A Study of Art and Politics Intertwined with Feeling the Spirit

Chester Higgins Jr.: A Study of Art and Politics Intertwined with Feeling the Spirit

by Elizabeth KissamCultural Studies, Duke University, 1995

Preface

In this study of a book of Chester Higgins Jr.’s. entitled Feeling the Spirit: Search-ing the World for the People of Africa there might be some confusion in regards to my use of the author’s words. I would like to use this space to clarify this issue. Often I speak about the intent of the author, or quote or paraphrase his opinion without mentioning his book. In these situations I am using information obtained in an interview I conducted with the author. When I specifically mention his book I am quoting or paraphrasing from the text of his work.

Chester Higgins Jr.: A Study of Art and Politics Intertwined with Feeling the Spirit

Numerous images of African-Americans, Africans, and black people living in many parts of the world are displayed on the pages of Chester Higgins Jr.’s book. The book is entitled Feeling the Spirit: Searching the World for the People of Africa. Using his photography coupled with his text, Higgins intends to challenge the pervasive one-dimensional image of African-Americans in our society. His photographs depict black people engaged in many different everyday activities including child-rearing, swimming, bathing, or smiling. His intent is to use these images to create a multi-dimensional image of his people. An integral part of his message is that black people around the world should be proud of and claim their African heritage. The artist is using his control as a talented image maker to tell a story about his people which is often ignored or scorned.

Discussing this photographer only in terms of his political goals would be to perpetuate the one-sided images of black people that he has spent almost his whole life combating with his camera. Chester Higgins Jr. as a strong activist with pressing and important political goals is a significant cultural figure. On the other hand Higgins as a skillful photographer should not be overshadowed or buried by this former figure.

The use of the term ‘black photographer’ illustrates a trend in the discussion of the author’s work to overshadow the artistic merit of his photographs by emphasizing his political goals. The term works to marginalize Higgins’ art. It places him outside of the mainstream white photography world. In addition it devalues his skills as a photographer.

The author objects to the label and explains that the qualifier black, in the context of our society, is often used to shed negative light on the object that it is describing. This situation can be paralleled to the qualifier woman or lady. In our society woman and lady are signifiers for adjectives such as weak, feminine and sometimes stupid. It seems when people use such terms such as lady cop they are implying that it is necessary to denote that this

cop is a woman because she is inferior to the men who hold her occupation. As with the word ‘woman’ many people in our society equate ‘blackness’ with inferiority so Chester as a ‘black photographer’ presents the same implica-tions as the term ‘lady cop.”

In short the term ‘black photographer’ when applied to Higgins implies that as a photographer he in inferior. Furthermore because Higgins is inferior as a photographer the only aspect of his work worth discussing is his political perspective concerning African Americans in our society. This point of view is reflected in the first review of the book. The author of this review focused on the political aspects of the photos. Bell hooks addresses this issue in her compilation of essays entitled Art on my Mind. She asserts that people often talk about black art in terms of the type of image it portrays of black people and not in terms of its aesthetic quality (7). Discussing only the political aspects of this photographer’s work insinuates that his message is the only reason his photographs are in a book and not the fact that he is an artist.

The beginnings of his career as a photographer were sparked not by a pas-sion for the field of photography itself but by an interest in recording a par-ticular subject. Andreas Feininger writes in his photographic guidebook en-titled Photographic Seeing that he has ‘found again and again that people interested only in ‘photography’ get nowhere…and never produce a worth-while photograph.” He further elaborates on this point by asserting that “in-terest is the indispensable factor which sparks any creative activity” (132). This young man’s passion for recording images of his people, whom he finds beautiful, helped him to develop his techniques as a photographer.

He grew up in Alabama and it was only during his years at Tuskegee Uni-versity that he began photographing. After seeing photographs of African-Americans who reminded him of his own relatives he felt the need to make pictures of members of his family whom he loved and respected. He saw photography as a ‘way of holding on to a precious memory.”

In addition to this intimate drive to make pictures he also saw photography as an instrument through which he could create images which could counter the numerous one-dimensional images of black people in our society. These mainstream images have been created by white people and have changed throughout time. Genres such as black face minstrelsy have reinforced one-dimensional stereotypical images of black people in the United States. These stereotypes have been continued in the present day by the cartoon-like im-ages of black-Americans such as “Aunt Jemima,” and “Mrs. Butterworth” and “Uncle Ben.”

All these images have a common link. They portray only a shallow side of a people. They do not delve deeply to show that the subject being portrayed has a personality. It is these types of images that perpetuate stereotypes and reinforce racial prejudice. In discussing this point the author remarked that in the beginning of his career he wanted to show black people doing everything even brushing their teeth. He feels these types of images may counter the effects of the mainstream images of black Americans that this country is usually faced with. If people are forced to see black people carry-

ing out their everyday activities they may be more apt to see African-Ameri-cans in a different light. They may see them as fully equal humans.

bell hooks elaborates on this relationship to photography which she feels many ‘Southern black folks’ lived while they were growing up. She argues in her compilation of essays entitled Art on My Mind that the photos on the walls of rural Southern black homes were a form of protest: The sites of con-testation were not out there, in the world of white power, they were within segregated black life. Since no ‘white’ galleries displayed images of black people created by black folks, spaces had to be made within diverse black communities. The camera was the central instrument by which blacks could disprove representations of us created by white folks (59). The images which bell hooks describes are ones which create people with depth and personal-ity. These are quite different from the one-sided cartoon like images of Afri-can-Americans which were ever-present in mainstream society when Higgins was growing up in Alabama and which are still with us today.

