A powerful excerpt from Venus Negra: Images Beyond the Western Model in Art History

Abstract

This article aims to analyse the notional relationship of the film Fragments for Venus (2025) in order to identify, in accordance with the considerations of Marylène Patou-Mathis (2020), the deconstruction of the notional paradigm of Western history and the place assigned to women within this framework. Particular attention is paid to the cultural significance of Black, mestizo, and Indigenous women, as well as those situated outside the Western canon, who were confined to specific tasks of servitude and enslavement until the twentieth century.

            The concept of text makes it possible to identify the way in which the film presents an alternative history of art, created by women who have remained at the margins of both art history and history in general. The filmic texts analysed consist primarily of images that, at various moments in the narrative, are accompanied by the poem “Voyage of the Sable Venus” by Robin Coste Lewis. These fragments allow for a deeper reflection on the expression of beauty beyond the Western model of museum art, through the image and its relationship with other semiotic devices, such as the literary code, street art, music, and diverse contemporary artistic expressions by women that employ fragmentation as an aesthetic resource.

            The audiovisual content reveals that fear is often imbued with disdain, censorship, criticism, and annihilation. Nevertheless, following Audre Lorde (2023), Diop suggests that, despite these conditions, it is preferable for women to claim self-determination: the right to define themselves, name themselves, and speak in their own voices, rather than allowing others to define them and speak on behalf of the feminine.