History, Events And Facts

I'm in awe of Lili Bernard, whose "Antebellum Appropriations" paintings are a tour-de-force that reinterpret Black women's history in the Americas by reworking classic European paintings. "Carlota Slaying the Slaver (after Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes, 1612), Bernard has a naked, shackled woman take a knife to her slaveholder’s genitals while two other women thrust a sword into his neck and another woman holds a white witness at bay." There is so much going on in this painting. Carlota Lucumí, trafficked to Cuba as a child, was one of the leaders of a revolt against slavery in the brutal sugar mills in Matanzas, Cuba (1843). Her chest is branded, and so is that of Anastasia Escrava, a legendary Brazilian saint who is usually depicted wearing a slavery bridle.  As she is here, while castrating her rapist, which is how i read her pregnancy in this picture.  The frowning white mistress of the house is held at bay by a breasted and bearded O...