La Bouche du Roi (artwork)
Encyclopedia
Romuald Hazoumé
Romuald Hazoumé is an artist from the Republic of Bénin, best known for his work La Bouche du Roi, a reworking of the 1789 image of the slave ship Brookes....
(born 1962), an artist from the Republic of Bénin, West Africa, for the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery. It was bought by the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
(with help from the National Art Fund), where it is on display in Room 35 from 22 March to 13 May 2007 before a 2 year tour to Hull (Wilberforce House
Wilberforce House
Wilberforce House is the birth place of William Wilberforce, the famous abolitionist, and is located in High Street, Kingston upon Hull, England. Like the nearby Blaydes House and Maister House, it was formerly a Merchant's house with access to quayside on the River Hull...
), Liverpool, Bristol, Newcastle and London (Horniman Museum
Horniman Museum
The Horniman Museum is a museum in Forest Hill, South London, England. Commissioned in 1898, it opened in 1901 and was designed by Charles Harrison Townsend in the Arts and Crafts style....
). The story of its acquisition was told in an episode of the documentary series The Museum
The Museum
The Museum is British television documentary series. It is a behind-the-scenes look at the British Museum, narrated by Ian McMillan and first broadcast on BBC Two on Thursdays at 7.30pm from 10th May 2007. It is produced by BBC Wales. It is in 10 half-hour parts...
.
It was produced between 1997 and 2005 and is named after a place in Benin
Benin
Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...
from which African slaves were transported to the Caribbean and Americas. In a wider context, it is primarily a warning against all kinds of human greed, exploitation and enslavement, both historical and contemporary. It is made from a combination of materials, including petrol cans (inflated to hold more), spices, and audio and visual elements (eg a recitation of Yoruba, Mahi and Wémé names from beneath the masks, the terrible sounds of a slave ship, and a video of black market petrol-runners in modern Bénin). The artwork’s arrangement recalls the famous 18th-century print of the slave ship, the Brookes
Brookes (ship)
The Brookes print was an image widely used by campaigners for the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. First designed in Plymouth, UK, in 1788 by the Plymouth Chapter of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade...
. 304 ‘masks’ are made from these petrol cans, each with an open mouth, eyes and a nose, mirroring the Brookes images, yet gives back individuality and African cultures to the slaves by including tokens of African gods (Vodou or orisha
Orisha
An Orisha is a spirit or deity that reflects one of the manifestations of Olodumare in the Yoruba spiritual or religious system....
) attached to each 'face'. Two masks at the stern of the ship - with the scales of justice between them - represent the white king imposed on Benin and the native king of Benin
Oba of Benin
The Oba of Benin, or Omo N'Oba, is both the oba of the Edo people and the pretender to the defunct title of the king of the Benin Kingdom...
, dealing with African and European culpability for the trade. Liquor bottles, beads and cowrie shells are also included as examples of material which was used to barter for slaves, as are tobacco and spices, their smells mixed with those of a slave ship.