In bell hooks description of these “sites of contestation” she raises a very important issue concerning the juxtaposition of the image this artist creates and those which bell hooks discusses versus mainstream one-dimensional images of black Americans. The relationship between the subject and the photographer is what defines the nature of both types of image. The photo-graphs that she discusses which appear on the walls of rural Southern black homes are created by black people of black people. In most of these pho-tographs of family members the photographer loves the person being pho-tographed. As a result these pictures portray images of people with many sides to their personalities and life. On the other hand images such as “”Aunt Jemima” are created by a hostile mainstream mainly white America. In this situation the relationship between the photographer is not one of love but of hostility and the image reflects this. This type of picture is riddled with ste-reotypes and does not convey a multi-dimensional representation.

The powerful effect that the relationship between subject and image maker has on an image can be illustrated using Higgin’s work. This relationship can also be discussed in general terms concerning the art world at large. The attitude of an artist toward his subject as having a major impact on the outcome of his/her work has been noted and described by many. In Photo-graphic Seeing Andreas Feininger cites “the attitude of the photographer” as an important aspect of the “photographic seeing” (112). In Ways of Seeing John Berger points out that the difference in class between Frans Hals and his subjects in two of his paintings creates a “drama” the viewer often feels in looking at them (15).

It is important to keep in mind the artist’s relationship to his subject when discussing the actual image he creates. Higgins points out about his art that his “frame of visual reference is one of acceptance.” The author wants his people to be proud of themselves and feel dignified in their identity. A promi-nent aspect of this work is the assertion that black people in all parts of the world have roots in Africa that they can be extremely proud of. He positions himself as the “we” in this construction. He declares in his book that “We are not Africans because we are born in Africa, but because Africa is born in

us. Look around you and behold us in our greatness. Greatness is an African possibility; you can make it yours” (233). In claiming these roots black peo-ple can become a part of the African community. According to Higgins black people in any part of the world are African inherently and this awareness can make their lives more meaningful. Being a part of a beautiful culture will bring meaning to their lives.

The first chapter of the book is entitled “Most Ancient Place.” The photo-graphs in this chapter depict sites in Africa rich and ancient history and tra-dition. The succeeding chapters of the book are not divided by country. His pictures are grouped under headings such as “Spirituality” and “In Our Man-ner.” Under these headings images of African-Americans, Africans and black people in other countries are all interspersed throughout the chapter. This type of grouping reinforces the author’s concept of a worldwide African com-munity.

This photographer’s construction of an African community seems to be a way to resolve a dilemma voiced by W.E.B. DuBois. DuBois voiced this dilemma at the turn of the century, however, it is still alive in the work of this photog-rapher done the end of the twentieth century. In his book entitled The Souls of Black Folk, DuBois writes:

One ever feels his two-ness—an American and a Negro, two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings…

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the old selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his skin in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world (8-9).

White mainstream American society often denies or alters the history of Af-rica and the history of African-Americans. As a child I was given a paper cut out book which depicted Egyptians. The Egyptians in this book were obvi-ously white even when it is more likely that Egyptians were in fact black. Higgins would like to reclaim African history for African-Americans. His drive is to correct widely held false beliefs about this history and in the process bolster the self-esteem of his people.

He sees his people as beautiful and he attempts to convey this sentiment to the viewers of his photographs. He conveys this emotion using his skills as an artist. Higgins never talks about taking a picture; he talks about making a picture. The latter expression denotes the photographer’s knowledge of the skill involved in creating an aesthetic image.

In the text of his book the author discusses his feelings about making pho-tographs. The photographer attempts “to become invisible” when he shoots. He wants “to become one with water” in order “to slide into crevices yet continue to flow from one space to another, going around and between the moments that comprise each situation” (60). His photographs lead one to believe that Higgins did indeed become invisible. His portraits of people dancing and groups praying exemplify this invisibility. Many of his photo-

graphs are of intimate personal scenes. Even in these more personal scenes, such as a mother and a daughter leaving their home, or a man sitting on his bed reading a letter, it seems that the subjects are unaware of the camera.

This move of invisibility holds two possibilities and in this particular situa-tion both are probably true. The technique is an artistic move which allows the viewer of the photograph to stare at the people who comprise the pho-tograph without feeling like an intruder. This aspect of Higgins’ photos also help him to convey his message effectively. The people in his images do not appear to have been affected by the photographer. In the eyes of the viewer of the photograph this untampered with appearance makes the photograph seem more “real” or “representational.” When a set of images seems to be natural, that is containing almost no construction, they are often extremely powerful. James Kavenaugh reports that when an ideology seems natural or is confused with common sense it is extremely affective. Whether conscious-ly or unconsciously this photographer makes use of this aspect of ideology.

