Image Made Flesh: Black Representation, Material Archives, and Contemporary Desire with Erica Moiah James 

In this Research and Academic Program lecture, Erica Moiah James (University of Miami / Clark/Oakley Humanities Fellow) provides a careful study of Portrait of a Young Woman using the material archive provided by the sitter’s dress, jewelry, and cotton head-tie to establish her as a Black, Caribbean, creole woman. It seeks to render a “problem space” between historical Black representation and contemporary desires to know and name figures like her as proof of life, through a relational consideration of time, embodiment, and the representational capacity of Black flesh in the oeuvre of contemporary artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, alongside representations of Black people under threat of life in the digital age.

This lecture will be available to view on this page and the Clark’s YouTube channel until June 11. 

Image: Artist unknown, detail of Portrait of a Young Woman, c. 1780, pastel. St. Louis Art Museum, 186:1951.