Research Catalog

Title

Fictions of emancipation : Carpeaux's Why born enslaved! reconsidered / edited by Elyse Nelson and Wendy S. Walters.

Author

Carpeaux, Jean-Baptiste, 1827-1875

Publication

• New York : The Metropolitan Museum of Art, [2022]
• ©2022

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Nelson, Elyse
• Walters, Wendy S.
• Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), host institution.

Description

139 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color); 23 cm

Summary

• "This groundbreaking publication on Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's (1827-1875) bust Why Born Enslaved! examines the work in the context of transatlantic abolitionist movements and France's colonialist fascination with Africa in the nineteenth century. Thoughtful essays by noted art historians and literary scholars, including Adrienne L. Childs, James Smalls, and Wendy S. Walters, unpack European artists' engagement with the Black figure, simultaneously evoked as a changeable political symbol and a representation of exoticized beauty and desire. The authors compare Carpeaux's sculpture to works by his contemporaries, such as Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier, Edmonia Lewis, and Louis Simon Boizot, as well as to objects by twenty-first-century artists Kara Walker and Kehinde Wiley. In so doing, the book critically examines the portrayal of Black emancipation and personhood; the commodification of Black images to assert social capital; the role of sculpture in generating the sympathies of its audiences; and the relevance of Carpeaux's sculpture to legacies of empire in the postcolonial present. It will also feature a chronology of events central to the nineteenth-century antislavery movement."--Publisher's description.
• "Organized around a single object--the marble bust Why Born Enslaved! by French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux--Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast is the first exhibition at The Met to examine Western sculpture in relation to the histories of transatlantic slavery, colonialism, and empire. Created in the wake of American emancipation and some twenty years after the abolition of slavery in the French Atlantic, Why Born Enslaved! was shaped by the enduring popularity of antislavery imagery, the development of nineteenth-century ethnographic theories of racial difference, and France's colonialist fascination with Africa. The exhibition will explore the sculpture's place within these contexts. Featuring more than thirty-five works of art in sections unfolding around Carpeaux's sculpture, Fictions of Emancipation will offer an in-depth look at portrayals of Black enslavement, emancipation, and personhood with an aim toward challenging the notion that representation in the wake of abolition constitutes a clear moral or political stance. Important works by Josiah Wedgwood, Fřďric Auguste Bartholdi, Charles Cordier, Edmonia Lewis, Louis-Simon Boizot, and others will show how Western artists of the nineteenth century engaged with the Black figure as a political symbol and site of exoticized beauty, while contemporary sculptures by Kara Walker and Kehinde Wiley will connect the dialogue around Carpeaux's bust to current conversations about the legacies of slavery in the Western world. This exhibition was conceived in collaboration with guest curator Wendy S. Walters and enriched through conversations with numerous intellectual partners. It is one of many projects that the Museum is undertaking in an effort to reassess and broaden the narratives it presents about the past and present."--Metropolitan Museum of Art website.

Alternative Title

Carpeaux's Why born enslaved! reconsidered

Subject

• Carpeaux, Jean-Baptiste, 1827-1875. > Exhibitions
• Carpeaux, Jean-Baptiste, 1827-1875 > Criticism and interpretation
• Slavery in art > Exhibitions
• Black people in art > Exhibitions
• Sculpture, French > 19th century > Exhibitions
• Sculpture > Exhibitions
• Slavery in art

Genre/Form

Exhibition catalogs.

Note

• "This catalogue is published in conjunction with Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from March 10, 2022, through March 5, 2023."--Title page verso.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 108-126) and index.

Contents

Preface / Sarah E. Lawrence -- In the gallery / Wendy S. Walters -- Introduction / Wendy S. Walters and Elyse Nelson -- The vanquished unchained : abolition and emancipation in sculpture of the Atlantic world / Adrienne L. Childs -- White fragility : abolitionist porcelain in revolutionary France / Iris Moon -- Sculpting about slavery in the Second Empire / Elyse Nelson -- Plates -- Dressing up/stripping down : ethnographic sculpture as colonizing act / James Smalls -- Presumptions on the figure, given the absences / Wendy S. Walters -- Reproducing and refusing Carpeaux / Caitlin Meehye Beach -- Chronology / Rachel Hunter Himes.

Call Number

Sc E 22-856

ISBN

• 9781588397447
• 1588397440

LCCN

2022286102

OCLC

1262192862

Author

Carpeaux, Jean-Baptiste, 1827-1875, artist.

Title

Fictions of emancipation : Carpeaux's Why born enslaved! reconsidered / edited by Elyse Nelson and Wendy S. Walters.

Publisher

New York : The Metropolitan Museum of Art, [2022]

Copyright Date

©2022

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 108-126) and index.

Added Author

Nelson, Elyse, editor.

Walters, Wendy S., editor, organizer.

Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), host institution.

Research Call Number

Sc E 22-856