Blackamoors, Noble Savages and Mungo Macaronis: the Black Male Body in Fashion Media

The Stuart Hall Library Animateur, Dr Christine Checinska  will be speaking at the Black Portraitures Conference in Florence. Christine will use Stuart Hall’s work as a departure point from which to discuss the image of the black man in fashion media. Christine has kindly provided the summary of her conference paper for readers of our blog (see below).

"Stuart Hall, commenting on the recurring (mis)-representations of the black male body, noted that for each depiction of the savage and the slave there exists a less threatening image of the black as a docile servant and ever-merry minstrel or clown. This paper argues that the Blackamoors, noble savages and Mungo Macaronis present in contemporary fashion media are little more than manifestations of the savage, the slave, the servant and the clown, revealing traces of the ambivalent colonial fantasies embedded in the field. How do these images shape our ideals and identities? How do they relate to self-representation and the everyday performance of black masculinities?

Since the slave trade, images of the black male body have not only adorned advertisements for ‘exotic’ colonial produce like tea, coffee, sugar and tobacco but also the surfaces of objects employed in the ritual of dressing such as boxes of bleaching agent, tins of shoe polish, hair pins, snuff boxes and trinkets. As early as the sixteenth century fashionable members of the English aristocracy donned black masks at courtly functions and, in some instances, painted themselves black as Mores. By the eighteenth century, the image of the black male body, partly through its association with expensive products, had become a marker of status, wealth and style. But could the (mis)-represented black male body, now an ‘object’ of desire, ever be deemed beautiful? How does today’s vernacular black male dress trouble certain Western notions of beauty? How does it challenge Western notions of black masculinities?

Through close readings of historical and contemporary imagery, this paper traces the origins and continued presence of Blackamoors, noble savages and Mungo Macaronis – each one a form of ‘black face’ that renders the individual invisible. It considers the tension between (mis)-representation and self-representation. Vernacular black male dress is seen as a form of counter-gaze able to temporarily overturn invisibility, as masculine identities that break free of the stereotypes noted by Hall are refashioned via the strategic tilt of a hat, or the glint of a bracelet, or the flash of a neon coloured lining on an otherwise sombre outfit."

Dr Christine Checinska Biography

Dr Christine Checinska is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of East London, a Research Associate at VIAD, University of Johannesburg and the 2nd Stuart Hall Library Animateur at Iniva, Rivington Place, London. Christine’s work as a writer and curator is situated at the meeting point between fashion, textiles and contemporary art. A primary concern is the relationship between cloth, culture and race from the perspective of the African Diasporas. Her recent publications include Reconfiguring Diasporic Identities in Beyond Borders, John Hutnyk (ed.), Pavement Books, (2012) and Crafting Difference: Art, Cloth and the African Diasporas in Cultural Threads: Transnational Textiles, Jessica Hemmings (ed.), Bloomsbury Publications, (2014). She combines all this with her work as a design consultant in the fashion industry.

Reporting on 'Bedouin Women and Saga Bwoys' at the Clothes, Cloth & Culture Group 25th September 2014

Dr. Michael McMillan talks about his Gabicci cardigan and 'yardie' style

The Clothes, Cloth & Culture Group autumn programme got off to an inspiring start last night with presentations from Michael McMillan and Sue Jones, delivered in a conversational style that has become characteristic of our monthly textiles hub.

The evening was particularly thrilling at a personal level since parallels could be drawn between the inspiration points for my own body of research – my father’s elegance provided a catalyst for my doctoral research into the creolised aesthetic of the Empire Windrush generation and the impact of the African-Caribbean presence on English male dress; my mother’s stitching provided the creative spark for my current concern with ‘crafting difference’ and the way in which history might somehow be worked by hand, concerns which underpin the ethos of the Clothes, Cloth & Culture Group itself.

At first glance McMillan and Jones’ papers may seem somewhat unrelated. As you will hear from the podcast, through sharing ideas about cloth and memories marked by the wearing of particular clothes, the connections between the two became clearer as the evening progressed. Both spoke of the way in which clothes and cloth allow those without a voice to speak about themselves and the way in which they would like to be seen. Both spoke about cultural entanglements - for McMillan across the islands and across the Atlantic, for Jones across Jordan and England. They pinpointed cross-generational exchanges. They discussed the idea of repeating stories of rebellion and the role that the ritual of dressing plays in the struggle to be seen.

