1 Preface

1 Preface: Honi soit qui mal y pense

Felix de Rooy, curator, artist and art critic

“In my bloodstream collide Amazon Indians, Africans enslaved, slave masters and abolisionists from the Netherlands, Germany, France and persecuted Jews from Portugal.

My spirit has traveled beyond battlefi elds of racial and cultural confrontation. Molded by generations of male sperm invading female egg cells, I was fertilized, nurtured, full grown, squeezed, pushed out and given birth to a fresh nomad in no man’s land.”

With this part of a poem, I introduced myself in my book Ego Documenta, The Testament of My Ego in the Museum of My Mind (2013), which covered my whole oeuvre.1 My book can be seen as my legacy as a painter, sculptor, curator, director, actor, poet, and art critic. The poem has everything to do with the topic of this cahier, which deals with transatlantic slavery, inequality, prejudice, and racism. However, for me it is also about “black splendor”: the beauty and aesthetics of Black people and the Black body in particular.

I was pleased when asked to write the preface for this in-depth study of the pendules au Noir by the art historian duo Alette Fleischer and Bart Krieger. I am an ardent collector of so-called Negrophilia: imagery of Black and indiginous peoples throughout the centuries, all created from a white perspective. In fact, I acquired one of the Empire pendulum clocks discussed in this cahier (Picture 11. The Porter with a sack of coffee beans). This collection, named

1 Felix de Rooy, Ego Documenta, The Testament of My Ego in the Museum of My Mind, KIT Publishers, Amsterdam, 2013.

Collection Negrophilia, traveled through parts of Europe in several shapes, as an exhibition and as an educational poster specifi cally developed for schools.

These French pendulum clocks are wonderfully fascinating. I am drawn to them because there is a certain recognition; in some manner, the depicted fi gures resemble me as a Black man of mixed race. Of course on the one hand these objects illustrate white supremacy, repression and inequality, as Fleischer and Krieger’s iconographical research points out. They show how Blacks are mainly depicted in a submissive and dependent way; this genre they label the Noir Enchaîné pendulum clocks.

On the other hand, these clocks show a huge appreciation for the beauty of the Black body at that time. I see this along the lines of ‘’Honi soit qui mal y pense,” 2 which means, “shame on anyone who thinks evil of it.” In short, we should see the positive aspects and the overall beauty of the clocks. This imagery is in sharp contrast when comparing it, for instance, with the black memorabilia of 19th century America. The “Black Americana” objects (fi gurines, tobacco jars, cartoons, etc.) that were immensly popular after the abolition of slavery were not only sterotypical, they were merely created to insult, ridicule and put down Blacks in every way possible. The cause of this could be in part due to the fact that slavery and Black people were visably exploited in all levels of New World society. For France, the colonies were far away, a place to fantasize about like a tropical transatlantic dream.

For instance, in the tantalizing pendulum clock of the nude Kissing Couple (Picture 23), I detect that same fascination. For this clock in particular, I feel oppression is not the main takeaway. The composition is very pleasing, and I enjoy the depicted exotic erotica and the elegant, acrobatic fl exibility of Black bodies. The message, I feel, is of universal love; sex is accessible to everyone around the world. In my view, this clock depicts Negrophilia in its purest form. Literally translated, Negrophilia means “love for Black people.”

2 Old Norman French spoken by the medieval ruling class in England, meaning “shamed be whoever thinks ill of it.” It is the motto of the British chivalric Order of the Garter, the highest of all British knighthoods.

Additionally, the hunters, one on a boat and the other on a carriage, are quite spectacular (Pictures 32 and 33). I would not mind having one of these clocks in my own home. I feel both clocks are a homage to Africa. The combination of the patinated bronze and the gilded ornaments is joyfully dazzling. I never realized there were so many models of black clocks. The different genres of the pendules au Noir discovered by Fleischer and Krieger make this study a true eye opener. Their fi ndings are a great foundation and demonstrate the need for further research on this fascinating topic.

In 2015, I donated the Collection Negrophilia (including the pendule au Bon Sauvage) in its entirety to the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam (World Museum in Rotterdam) for educational purposes.3 In my view, it is of the utmost importance that objects that touch the topic of race and inequality in general, and these pendules au Bon Noir in particular, should be cherished and preserved for future generations. They tell us something about accidental and deliberate white supremacy during those times. In fact, these clocks are witnesses of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century French Empire. We can learn a lot more from them: this is just the beginning!

3 Wereldmuseum Rotterdam is now connected with the Tropenmuseum (Amsterdam), Afrika Museum (Berg en Dal) and Museum Volkenkunde (Leiden).