’s kneeling slave is informative of the
continuous exchange of abolitionist ideas and objects between England and the
United States, and of the role of these networks in the history of the
abolition of slavery. It is also particularly instructive of how images came to
be considered and used as a vehicle of politically charged message and as tools
to publicize the movement of abolition. Indeed, the Wedgwood’s slave emblem
became a key element in the visual vocabulary of abolition. The mobility of the
“am I not a man..” design testifies of its rousing success and in the effort to
bring awareness to the cause how abolitionist came to pick moralizing artifacts.
Yet, it is also – if not more so- a way to emphasis the role of White
abolitionist in the movement, since as we discussed, people used the emblems as
a fashion statement in support of the abolitionists. Moreover, it also reveals how the
abolitionist movement created a vast network of artistic exchanges. For
instance, American printmaker and engraver Patrick H. Reason was sponsored by
the New-York Anti-Slavery Society to study the engraving technique in London.
In 1839, on his return Reason realized a copy of Wedgwood’s slave emblem in a
copper-engraving of the same title for the Philadelphia Vigilant Committee, an
African-American benevolent organization.
The
« Am I not a man… » design persisted on the other side of the
Atlantic, where it informed representations of African-Americans. Yet, the
« kneeling slave » will run free from its inscription « am I not
a man and a brother ».
2/ Public monuments and contested visibility
The image of the slave,
hands clasped in chains, asking for freedom have a long survival through art
history and African American art history in particular. Arguably, the enduring
presence and influence of this iconography throughout the US visual culture is
another form of circulation of this image. After the civil war, the new society
recently emancipated from slavery sought to represent and/or commemorate the
peculiar institution and American freedom. They often referred to Wedgwood’s
figure in what will become the first time a black figure would appear in
national monuments. Perhaps its most famous visual manifestation is Thomas
Ball’s The Emancipation group sculpture
taking place in the Freedmen’s memorial to Abraham Lincoln. Located in Lincoln
Park, In Washington DC., the sculptural project was completed in 1876. It was financed by freed Blacks; However, it
was the « friends » of the freedmen who would determine the character
of the monument (Savage, 1999 : 92[1]).
Although the freedmen considered a visual monument addressing the freedom of
Black slaves merely as just a representation but rather as an enactment in
itself, that is to say a way to « translate into the sculptural language
of the human body principles of freedom that remained abstract and barely
imaginable » (89), the sculpture however forms an archetype of the slave
emblem, not a freed man. That is to say they modeled the structures upon the
later representation of the slave emblem rather than on Wedgwood’s original. Indeed,
the slave figure is on his knees, but totally stripped off of any individual
agency. On the contrary, Abraham Lincoln stands above him, in a paternalistic
manner. His elongated hand is placed above the slave’s docile curving back, in
an authoritative yet protective manner. Here, the slave emblem is once again
dependent of white authority, both in the realization of the sculptural
project, but also visually as a subject of Lincoln’s liberation. The slave
figure is also naked with the folds of the drapery covering his midsection, yet
there is no heroic aspect in his nudity, but rather a negation of its masculinity.
Manhood is monopolized by the white figure standing upward in its grandeur. However,
the Emancipation group sculpture
succeeded to manifest freedmen’s own civic responsibility in the creation of a
public monument, while Wedgwood’s design rested entirely on White abolitionist
avenues and networks.
Edmonia Lewis’s sculpture Forever Free (figure 7) is an earlier example of the influence
of Wedgwood’s kneeling slave in artwork related to slavery. In 1867, the first documented American sculptor
of African-Indian descent Mary Edmonia Lewis completed her marble sculpture
representing a black couple. While the man’s stance and his raised arm are
interpreted as a triumphant and protective gesture, the woman is kneeling and
begging her hand joined together. The woman figure copies a familiar
image as Sharon F. Patton remarked (2006: 95) : the women’s abolitionist
emblem which was modeled after Wedgwood’s
male slave. Indeed, women abolitionist movements also adopted Wedgwood’s emblem
to proselytize their cause by transforming the male slave into a female slave,
sometimes with the motto: « Am I not a woman and a sister? ». For
instance, The Liberator[1]
used it as a header for the ‘ Ladies’ s Department’ column( figure 8). In
addition, the design was also used to appeal to women’s rights in general, not
just the black woman. In choosing an emblem of slavery, they were expressing
the forceful view that women as a gender were also treated as slaves, as various
forms of patriarchal domination have colonized them. When women are subjected to both the “colonial”
domination of empire and the male-domination of patriarchy, we used the catchy phrase
“double colonization”. The two meaning
of the same image informed us of the various possible readings and
interpretations of Forever Free.
