Renée Cox is a Jamaican born artist, activist, lecturer, and curator. Her recurring theme includes race, gender through the use of her own body in many of her works.

Cox liberating herself and other black women through self-representation and criticizes the way black women are portrayed in media through her work.

In hot-en-tot venus, Cox is portraying herself as Saartje Bartman a Khoikhoi women who was exhibited at freak shows across Europe in the 19th century known as the Hottentot Venus. She uses plastic breasts and buttocks from a costume shop to make her body similar to Saartje’s.
Cox criticizes the stereotypical portrayal and exploitation of Black woman and the lack of awareness with the use of the plastic body-parts in her work and also celebrating her own body through her own nudity ultimately liberating herself with shaping her own identity.

REFERENCES

Aperture Foundation NY. (2017). Renée Cox: A Taste of Power. [online] Available at:
https://aperture.org/blog/renee-cox- taste-power/ [Accessed 7 Dec. 2017].

Black Atlantic Resource Debate. (2017). Video of the Week: After Hot-En- Tot: Two
conversations with Artist Renée Cox. [online] Available at:
https://blackatlanticresource.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/video-of- the-week- after-hot- en-tot-
two-conversations- with-artist- renee-cox/ [Accessed 7 Dec. 2017].

Black feminist art. (2017). Renée Cox – Hot en Tot. [online] Available at:
https://artintheblackdiaspora.wordpress.com/2014/05/01/renee-cox- hot-en- tot/ [Accessed 7
Dec. 2017].