Chester Higgins, as do most people, sees through the prism of his ideas. He sees black people as beautiful and dignified just as a person who believes African-Americans to be inferior may see them as ugly. Feininger discusses a type of “seeing” with the minds eye involved in artistic photography. He states the obvious point that in order to photograph a subject, first, you have to know that it exists. Secondly what a photographer sees in his sub-ject determines how this subject is portrayed (127). This is certainly dem-onstrated in the photographs of Chester Higgins Jr. Looking at the people he has photographed one can see the beauty that inspired the photographer to make these pictures.

On the other hand one might argue that the photographer is using the tech-nique he has acquired as an artist to create an illusion which is not present in his actual subjects. One might also say that he should simply represent his subjects in order to be objective. In photography, however, objectiv-ity cannot be realized. One must choose how to represent a subject and in making this choice the photographer has entered the realm of subjectivity. Furthermore, the value of art is centered in its subjectivity. Gordan Graham affirms this ideal in his essay entitled “Value and the Visual Arts” (1-2). He writes that “the best visual art enhances our understanding of experience.” Art is meant to please us with aesthetic beauty but it is also a vehicle for new ideas and ways of thinking about the world around us. An integral as-pect of the value of art is how it changes parts of one’s thinking about the world.

This photographer hopes that his book will help black people look at them-selves in a more positive light. He wants them to see themselves in a more positive light. He wants them to see themselves as truly African-American—as part of a larger African community. He would like white people and people of other races to view black people from an angle which they can see what black people have to offer. He hopes the book may stop some people from viewing African-Americans through a lens filled with stereotypes. He hopes people who see his book will come away from it with a new knowledge about people and themselves. He wants to imbue black people with a sense of

pride in their heritage and white people to learn something about his people that they may not have known. In other words he’s attempting to enhance “their understanding of experience.”

Higgins is using the realm of art to convey new ways of thinking about Afri-can-Americans. In our society every image making arena including film, tele-vision, newspapers, etc. has become a sight of struggle for black Americans. Bell hooks asserts the importance of image making for African-Americans in this way:

The history of black liberation movements in the United States could be characterized as a struggle over images as much as it has been a struggle for rights, for equal access (57).

Jannette L. Dates and William Barlow claim in their book Split Image: African Americans in the Mass Media that a split in the images of African-Americans is occurring in our society. Hostile mainstream images of black people are side by side with images that black people themselves have created of them-selves. (16). This struggle is intense and the stakes are extremely high.

In Ways of Seeing Berger points out that often women view themselves through the dominant ideology. The eye of mainstream society is not always flattering and the adjectives I cited earlier, which are often associated with the word “women,” testify to this fact. This type of vision also holds true for African-Americans and it is this type of vision that makes this struggle over images so pertinent for Chester Higgins Jr. and black people. If a group of people can be so affected by mainstream images of themselves than it is ex-tremely important to the self-esteem and pride of these people to have the ability to control these images.

The author’s view of this struggle over the control over image-making can be illustrated with the child’s tale he recounts in his book. The story was told to him by one of his professor’s at Tuskegee University. He cites this story at the beginning of his book to show how the telling of history is affected by in-terpretation. The story starts with a father telling his son a fable concerning the meeting of a lion and a man in the jungle. When the two meet the man kills the lion with his knife. The story continues with a conversation between the young boy and his father:

The young boy expresses his bewilderment to his father about the story’s outcome. The lion is bigger than the man, and he has sharp teeth and four paws armed with fierce claws. Isn’t he the king of the jungle? Why doesn’t the lion win? The father responded by telling his son, “The lion will win when he writes his own story” (11).

The story depicts poignantly and simply what Higgins is attempting to do. He is retelling the story of African-Americans and he is doing so with images that he has created. He wants to help African-Americans to reclaim their his-tory which has for so long been denied in the public sphere. In Feeling the Spirit: Searching the World for the People of Africa (Bantam 1994) Chester Higgins Jr. has effectively told a story of his people. Through his art he be-came the lion narrating his own story.

Works Cited Text Analyzed

Higgins Jr., Chester. Feeling the Spirit: Searching the World for the People of Africa: New York, Toronto, London, Sydney and Aukland: Bantam Books 1994.

Secondary Sources Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. Great Britain: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penquin Books, 1972.

Dates, Jannette L., Barlow, William. Split Image: African-Americans in the Mass Media, Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1993.

DuBois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. First Vintage Books/The Library of America Edition, 1990.

Feininger, Andreas. Photographic Seeing. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1973

Graham, Gordon. “Value and the Visual Arts.” Journal of Aesthetic Education. V28 N4 (1994): pgs 1-14

hooks, bell. Art on My Mind-visual politics. New York: The New Press, 1995.

An interview with Chester Higgins Jr.