Indeed, many scholars have discussed the complexity of this iconography (see
Kirsten P. Buick, “The Ideal
Works of Edmonia Lewis: Invoking and Inverting Autobiography”, American Art Vol. 9, No. 2 (Summer, 1995), pp. 4-19 for
an exhaustive discussion of the various interpretations). In short, either
Lewis’s sculpture gave a visibility to the female slave ‘s struggle in slavery,
or it gage a visibility to her struggle as a subject of male’s patriarchism,
therefore the victim of both slavery and patriarchal oppression. Moreover, some
regarded the sculpture as a unit not as a group of two oppositional figures as
they remarked that Forever free
expresses visually the African-American family struggle that will face the
community after emancipation.
To
conclude, the conversation taking place between later work of art focusing on
slavery and Wedgwood’s prototype of a representation for a suppliant slave also
inform us of the circulation of an image, and how its meaning can be altered
and transformed through times and places. More recently, the circulation of the
slave emblem prototype has created discontents in the United States as some
people criticized the contemporary use and visibility of this figure in the
modern American society. Indeed, they regarded the slave emblem as a
reminder of the atrocities of American past. Also, they consider it as another
example of a White’s visual representation of a black figure where a black
person is depicted as inferior, supplicant for freedom and as a good Christian
black slave. For this reason, they judged the image pejorative and negative, and
viewed its dissemination as belonging to a racist discourse. Their reactions
offer us a rich insight into the enduring life of the slave emblem and its
lingering impacts. The way people appreciate an image through time also evokes
its circulation, as the reception of an image is channeled through times and
place, discourse and particular histories.
The unrealized project of the African
American artist Fred Wilson entitled E
Pluribus Unum indicates the recurrent problem of representing a racial
figure without conveying stereotypes. It forms an example out of many of how
the African American community feels it has the right of a larger say in the
matter of how they are represented and how their history should be represented,
even though it might be in opposition with dominant ideologies and discourse.
Fred Wilson’s project consisted of a public sculpture representing an
emancipated slave. It was to be located in downtown Indianapolis, yet the whole
project was eventually dismissed as it was faced by major protestations. Wilson’s
cultural scheme was to create a public sculpture with a black figure in it since
Wilson remarked there was only one public artwork in the whole city displaying
a black figure, namely the Soldiers and
sailors Civil war memorial group sculpture (figure 9). The sculpture was made by Rudolf Schwarz in 1902 and the black
figure shares some characteristic with Wedgwood’s slave emblem, notably he is
looking up at the allegorical female figure of freedom, raising his hand
towards her in an effort to reach her. Wilson wanted to “rework” the Schwarz’s
black figure by giving it its independence from the other characters
surrounding it and especially the allegorical figure of freedom. In a sense, Wilson’s
black figure would have looked even more as Wedgwood’s, although Wedgwood’
slave is still tied to another presence mostly because he is representing begging,
implying an interlocutor. Wilson wanted to emancipate his slave figure from any
other controlling or superior figure for the black figure to become simply: ‘ a
person, he is a man, and he can represent something else, something positive;’
His project was driven by a desire to reimagine the black figure’s identity and
to give him individuality and agency as he would have held a flag of the African diaspora.
Wilson’s unrealized project reveals potential reasons why the slave emblem came
to be less frequently appropriated as it was perceived as a negative caricature
of a victim. Indeed, Wedgwood’s black figure proved to be more difficult to
adapt to different contexts and to be re-used through time as it was regarded
as derogatory. Yet, as we will see his text « Am I not a man… » has resisted as it penetrates
various historical events, enter different locations and was appropriated by
distinct social, racial and gendered individuals. This exemplifies how through
mobility some images or some parts of an image move, adapt or stick better than
others.
3/ I AM A MAN
and the archival impulse.
The figure of
Wedgwood’s slave was not the only thing that widely circulated in the United
States. Other parts of the emblem were re-used and transformed to fit specific
contexts and narrations. Indeed, the motto “Am I not A Man and a Brother?” will
re-emerge in various contexts, independently from the figure of the black
slave. As such it is an example of how symbol, icon and myth work as blank
screen upon which discourse can project themselves, that is to say that
Wedgwood’s figure and motto serve as mute candidates for “human ventriloquism”.
