Black Bodies, White Gold: Art, Cotton and Commerce in the Atlantic World
My first book, published by Duke University Press, 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.
Winner of the Historians of British Art (HBA) award for a single-authored book with a subject between 1800–1960.
From the HBA: “Arabindan-Kesson’s book investigates what at first seems obvious: the equivalence of black bodies and white cotton produced by slavery and the networks of racial capitalism. But Black Bodies, White Gold’s exploration of this equation, as played out on material and visual as well as economic registers, is a richly layered, nuanced, and illuminating account of not only reification and exploitation but also challenges to this logic through self-fashioning, haptic intimacies, and transatlantic solidarities. Contemporary artworks centering cotton and its histories by Lubaina Himid, Yinka Shonibare, and Hank Willis Thomas frame and anchor the discussion, which loops back to them repeatedly on its journey from the 18th century onward and around the Atlantic. Primarily grounded in a 19th-century archive that includes “negro cloth” and chintz as well as paintings, prints, and texts, Arabindan-Kesson’s book demonstrates the endurance post-slavery of what she terms a speculative vision that sees the natural world and black lives as raw materials, through a lens of profit. Beautifully written and theorised, it offers a model of art history that traverses national boundaries to unfold a legacy of visual commodification while opening up glimpses of alternatives.
Shortlisted:
R. L. Shep Award, presented by the Textile Society of America
James A Porter Book Award in African American Art History
You can listen to a podcast about the book here
You can download the introduction purchase my book through Duke University Press here
You can read a review of my book here
Book Talks and Events
March 31, 2023: Neve Insular 0,0003% - Algodão e Resistência, Centro Cultural de Cabo Verde (CCCV), Lisbon
April 13: Cotton Futures: Speculative Visions and Meanings of Blackness for Arts of Speculation Lecture Series, Department of Art History, Brown University
March 3: Visualizing Value: Art, Cotton and Commerce in the Atlantic World, Department of Art History Lecture Series, Duke University
February 23: Black Bodies White Gold: UT Austin, Art History Department
January 27: Book Talk Series, Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto
January 20: “Black Bodies, White Gold: Art, Cotton and Commerce in the Atlantic World” Plenary Lecture, RADICAL VICTORIANS: Race, labour, identity, School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University, The Frick Pittsburgh and Yale University
December 2021: Black Bodies, White Gold: Unpacking slavery and North American cotton production at Agnes Etherington Arts Centre, Queen's University
November 2021: Black Bodies, White Gold: A Conversation with Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu at Labyrinth Books, Princeton. Watch here
October 2021:
Working with Art: Labour, Empire and Materiality in British Art” with Professor Tim Barringer, Paul Mellon Center Research Seminar, London, UK
Smithsonian American Art Museum Brown Bag Lunchtime Talk Series
May 21 2021 Book Launch, with Sisonke Msimang in collaboration with Rabble Books at the Alex Hotel, 50 James Street, Perth (watch here)
May 17 2021: Black Bodies, White Gold: Cotton in the American Imagination” Centre for Victorian Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London
May 14 2021: Vision and Value: Cotton and the Materiality of Race, for HTC Forum, Department of Architecture at MIT (watch here)