Cassandra Leslie
The work of Canadian contemporary photographer Michael Chambers is used in this study as a lens through which the experiences and views of a black, male art producer can be examined in the construction of the black male body in art. The text draws on the primary source of Chambers' black and white photographs, and the imagery constructed around black males from Europe and North America, which isolates the black body within particular stereotypes. A theory concerning the repetition of the "documentary body" is developed throughout the thesis whereby the black body continually functions as a symbol of violence, sexuality and strength in the visual and media arts. This thesis will examine Chambers’ efforts to undermine the current cultural dialogue within Western culture that maintains the documentary body by using the very tools and imagery employed to create and sustain that body. Three aspects of the documentary body—savagery, restraint, and violence—within the artist’s work are argued as intrinsic to the struggle to reassess and reconstruct the black documentary body within western visual culture.
I would like to thank artist/photographer Evergon of Concordia University, Dr. Ronald Stephens of the University of Lincoln, Nebraska and artist/writer Anthony Joyette for their aid in researching and presenting the subject of black history and the male body within the visual arts. My research on this subject was greatly facilitated by the contributions of the staff and library adjuncts of Concordia University, McGil University, York University, and Columbia University (New York). Special thanks go ot the thesis readers, Dr. Joan Acland and Dr. Loren Lerner, who have been and continue to be immeasurable influences in their work and professionalism. My thanks to Professor Willi Coleman of the University of Vermont, whose ardent attention and unflagging faith in my academic endeavours helped convince me to remain in Art History.
I am greatly indebted ot my thesis supervisor, Professor Sandra Paikowsky, as the idea for this thesis was in many ways an extension of her seminar in Museum Practices at Concordia University. Her encouragement, patience and knowledge knows no bounds and her insights helped direct and clarify my thoughts during a very troubled and confusing time.
I am grateful to my family and friends for their love and support. This thesis was written over a long period of time in which many occasions saw the possibility of incompletion. It is with this work that I thank my dear friend Stephanie Marshall for her unwavering dedication to the process and to me.
And lastly, but most certainly not least, I would like to thank the artist, Michael Chambers, for inspiring this effort. His work is at the beginning of its journey; and ti si my hope that with the dialogue and efforts of writers, artists, historians and critics, both ni and out of the black community, an interest ni Canadian black artists and their production will encourage a greater appreciation for that unique aspect of our great mosaic.