“In his most recent book, Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture, Richard Powell calls for an empathetic read of the portrait, one that acknowledges the subjectivity of both the viewer and the represented. Powell positions the practice of portraiture as a performative act, one that is socially engaged and that makes evident, as Kristine Stiles puts it, “‘the all-too-forgotten interdependence of human subjects-of people-one to another'” (16). The intersubjective relations that are inherent to the practice of portraiture have been explored recently by scholars such as Amelia Jones and Catherine M. Soussloff, yet Powell’s critical analysis of how the determinants of race affect the understanding of subjectivity distinguish his study. Following the contingencies of a Barthes-inspired reading, Powell’s interests shift from the relationship established between the subject and viewer, to that of the subject and the author of the image, as well as the historical context in which the image is viewed, an approach that makes an empathetic and conscious reading of the images possible.” Amy Mooney, book review of Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture, Biography, Spring 2010.
Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2008.
