Renée Stout: Fetishes

Verse One, Renée Stout: Fetishes, examines the work of Renée Stout, deconstructing her deft manipulation of surfaces, found materials, and personalities to unveil her latent psychosexual authority. Through her physical and metaphysical presence, her work forces the viewer to sort through several layers of references—Africa, Stout herself in all her specificity, and womanhood. Stout’s daring Fetish #2 (1988), a life-size cast of her own body as well as her personas, Madame Ching and Fatima Mayfield, reflect the visual cultures of Black women’s bodily self-presentations and misrepresentations. Stout and funk singer-songwriter Betty Davis demonstrate in art and music forms a “feminist funk power,” a performative funk that forces the viewer to reinvent their very conception of Black female agency. Finally, the gun imagery in Point of View addresses the stereotyping of Black people, the vulnerability of Black men, and the specter of death.