Rendering the Invisible Visible: Maud Sulter’s Zabat

By Beth James

Maud Sulter (1960 – 2008) was a Scots – Ghanaian artist, poet, writer, curator, and gallerist who emerged during the crucial moment of the British Black Arts Movement of the 1980s. The British Black Arts Movement was a radical political art movement that was birthed in Thatcherite Britain in response to increasingly conservative politics and racism. The movement was founded on anti-racist discourse and feminist critique to prioritise issues of race and gender as well as the politics of representation. Sulter’s contemporaries included Lubaina Himid (who curated the influential exhibition The Thin Black Line in 1985 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts), Ingrid Pollard, Sutapa Biswas, Sonia Boyce, Chila Burman and Claudette Johnson.

Discussing her artistic practice, Sulter said “This whole notion of the disappeared is something that runs through my work. I’m very interested in absence and presence in the way that particularly black women’s experience and black women’s contribution to culture is so often erased and marginalised. [It is] important for me as an individual, and obviously as a black woman artist, to put black women back in the centre of the frame – both literally within the photographic image, but also written into the cultural institutions where our work operates.” Her photographic series, Zabat (1989) speaks directly to this concept of the absence and presence of black women in culture and history. The series is also accompanied by a book of poetry, Zabat: Poetics of a Family Tree, as well as nine prose poems, Zabat Narratives, one to complement each of the portraits. The series was created to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the invention of photography for the Rochdale Art Gallery. Sulter used the opportunity to create these portraits specifically for an art gallery to raise questions around black presence, particularly the presence of black women, in art galleries. The series comprises of nine large scale portraits mounted on elaborate gold coloured frames. Sulter has used Cibachrome to create the images, lending longevity and vibrancy to their striking gaze. Each portrait depicts a contemporary black women artist, musician, or writer as one of the Greek muses. Each subject, who Sulter was already acquainted with, carries the muse’s symbolic attributes which were historically employed to denote the muse’s identity.

Maud Sulter, Clio, 1989, Cibachrome print, 141.50 x 115.80 cm.

Reminiscing on a project with Lubaina Himid in 1987, Sulter discusses part of the catalyst for creating Zabat. Again, at the Rochdale Art Gallery, Sulter and Himid encountered a traditional eighteenth-century portrait of a white woman. She was centred in the frame and could be seen gesturing to the side where there was a column. The painting had recently been sent away to undergo conservation and upon an x-ray the traces of a figure underneath the paint of the column was discovered. The figure was that of a black male slave who had been placed at the margins of the portrait, in servant attire, to denote the wealth of the woman and her family. The painting had been altered once slavery had been abolished, and along with the covering up of the black male slave, the black presence was also erased. A quote by Alice Walker, who is portrayed as Phalia, the muse of comedy and bringer of flowers in the series, accompanies the portrait of Clio, the muse of history, states, “As a black person and a woman I don’t read history for facts, I read it for clues.” This quote from Walker emphasises the drive behind the portraits – to celebrate the cultural accomplishments and contributions of black women and to highlight, and give a voice to, the black women who have been made invisible throughout history.

Maud Sulter, Phalia, 1989, Cibachrome print, 141.50 x 115.8 cm.

The portrait of Delta Streete as Terpsichore, the muse of lyric poetry and dancing, is one of the most striking in the series. Streete is shown wearing eighteenth-century dress and wig, holding a piece of fool’s gold and gazing directly out at the viewer. As stated above, each of the artists in the series depict the muse of their own craft. Streete had the wig and costume made for a performance piece, The Quizzing Class, which explored the relationship between an enslaved black woman and her white mistress. The fool’s gold symbolises colonial trade and gold mining, while placing Streete in the attire of the enslaving class subverts the conventions of eighteenth-century portraiture by prioritising the centring of a black woman.

Maud Sulter, Terpsichore, 1989, Cibachrome print, 141.50 x 115.80 cm.

Sulter photographed herself as Calliope, the muse of epic poetry for the series and is depicted with her gaze off to the side, in front of her lies a small, cased photograph. This portrait is significant in the sense that it not only a self-portrait, but it is also a recreation of a photograph by Nadar, Unknown Woman. The unknown woman in Nadar’s photograph is thought to be Jeanne Duval, and this is the guise that Sulter adorns in her portrayal of Calliope. Historically, Duval was the “exotic” muse of Baudelaire’s poetry, and Sulter plays with this alongside the idea of black women’s creativity being present and then subsequently absent throughout history.

Maud Sulter, Calliope, 1989, Cibachrome print, 141.50 x 115.80 cm.

When questioned about why she chose to depict the Classical Greek muses, Sulter argues that the root of Classical history lies in Egypt. That a lack of understanding and research has led to the erasure of black histories, especially in relation to histories of the West. She uses the example of the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria during the Crusades to illustrate this point. This destruction caused links between Africa and Europe to be severed and resulted in a distorted lens of Classical history and the erasure of the contribution of black peoples. Zabat confronts this distorted lens and invisibility of black histories in relation to the Classical tradition by placing contemporary black women in the roles of the Greek muses.

Sulter chose the title of Zabat for its meaning of an ancient ritual dance performed by women on occasions of power. Her use of Zabat for the title signifies the urgent need to reposition black women in the history of photography. Her choice of photography as medium for the project is significant and deliberate in the way that it critiques and subverts the tools used to construct, and perpetuate, colonial and sexist ideologies. By drawing on historic references in dress, and the conventions of Victorian portraiture, including the frames used to display the portraits, Sulter emphasises the jarring invisibility of black women in historic photography. The contrast between these historic references with the depiction of her contemporaries further highlights her fundamental question of where black women occupied history as well as the question of what constitutes “national” heritage in Britain when so many individuals have been rendered invisible.  Zabat explores legacy and lineage through historical reference while being an advocate for black women of history and of today.

Notes:

Haworth-Booth, Mark. 1992. “Maud Sulter: An Interview.” History of Photography 16 (3): 263-66.

Mills, Ella S. 2015. “Maud Sulter: Passion.” Art Monthly, no. 387 (June): 26.27.

Thompson, S. 2021. Passionate and political: centring black women in Maud Sulter’s ‘Zabat’ | Art UK. [online] Artuk.org. [Accessed 6 February 2022].