Fetish 6

Maud Sulter (1960-2008) was an artist, poet and activist of Ghanian-Scottish descent. Fetish #6, 1992 comes from a series six works by Sulter that consist of framed photographic prints and accompanying copper plaques. The series is a barbed comment on the appropriation and the decontextualization of objects in the colonial past as ‘fetishes’. The Fetish series was first shown at Steinbaum-Krauss Gallery, New York in 1993. They were shown alongside a related series, called, Abusua Kese (1992) and Six Proverbs for Kobena (1992). [1] These series of works from the 1990s addressed African art objects and their position in western museums, collections and books. Sulter passionately believed in the intertwined histories of Africa and Europe and that such subjects required scrutiny and debate. [2]

The Steinbaum-Krauss Gallery exhibition leaflet also discusses the works in relation to genital mutilation.[3] The bronze plaque is inscribed with the word ‘Blood’. This could be a comment about how European museums have acquired such objects from west Africa. It may also relate or be a comment on female genital mutilation or both of these subjects simultaneously.

Borrowing the word ‘fetish’ that had been adopted by early European collectors and artists who typically valued such objects not for their indigenous context or as important sacred objects, but as sexual and erotically charged curios. Her work questions the portrayal of African culture in European museums. Sulter work also addresses issues of feminism, both in west Africa, the diaspora and Europe more generally.

Read More