Black Bodies, White Gold

Art, Cotton, and Commerce in the Atlantic World

Anna Arabindan-Kesson author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Duke University Press

Published:14th May '21

Should be back in stock very soon

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Black Bodies, White Gold cover

In Black Bodies, White Gold Anna Arabindan-Kesson uses cotton, a commodity central to the slave trade and colonialism, as a focus for new interpretations of the way art, commerce, and colonialism were intertwined in the nineteenth-century Atlantic world. In doing so, Arabindan-Kesson models an art historical approach that makes the histories of the Black diaspora central to nineteenth-century cultural production. She traces the emergence of a speculative vision that informs perceptions of Blackness in which artistic renderings of cotton—as both commodity and material—became inexorably tied to the monetary value of Black bodies. From the production and representation of “negro cloth”—the textile worn by enslaved plantation workers—to depictions of Black sharecroppers in photographs and paintings, Arabindan-Kesson demonstrates that visuality was the mechanism through which Blackness and cotton became equated as resources for extraction. In addition to interrogating the work of nineteenth-century artists, she engages with contemporary artists such as Hank Willis Thomas, Lubaina Himid, and Yinka Shonibare CBE RA, who contend with the commercial and imperial processes shaping constructions of Blackness and meanings of labor.

“Beautifully conceived, consummately researched, and effectively presented, Black Bodies, White Gold makes an important contribution to art history, African American and Black diaspora studies, American studies, and British Empire studies.” -- Lisa Lowe, author of * The Intimacies of Four Continents *
“Anna Arabindan-Kesson's book offers an expansive visual accounting of cotton and its representations, from ‘negro cloth’ to contemporary art, that impressively charts the materiality, meaning, and memory of 'white gold' in the making of the Atlantic world and beyond. It is an exemplary model of African diasporic and globally oriented histories of art.” -- Krista Thompson, author of * Shine: The Visual Economy of Light in African Diasporic Aesthetic Practice *

“Arabindan-Kesson’s book expands the analytic potential of previous art-historical studies that trace the representation of Blackness across the threshold after emancipation.... One of its most valuable contributions to the field of art history ... is its inventive recourse across time, folding contemporary art into a methodology that illuminates subaltern historical conditions otherwise excluded or redacted from the archive."

-- C.C. McKee * Panorama *
"This thoughtful, well-illustrated book offers a long-overdue, original, engaged approach to studies of the cotton economy in tandem with slavery. . . . Arabindan-Kesson initiates new ways of seeing and reading visual art toward revealing and facing difficult truths about persistent race discrimination and injustice. Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty."
  * Choice *
"[Arabindan-Kesson's] beautifully written storytelling is not only highly engaging and compelling to read, but . . . also offer[s] an indispensable account of the ways in which racial capitalism and corporate imperialism have shaped and been shaped by visual culture.” -- Edwin Coomasaru * Oxford Art Journal *
“Black Bodies, White Gold . . . is a tour de force in its seamlessly transnational approach, uniting of historic and contemporary artworks, and creative deployment of theoretical approaches for ethically attending to the absence and the violence of slavery’s archives. Arabindan-Kesson’s commitment to antiracist work consistently drives her analysis.” -- Jennifer Van Horn * Art Bulletin *
“Black Bodies, White Gold is a thoughtful, rigorous meditation on materiality, meaning, and memory. . . . Arabindan-Kesson’s methodologically innovative emphasis on materiality, land, labor, and value has significant insights for environmental studies, showing how vision materially shapes the world.” -- Anita Girvan * The Goose *
“With beautifully-printed images, Arabindan-Kesson’s well-researched text uses a variety of historical and contemporary examples to drill down into the often-shrouded history of the Black lives behind the journey of cotton. . . . Black Bodies, White Gold is highly relevant for studies in art history, African American art, African diaspora history, colonialism, and business and commerce.” -- Suzanne Sawyer * ARLIS/NA *
“Black Bodies, White Gold carefully unpacks the material, representational, and historical complexities of cotton with impressive skill and knowledge, offering a compelling, original and expansive approach to art history, fit for the twenty-first century.” -- Sarah Thomas * Art History *

ISBN: 9781478014065

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 816g

320 pages