Umasifanisane I (Comparison I) from The Self Portrait Project (2007/2013)

Inscriptions

Signed, lower left, in graphite: NOMUSA MAKHUBU; inscribed, lower center, in graphite: UMASIFANISANE I (2013); inscribed, lower right, in graphite: AP

Label

Nomusa Makhubu developed her Self-Portrait series within a body of work that examines representations of African women in colonial photography from 1870 to 1920. In Self-Portrait, Makhubu projects archival images onto her body, which recedes into the background, becoming integrated with the projected image. Interrogating the "documentary" aspect of photography, the artist provides a haunting glimpse into colonial images that represented African bodies as social documents about the "native" and advanced scientific racism by reducing them to phenotypes. Their original titles, such as Comparison I, allowed the images to "masquerade as truthful scientific categories." By retitling them in Zulu, Makhubu questions their "contextual ‘truthfulness.’ "Makhubu explains: "I wanted to explore ways in which it might be possible to subvert that hierarchy and re-write the political implications in the photograph. . . . The women in the photographs that I selected had come to represent the collectivities of women and men who have been subjected to the dehumanizing scientific gaze."

From the 2020 exhibition Reconstitution, curated by Jessica Hong, Associate Curator of Global Contemporary Art

Course History

SART 17.9, The Photographer as Activist: Making Art Inspired by the Hood Museum's Collection, Virginia Beahan, Winter 2015

First Year Student Enrichment Program – Cultures, Identities and Belongings, Colleen Lannon, Summer 2023

First Year Student Enrichment Program - Cultures, Identities and Belongings, Mokhtar Bouba, Summer 2023

Philosophy 1.11, Art: True, Beautiful, Nasty, John Kulvicki, Summer 2023

Writing 2.05, Why Write, Anyway?, Erkki Mackey, Fall 2023

Writing 5.24, Photographic Representations, Amanda Wetsel, Fall 2023

Writing 5.25, Photographic Representations, Amanda Wetsel, Fall 2023

Anthropology 31.01, Women's Gender, and Sexuality Studies 36.01, Gender in Cross Cultural Perspectives, Sabrina Billings, Fall 2023

Anthropology 55.01, Anthropology of Global Health, Anne Sosin, Fall 2023

Creative Writing 10.02, Writing and Reading Fiction, Katherine Crouch, Fall 2023

Geography 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Fall 2023

Humanities 2.01, The Modern Labyrinth, Dennis Washburn, Paul Carranza, Ainsley Morse, Laura Edmondson, Winter 2024

Writing 5.06, Image and Text, Becky Clark, Winter 2024

Writing 5.07, Image and Text, Becky Clark, Winter 2024

Writing 5.32, Photographic Representations, Amanda Wetsel, Winter 2024

Writing 5.33, Photographic Representations, Amanda Wetsel, Winter 2024

College Course 21.01, What's In Your Shoebox?, Francine A'Ness and Mokhtar Bouba, Spring 2024

College Course 21.01, What's In Your Shoebox?, Francine A'Ness and Mokhtar Bouba, Spring 2024

Exhibition Tour: Homecoming: Domesticity and Kinship in Global African Art, Summer 2023

Exhibition History

Homecoming: Domesticity and Kinship in Global African Art, Harteveldt Family Gallery, Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, and Northeast Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 22, 2023–May 25, 2024.

Inventory: New Works and Conversations around African Art, Friends Gallery/Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 16-March 13, 2016.

Reconstitution, Dorothy and Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 2, 2020 - June 20, 2021.

Virtual Space for Dialogue, 2017, Self (Hood), Alison Guh, Class of 2017, Mellon Special Prjects Intern, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. https://www.aguh.vsfd.hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/

Provenance

Erdmann Contemporary, Cape Town, South Africa; sold to present collection, 2014.

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