By separating the image from its text, both find a new freedom and
meanings.
In 1968, for
instance, during the Civil Right Era, the motto coming from Wedgwood’ s slave
emblem resurfaced with a little adjustment: from “Am I not a man and a brother”
the motto became “I am a man”. As can be
seen, the motto went from a question to a statement. The 1968 motto was being
produced both orally and visually during the Memphis Sanitation Workers' Strike as it was used as a sign. The
strike was captured by the Memphis-based African-American photojournalist
Ernest C. Withers (1922-2007) most famous for his visual documentation of key
historical moments of the Civil Rights movement. Memphis Sanitation workers were taking the streets to protest after
that two workers were crushed to death due to a malfunctioning truck. Using as
rallying cry the sign « I am a man » they expressed that labor rights
are also human rights. The link between Wedgwood’s motto and I am a man give an
in-depth understanding of how they regarded their situation: namely an instance
of modern- day slavery. Using this similar motto they were drawing a striking
visual and social parallel between the dehumanization of slavery and the inhuman
condition contemporary work system. Even though they did not use the figure of
the kneeling slave, the picture transcribes another black body as the producer
of the motto, the strikers. Conversely, by reusing this motto themselves, the
strikers actualized Wedgwood’s slave emblem, not only for commenting on their
actual slavery but also as a way to repossess the fight against slavery. They
are not performing as victims asking for pity as seen on later reproductions of
the slave emblem. Rather, they affirm their agency to spark a march to voice
their struggle. Displaying their physical black body instead of a
representation of a black figure seems to be a comment against visual
stereotyping and ”othering” that are inscribed in slave emblem. However, one crucial difference with
Wedgwood’s motto is the absence of the rest of the sentence: and a brother?. I
will argue that the sentence was cut off because it was not a period when
African-Americans (the majority of the striker during the Memphis strike were
African Americans) sought brotherhood with White men. Indeed, the Civil Right
period also witnessed the upsurge of Black Nationalism and other separatist
ideologies. Moreover, the verb
be is underlined visually as to meaningfully emphasize that African Americans
are not asking anyone to grant them humanity, freedom and right, but they are
rather asserting them since the verb be is one of the strongest tools of
assertion and the present tense also conveys immediacy. Therefore, it departs
significantly from Wedgwood’s original that was using a question sentence with
the subject-verb inversion and the question mark as punctuation. In addition the new motto is a subject
complement where “I” and “man” are equal and interchangeable entity, with the
verb be as a the bond between the two as an instrument of
definition. Thus, they are asserting their full membership in manhood and
humanity.
Wither’s photograph I am a man: Sanitation workers assemble in front of Clayborn Temple for
a solidarity march, Memphis, Tennessee, 1968 has now become an icon of the
Visual culture of the civil right struggle and continues to be widely spread
through a network of merchandizing, such as postcards, poster, book covers… and
other portable objects such as t-shirt or buttons that disseminates the message
I am a Man even further in the same way Wedgwood’s medallion was turned into a
fashion artifact. Moreover, Withers’ s image continues to circulate also via
cultural institutions such as Black history museums (the National Civil Rights
Museum of Memphis for instance) and special exhibitions with the Civil Right
period as a focus. For instance, the travelling exhibition For all the World to see: the Visual culture and the struggle for Civil
rights organized by the
Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture of the University of Maryland, and in
partnership with the National Museum of African American History and Culture,
Smithsonian Institution has
adopted Withier’s image as the header of its online exhibition[1]
and as a cover for its companion book (Yale university Press). The MoCADA museum
also celebrated the legacy of the iconic motto I am a Man in 2008 with a
special exhibition regrouping a dozen of artists paying homage to Withiers’ s
photograph (Sept.25, 2008- Jan. 18, 2009, curated by Kevin Powell). In
addition, during the opening weeks of the exhibition New York Times
photojournalist Chester Higgins Jr., organized a photo shout with two hundred
men wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “I Am a Man” as to recreate Withers’ s
image.
