Centre for Ethics's video: Sarah Stefana Smith Surface Abstraction and Skin in Black Contemporary Art

► For the latest events, projects, podcasts, and more from the Centre for Ethics, visit http://ethics.utoronto.ca Sarah Stefana Smith, Surface, Abstraction and Skin in Black Contemporary Art Discussions of surface typical occur in the context of a binary—not being a deep articulation of a thing. Yet surface as a method of susceptibility is able to take seriously the “need for the Other” and one that orients the surface – rather than some lurking depth – as a significant site to engage meaning (Cheng 2009, 101; Best and Marcus 2009, 6). In the context of this talk, I use, surface play in order to embraces the surface as an affective and ethical stance, in opposition to a suspiciousness of what is concealed in the depths of the work. Taking a nod from Stuart Hall, play denotes a doubling of meaning. On the one hand, play suggests the impermanence of the surface itself; on the other, it pronounces the instability of the surface through strategies deployed in black aesthetics. Thus, this talk meditates on surface play and queer potentiality in the work of artists Mickalene Thomas and Zanele Muholi. In 2014, Mickalene Thomas created the work Tête de Femme that deviated from the artists more representational work and towards abstract iterations of femme faces. Most recently, Zanele Muholi has returned to self-portraiture, in Somnyama Ngonyama: Hail the Dark Lioness utilizing the body, vernacular props and the skin as site. I look at Tête de Femme and Somnyama Ngonyama and towards surfaces at play, to negotiate a different orientation to the aesthetic.