Some of the photographs recall Frantz Fanon’s anguished cry: “I am laid bare. I am overdetermined from without. I am a slave, not of the idea that others have of me, but of my own appearance. I am being dissected under white eyes. Look, it’s a Negro.”
?…The Italian Embassy, which helped to source and bring the exhibition to South Africa, is commemorating the work of its nationals Attilio Gatti (1860-1940) and Lidio Cipriani (1892-1962).
Titled Siliva Zulu, the exhibition comprises an hour-long film and 47 photographs of Zulu people. All were shot in 1927: the film was made by Gatti, an Italian explorer and filmmaker, and the photographs were shot by Florence-born anthropologist Lidio Cipriani. The movie, unusual for its time, boasts an African cast at a time when, in the movies, whites painted themselves black to play African characters.
…As the photographs were taken by an anthropologist, professional bias is to be expected. They attempt to capture the idyllic pastoral life of the Zulu. The captions are as revealing as the photographs themselves. They provide insight into the racial discourses and stereotypes existing then. Suggested in the captions are some of the stereotypes that would flow into mainstream narratives later on: myths about the unreliability of the “native”, his laziness (one caption says Zulu men “waste hours on end talking and smoking dagga”); the hygiene habits of Africans (a caption says among the Zulu “cleanliness for the strong and the healthy is, to a certain extent, one of their habits which is not always a priority in other African tribes”); and the fecundity of the African: an image of carefree boys staring at the camera inside a kraal is followed by the caption that notes “the first thing to strike the European is the extraordinary number of children” that Africans have.
…The images are, to an extent, about the black body. It’s as if the photographer has chosen well-built men and women with pronounced features. The women, at times dark and brooding, at other times guileless and demure, are trapped in domesticity: fetching water, winnowing grain or suckling. The male figure, beautifully sculpted and standing tall, is suggestive of war. He is holding spears and shields, feeding into the legend of the warlike Zulu nation.
But it’s important to remember that, by that time, the Zulu had long been conquered and was, increasingly, part of the cash economy. Spears and shields were, by then, merely of ceremonial value.
The men — hunks in contemporary argot — stare into the camera and their faintly erotic appeal is unmistakable.
Sometimes there’s an attempt to own the other, to define his features by tried and tested European standards. One image showing a man with sharp features is described thus: “This youth, despite his very dark skin, has almost European features.”
…The exhibition is on at the University of Johannesburg’s Art Gallery until February 23. It will also show at North West University’s Potchefstroom campus and then at the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town.