Tschabalala Self - New Now New York Wednesday, March 8, 2023 | Phillips
  • A topless Black figure looks over her shoulder from a ground of sea blue in Tschabalala Self’s Aqua Babe. Two fish are caught in the nets collaged to the background, but the figure stands freely; only bubbles and turquoise jewelry cross her body. Executed in the lead up to the artist’s debut 2015 solo show in New York City, Aqua Babe is a compact synthesis of the key values of Black womanhood, abstraction, and artistic legacy that guided Self’s seminal years.

     

    In the mid-2010s, Self recounts, “I was thinking a lot about identity politics in regard to Blackness and womanhood,” but she wanted to “transcend” aspects of these conversations “which seemed limiting and conventional.”i Aqua Babe achieves this combination of identity-awareness and transcendence through the pairing of historical reference and figural abstraction. The pose of the figure, topless in side profile, with a purple brushstroke emphasizing the curve of her wide hips and glittery bikini, recalls early 19th century engravings of Saartjie (Sarah) Baartman.
    “Your work has to speak to history if you want it to have any relevance in the future.”
    —Tschabalala Self
    Baartman, an African woman, was trafficked to Britain in the 1810s, where her body was subject to racist ridicule and abuse as a freak show attraction.ii  Depictions of Baartman from this time typically show her in side-profile, like Self’s Aqua Babe, to exaggerate the curves of her body. Self likely knew Baartman’s story--a similar, 2015 painting is entitled, Love to Saartjie—but where the engravings exaggerate Baartman’s body for racist reasons, Self extends the body towards abstraction.


    In Aqua Babe, body parts become planes of collaged material. The body undulates across the composition like a wave, creating a scalloped edge against the blue ground with the curves of head, breast, and stomach, shoulder, back, behind. At this stage in her career, Self writes, abstraction allowed her to focus on the “composition and performativity” of her figures against fields of color.iii  It was the formal means to interrogate, and even “transcend,” the narrative of Black womanhood that Saartjie Baartman represented. By removing the strictures of historical context, Self frees her figures from a fixed point of view. The ghost of a racialized other becomes a collaged silhouette, a dual citation of fellow Black female artists Kara Walker and Faith Ringgold.

    Self is “completely enamored with” Ringgold, a fellow native of Harlem.iv She attributes her confidence with color and textile to the older artist’s compositions; indeed, the nets in Aqua Babe recall the matrices of Ringgold’s narrative quilt series, and both artists engage Black history with a fearless sensitivity. Grounded in the legacies of Saartjie Baartman and Faith Ringgold, Aqua Babe is a bright and true representation of Black femininity, an embodiment of the key themes that Self continues to push in her career.

     

    i Tschabalala Self, “Tschabalala Self on double consciousness, her artistic pantheon, and “Out of Body,” Artforum, January 21, 2020, online.
    ii “Sarah Baartman,” Encyclopedia Britannica, online.
    iii Tschabalala Self, “Tschabalala Self on double consciousness, her artistic pantheon, and “Out of Body,” Artforum, January 21, 2020, online.

    iv Tschabalala Self, quoted in Kiara Ventura, “Artist Tschabalala Self Wants You to See Black Figures Take Up Space,” Teen Vogue, October 4, 2019, online.

    • Provenance

      Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

    • Artist Biography

      Tschabalala Self

      American • 1990

      Harlem-born artist Tschabalala Self combines sewing, printing and painting in a singular style that speaks to her experience of contemporary black womanhood. Despite her extensive use of craft methods, Self considers herself to be a painter above all else. Her work is known for exaggerated colors and forms, allowing the personages within to “escape” from society’s narrow perceptions.

      Explaining her practice, the artist stated: “I hope to correct misconceptions propagated within and projected upon the Black body. Multiplicity and possibility are essential to my practice and general philosophy. My subjects are fully aware of their conspicuousness and are unmoved by the viewer. Their role is not to show, explain, or perform but rather ‘to be.’ In being, their presence is acknowledged and their significance felt. My project is committed to this exchange, for my own edification and for the edification of those who resemble me.”

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Aqua Babe

plastic, beads, acrylic, glitter, canvas and printed paper collage on Masonite
30 x 23 in. (76.2 x 58.4 cm)
Executed in 2014.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$40,000 - 60,000 

Sold for $69,850

Contact Specialist

Avery Semjen
Head of Sale, New Now
212 940 1207
asemjen@phillips.com

New Now

New York Auction 8 March 2023