Dr. Sue Jones talking about her mother's embroidery

The richness of McMillan and Jones’ presentations reminded us of centrality of clothes and cloth to the human experience. Jones’ conversation piece, a linen tablecloth embroidered by her mother, demonstrated to us the way in which cloth becomes saturated with cultural meaning as craft techniques and family keepsakes are passed from one generation to the next. This is what motivates each of us to engage in this ongoing conversation with everyday stuff.

© Christine Checinska 26th September 2014

PAUSE: Selected drawings by Barbara Walker

12  June – 13 July 2014 Curated by C&C Gallery, London

Reviewed by Dr. Christine Checinska

Barbara Walker, Pause, exhibition installation view, 2014,
 C&C Gallery. Photo. Liz Evans

Artist Barbara Walker makes drawings of people. She makes drawings of people using charcoal and a soft pencil. She makes drawings of men; huge, larger than life, floor to ceiling drawings rendered directly onto the wall. Each fold, crease, line and blemish of her sitters’ bodies and the clothes that enfold them are sensitively transcribed in the smallest of detail. But we never see her sitters’ faces. And each wall is wiped clean at the end of every show.

Barbara Walker,  Show and Tell : Subject G and Subject H, 2008
charcoal on paper. Photo. Liz Evans

Pause presents selected portraits from Show and Tell, the Dichotomy of Kenny, the Dichotomy of Sean and one new wall piece. It is impossible to view Walker’s work without first being astonished by the sheer scale and by the craftsmanship, by the quality of lines seemingly etched into the wall, or the paper, or the canvas, creating a three-dimensional, almost sculptural effect. It comes as no surprise that she sites Giacometti and Rodin as amongst her influences. Yet these soft charcoal drawings are deeply political. In Walker’s hand the methodical making of lines on a wall and the erasing of them is a form of quiet activism.

The untitled C&C wall piece – a portrait of Izzy, a dancer – heralds a turning point in Walker’s work. It is as though Walker’s voice is manifest with an unmistakeable boldness in the tension between the palm of Izzy’s outstretched hand and the silent snarling mouth of his printed t-shirt. The viewer is allowed a glimpse of the artist’s inner thoughts. Izzy’s hand is outstretched with the palm face up, but his fingers are not flexed in a manner one might expect if being signalled to ‘stop’. Instead his hand reaches out in an act of near supplication, yet read against the dog’s glistening teeth the viewer is forced to pause, to do a double take, to listen to what Walker is saying. Izzy’s gesture is not about pleading to be heard. It is about demanding to be heard. This metaphorical drawing in the sand shouts ‘enough’!

Walker elegantly explores issues around identity, voice, personhood, power and visibility through her practice. She understands the importance of clothes and cloth; the way in which each has the potential to bind and separate us to and from one another; the way in which clothes and cloth have the potential to speak and to signify, to reference Henry Louis Gates Jn. The aesthetic and the political gloriously meet in her soft pencil portraits.

Characteristically, since process is of equal importance as the finished piece, Walker will be removing the portrait of Izzy at the close of the C&C show.  See more drawings on Barbara Walker's website

Barbara Walker, Untitled, 2014, wall drawing.
Photo. Liz Evans

Clothes Cloth and Culture Group first meeting

Thursday 29th May is the first meeting of new Clothes Cloth and Culture Group at the Stuart Hall Library. The event was fully-booked within the first couple of days, so there is obviously a great deal of interest in this area of research and art practice.

The Group is a monthly forum for creative practitioners and thinkers working with cloth. Each month two presenters will talk about their research. There will be an opportunity for informal questions and  discussion at the end of the evening.  Setting cloth into the wider contexts of material and visual culture, the Group will provide a space for conversations about the politics of cloth from a distinctively cross-cultural viewpoint. 

The theme for our first meeting is 'Cloth & The Archive'; presenters will be Dr. Bharti Parmar and Dr. Wessie Ling. Read more about their ideas and research on the Library webpage.

The meetings will be convened by Dr. Christine Checinska, who is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of East London.