African American Glenn Ligon and
Hank Willis Thomas were some of the artists included at the MoCADA show whose
works appropriated Wither’ s iconic image. Their artistic engagement belongs to
a larger artistic practice of revision, recycling and re-appropriation of found
objects or mass popular culture images that began with cubism and was most
evident in Duchamp’s ready-made of Warhol’s Marilyn for instance. Their work
are also instances of archival
art, that is to say art that “ elaborates on the found image, object and text,
and favor the installation format” so as to “ make historical information,
often lost or displayed, physically present” (Hoster, 2004, 4). This type of appropriation of previous images is another form of
circulation of the prototype image and informs us of its social life, and how
people and artists with their own frame of reference will relate differently to
the image.
In 1988, Glenn Ligon completed his oeuvre
“untitled” ( I am a man) ( figure 12), a oil and enamel on canvas.
Consequently, the message of the Memphis strikers’ s placard is here
transported to a painting on a canvas. Re-appropriation is the touchtone of
Ligon’ s work, whose engagement with quotation, literary and discursive
production represents the core of his oeuvre. Ligon’ s Untitled feigned to be a ready-made as it shares striking
similarities with the Memphis strikers ‘s placard. Yet, by giving a rich visual
and material texture to the word Man, he represents a black body without using
figuration. By doing so, he is commenting on the social invisibility tied to
the Memphis sanitation workers and how they became visible both as Black men
and Black workers when raising the placard I am a Man during the 1968 strike.
Ligon’ s image also expresses regimes of visibility that preconditions the
visualization of black body. Indeed, his black letters are only visible because
they are thrown upon a sharp white background[1].
It is a way to discuss US cultural institutions and its networks, but also the
largest history of black figuration in the US culture with the Whites’
dominance on the definition and representation on Blacks’ identities. This work
can also be interpreted as a self-portrait, a statement f identity from Ligon.
Correspondingly, we are left to wonder who does the ‘I’ refer to? To Wedgwood’s
slave? To the Memphis strikers? Given that his work is in conversation with the
history and the circulation of the motto Am I not a man and a brother? And I am
a man, it draws on the various meanings of the uses of the motto that
ends up merged in this single canvas.
In 2009, Hank Willis Thomas widened the
possible identities which lies in the vernacular statement ‘I am a man’ by re-interpreting
the sign in a series of twenty photographs, creating a sort of timeline of the
use of the sentences through history from “I am 3/5 man , Am I a man… I am
a Man… I am Your man…Ain’t I a woman, I am a Woman, I am Human… I am Amen”.
This series condenses racial, sexual, social, political issues of identity that
are gathered in the text I am a man.
More recently, in 2012, the French street
artist JR brings to life Whitiers’ s image as he took the 14th street
in Washington D.C by covering an entire unoccupied building with Withiers’ s iconic
photograph of the Civil Rights era. His in-situ artistic performance is another
example of what scholar Hal Foster named the «
archival impulse ». He pasted a
giant single image of Withiers’ photograph in the same corner of the street
where the strike exploded, as he stated: “They created such a strong and powerful image that still resonates
today, but in another context. Still people say, ‘I am a man,’ but they care
less about the color [of their skin]. It’s ‘we are humans, we are here, we want
to exist.’ And I like that, I think that’s pretty powerful”[1]
( J.R, 2012 in the Washingtonpost).
CONCLUSION
Studying the “Am I not a man” image through
its history of circulations provides us with a rich analysis of the dynamics of
visual rhetoric. Indeed, from its context of creation, the mechanism of its
diffusion and the agents of its dissemination, discourse were brought into the
image, impacting its reception. They were discourse of dominance and hegemony
that fixed the experience of Wedgwood’s black figure into a victim. The circulation of this image also informs us
about the visibility of Black figures through times and how little by little not
only more visibility was required by African Americans but also different kind
of representations in which the African American community will be in control
of the depiction and presentation of the black figure. With this in mind, we
are offered accordingly an in-depth understanding of why people and artists
feel the need to re-appropriate the image as it is informative of why the
circulation of the image in the public society triggers some discontents.
