Black Portraiture[s]: The Black Body in the West

The international conference Black Portraiture[s]: The Black Body in the West /Représentation du Corps Noir en Occident is being held in Paris, France January 17 – 20, 2013.

Black Portraiture[s] explores the ideas of the production and skill of self-representation, desire, and the exchange of the gaze from the 19th century to the present day in fashion, film, art, and the archives. The conference draws on the ideas and works of leading and emerging writers, photographers, scholars, artists, curators and filmmakers of our time and includes a broader discussion of Africa in the popular imagination.

I have had a look at the programme and am happy to see that some LGBTQ artists have been selected for this conference. On Friday January 18, 2013, 11:00 – 12:30pm, THE ROUNDTABLE – BLACK BODIES: LIVE AND UNCENSORED, Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7, 15 rue Hélène Brion Amphithéâtre Buffon, includes among others gay male photo artist Lyle Aston Harris (USA) and the panel debate on Saturday January 19, 2013, 4:45 – 6:15pm, OUT OF AFRICA: YOUNG WOMEN BEHIND THE LENS at musée du quai Branly, 37 Quai Branly (Salle de Cinéma) includes among others visual artist Zanele Muholi (South Africa).

The programme reads about Zanele Muholi:

“Zanele Muholi was born in Umlazi, Durban, in 1972. She completed an Advanced Photography course at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown and held her first solo exhibition at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 2004. She has worked as a community relations officer for the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW), a black lesbian organization based in Gauteng, and as a photographer and reporter for Behind the Mask, an online magazine on lesbian and gay issues in Africa. Her work represents the black female body in a frank yet intimate way that challenges the history of the portrayal of black women’s bodies in documentary photography. Her solo exhibition Only half the picture, which showed at Michael Stevenson in March 2006, travelled to the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg and the Afrovibes Festival in Amsterdam. In 2008 she had a solo show at Le Case d’Arte, Milan, and in 2009 she exhibited alongside Lucy Azubuike at the CCA Lagos, Nigeria. She was the recipient of the 2005 Tollman Award for the Visual Arts, the first BHP Billiton/Wits University Visual Arts Fellowship in 2006, and was the 2009 Ida Ely Rubin Artist-in-Residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).”

For more information about the conference contact: blackportraitures2013@gmail.com

Related Link

Zanele Muholi’s online portfolio