The Fact of Blackness: Frantz Fanon and Visual Representation

214 Pages·1996·3.346 MB·English

by  Alan Read (editor), Homi K. Bhabha, Stuart Hall, bell hooks, Gilane Tawadros, Françoise Vergès, Lola Young, Martina Attille, Mark Latamie, Kobena Mercer, Isaac Julien, Renee Green, Lyle Ashton Harris, Ntozake Shange, Mark Nash, Raoul Peck

FrantFza nona nd
VisuaRle presentation
Editebdy A lanR ead
The Fact of Blackness
Frantz Fanon and
Visual Representation
Edited by Alan Read
Institute of Contemporary Arts
Institute of International Visual Arts
London
Bay Press
Seattle

TheF acotf Blackness
FrantFza noann dV isuRaelp resentation
InstitoufCt oen temporAarrtys L,o ndon
BayP resSse,a ttle
© 1996 this collectIinosnt:i touftC eo ntemporaArrtys London
© 1996 individcuoanlt ributtihoena su:t hors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form
or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publisher
IC A o�N�sT;•TEuMTPeO OAAF RVI Spo nsored by
TOSHIBA
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is sponsored by
Toshiba and financially assisted by the Arts Council of
England, Westminster City Council and the British
Film Institute. Educational charity registered number
236848
ISBN Bay Press 0-941920-43-7
(USA & World rights, excluding UK & Ireland)
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British Library cataloguing-in-publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library
Library of Congress number 96-11416
Thibso okh asb een publiwsihtehtd h ef inancaisasli staonfc e
the Arts Council of England
andi nc ollaborawtiitohn
the Institute of International Visual Arts

Contents
08 Preface
Alan Read
12 I. Stuart Hall
The After-life of Frantz Fanon: Why Fanon? Why Now?
Why Black Skin, White Masks?
38 Dialogue
Homi K Bhabha, Stuart Hall, bell hooks, Gilane Tawadros,
members of the audience
46 Franc;oise Verges
Chains of Madness, Chains of Colonialism:
Fanon and Freedom
76 bell hooks
Feminism as a persistent critique of history:
What's love got to do with it?
86 Lola Young
Missing persons:
Fantasising Black Women in Black Skin, White Masks
102 Dialogue
Lola Young, bell hooks, Gilane Tawadros, Martina Attille,
Mark Latamie, Homi K Bhabha, Fran�oise Verges
114 Kobena Mercer
Decolonisation and Disappointment:
Reading Fanon's Sexual Politics
132 Dialogue
Homi K Bhabha, Fran�oise Verges, Kobena Mercer,
bell hooks, Isaac Julien, members of the audience
144 Artists' dialogue
Renee Green, Lyle Ashton Harris, Mark Latamie, Ntozake
Shange, Homi K Bhabha, Stuart Hall, Gilane Tawadros,
members of the audience
166 Film-makers' dialogue
Mark Nash, Isaac Julien, Martina Attille, Raoul Peck,
Homi K Bhabha
180 Dialogue
bell hooks, Homi K Bhabha, Gilane Tawadros,
Lyle Ashton Harris, members of the audience
186 II. Homi K Bhabha
Day by Day. .. with Frantz Fanon
206 Notes on contributors
08
Preface
This book is intended to create a dialogue between Frantz Fanon's
ideas on the significance of intellectual work, the politics of location,
everyday traumas of socfal inequality, minorities and their experience
of the contemporary metropolis, and artists and thinkers whose work
has been concerned with the structures and technologies of
representation, race and radicalism.
There are few figures through whom this complex of concerns could
be illuminated - Frantz Fanon is one. The name of Fanon, author of
seminal works such as Black SkinJ W'hite Masks and The Wretched of
the EarthJ is well known, yet the particular geographical and political
conjuncture of his work, coupled with a radical commitment to
psychiatry, remains an evocative and problematic terrain for
contemporary reconsideration.
The legacy of Fanon's work provided the touchstone for Mirage:
Enigmas of RaceJ Difefrence and DesireJ an exhibition, film, live art and
discussion programme which was held at the Institute of
Contemporary Arts in London between May and July 1995. These
events were preceded by a conference, 'Working with Fanon:
Contemporary Politics and Cultural Reflection'. Artists from the
building-wide project joined theorists and cultural practitioners from a
diversity of disciplines to take Fanon on, to engage with each other's
perspectives on his influence and to seek the resonance between their
work and his work. The purpose was not to detect the effect of Fanon,
but to work with Fanon in understanding how narrative, the media,
image and symbol lie at the very heart of the practice of politics and
social knowledge.
The Fact of Blackness is one after-effect of this work. It takes its title
from a seminal chapter in Black SkinJ W'hite Masks which provided a
provocative location for conference debate. In order to maintain the
disagreements and discussions that characterised the life of the
conference, dialogues have been included throughout the book which
develop various aspects of the papers. The dynamic relationship
between talking and doing which the Mirage events evoked, where the
practice of artists rubbed up against the thoughts of speakers,
provides another context. Yet what follows has specific additional
aims: to reconsider the critical context of Fanon; to articulate the
precise historical and professional milieus of his work; to discuss
09
artists' affiliations with the nexus of race, representation and
radicalism which were also Frantz Fanon's concerns; and to reiterate
ways m which these concerns are already inscribed within
contemporary politics.
The book moves towards looking; towards the distracted glimpse of
recognition in the day-to-day encounter and the concentrated gaze of
speculation in an artist's work. Looking marks the inextricable link
between words, particularly those of Frantz Farron, and the public
world of sights and sounds: the common place of daily acts, which
both resists and reinforces the tyrannies of injustice.
Thanks are due to the following individuals and institutions for their support oft his
project:
To Andrea Phillips, for working with me as editorial partner and for her dedicated
management of the production of this project; to Ian Farr, co-ordinator of its production
and funding; to Yumi Matote, the book's designer; to David A Bailey, without whose vision
the Mirage season, the conference and this publication would not have taken place, and to
his colleagues on the editorial advisory board, Gilane Tawadros and Catherine Ugwu; to
Helena Reckitt who collaborated with me in organising the conference 'Working with
Fanon'; to Homi K Bhabha who advised on the conference and chaired the proceedings; to
all participants in the conference, including the audience, whose thoughts make up the
heart of this book; to the Arts Council of England Visual Arts Department and Symposia
Fund for funding the conference and this publication; to the Institute of International
Visual Arts for collaborating with the ICA on Mirage and on this volume; and to the
Institute of Contemporary Arts and Bay Press whose financial commitment to this book
has brought it about.
We are also grateful to: Steve McQueen, Isaac Julien, Mark Nash, Martina Attille, Renee
Green, Lyle Ashton Harris, Sonia Boyce, Ntozake Shange, Marc Latamie, Raoul Peck,
Paul Gilroy, Thelma Golden, Sander L Gilman, Pat Hearn Gallery, Jack Tilton Gallery, the
Peter Norton Family Foundation.
Alan Read
ICA Director of Talks