Consequently, the study of the image’s circulation has enabled us to grasp the
varieties of meanings attached to it and the role it has plays in the
visibility of black figures. While some parts of the image were lost through
time at the advantage of others, we suggested that the separation of the text
from the image was a liberation for the survival of the image. It was reshaped
into a direct experience of black and white lettering without the derogative
representation of a black figure. Accordingly, the motto I am a man was
reshaped into a universal statement of racial, sexual and social content and
stands more in line with Wedgwood’s original.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Belting
, Hans, « Image, Medium, Body: A New Approach to
Iconology », Critical Inquiry; Winter 2005; 31, 2; ProQuest
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Benayada, Kamila ; Brunet, François.,
« Histoire de l’art et Visual Culture aux États-Unis : quelle
pertinence pour les études de civilisation ? », Revue Française
d’Études Américaines, n°109, septembre 2006
Bernier, Celeste Marie, Newman,
Judie., Public Art, Memorials and
Atlantic Slavery, Routledge, 2013
Clarkson, Thomas , edt by James P. Parke, The history of the rise, progress, &
accomplishment of the abolition of the African slave-trade, by the British
Parliament , No. 119, High street,
1808
Foster, Hal, « the archival impulse », October,
vol.110, Autumn 2004, the MIT PRESS
Hall, Stuart, Representation: Cultural
Representations and Signifying Practices, SAGE, 8 avr.
1997
Hamilton, Cynthia S. « Hercules Subdued: The Visual Rhetoric
of the Kneeling Slave, Slavery & Abolition: A Journal of Slave and
Post-Slave Studies », Routledge, 2013
Historicus, ‘February 5,
1788’, The New Haven Gazette, and the Connecticut Magazine,
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3, 45.
Hochschild, Adam, Bury the Chains: Prophets and
Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves, Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt, 2006
Jennings, Judith, The Business of Abolishing the
British Slave Trade, 1783-1807, Routledge, 2013
Jones,
Phillip E., Mariners, Merchants And The
Military Too, A history of the British empire,
Mercieca, Jennifer Rose, “The
Culture of Honor: How Slaveholders Responded to the Abolitionist Mail Crisis of
1835”
Mitchell, W. J. T,
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Als, Hilton ; Golden, Thelman, Glenn
Ligon: America, Whitney Museum of American Art, 2011
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SITOGRAPHY
Official website of the African
American artist Fred Wilson: http://www.fredwilsonindy.org/
Official website of the African
American artist Hank Willis
Thomas : http://www.hankwillisthomas.com
The library
of congress: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2008661312/
The
exhibition for all the world to see website: http://www.umbc.edu/cadvc/foralltheworld/
[1] Maura Judkis “French artist JR covers D.C. building with
iconic photo of civil rights era » Washington
post, 2012, retrived at http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/french-artist-jr-covers-dc-building-with-iconic-photo-of-civil-rights-era/2012/10/10/8f02e080-12fd-11e2-a16b-2c110031514a_story.html
[1] He further
explored this relation in his 1990 work entitled I feel most colored when i am thrown against a shapr white background
, appropriating the famous quote of the African American writer Zora Neal
Hurson’s book How it feel to be a colored
me.
[1] The liberator ( 1831-1865) was originally an abolitionist
neswpaper and also became a woman’s rights advocators when in 1838 they
made the paper’s goal “to redeem woman as well as man from a servile to an
equal condition,” it would support “the rights of woman to their utmost
extent ».
[1] Savage, Kirk ,
Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in
Nineteenth-century Americ, a Princeton University Press, 1999
[1] http://www.brycchancarey.com/abolition/williamfox.htm, the address advocated to restrain from West Indian produce as a means
of ending the slave trade. It led to the Abstention movement.
[2] Judith Jennings , The Business of Abolishing the British Slave
Trade, 1783-1807, Routledge, 2013
[3] Cynthia S. Hamilton, « Hercules Subdued: The Visual
Rhetoric of the Kneeling Slave, Slavery & Abolition: A Journal of Slave and
Post-Slave Studies », Routledge, 2013
[4] , Thomas Clarkson , edt by James
P. Parke, The history of the rise, progress, & accomplishment of the
abolition of the African slave-trade, by the British Parliament , No. 119, High street, 1808
[5] Adam Hochschild , Bury the Chains: Prophets and
Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves, Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt, 2006
[6] Historicus, ‘February 5, 1788’, The New
Haven Gazzette, and the Connecticut Magazine,
November 13, 1788, 3, 45.
[7] Jennifer Rose Mercieca, “The
Culture of Honor: How Slaveholders Responded to the Abolitionist Mail Crisis of
1835” at https://www.academia.edu/227142/The_Culture_of_Honor_How_Slaveholders_Responded_to_the_Abolitionist_Mail_Crisis_of_1835
[1] Celeste Marie Bernier, Judie
Newman, Public Art,
Memorials and Atlantic Slavery, Routledge, 2013, p 83
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