A Monster in the Library: Le Code Noir

As a library-ghost, I spend a considerable amount of time in my afterlife reflecting on life and death, not only my own, but also as part of the relationship between the books on these shelves I haunt. For example, and I can understand if you don’t believe me, but I feel a distinct shift from the cover and the pages of a monograph on a living artist at the precise moment that artist dies. I recall the time that the vibrant cover of Susan Hiller dimmed a little back in January 2019.

Yet these are only momentary changes, as soon these same books begin to glow again, albeit in a different way as they join the chorus of other monographs of non-living artists (cf. The Empty Days Library).

Something similar happens to exhibition catalogues when exhibitions close or are forgotten, only then to be re-opened and remembered anew. To my mind these changes are part of the life and afterlife of any library.

At the same time, there are books that have the opposite effect on the library that hosts them. By their monstrous presence, rather than by association with the author, artist or exhibition they represent, they have a withering, chilling effect on the other books that huddle together in its wake. One such book is Le Code Noir ou le calvaire de Canaan by Louis Sala-Molins.

We cannot pin this book’s inhospitable presence on its author (just look at the inviting and generous swirl of Louis’ signature!), but the monstrosity of the very text that it contains.

To give you some sense of the monstrosity of the Code Noir, here is a description from the wall text of the version of the book that was safely locked in a glass cabinet at the Neue Galerie in Kassel during documenta 14.

Called the most monstrous legal document of modern times (Louis Sala-Molins), the Code Noir was passed by Louis XIV in 1685 in Versailles to define the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. In sixty articles, the decree restricted the activities of slaves, commanded that Roman Catholicism be the exclusively-practiced religion, and expelled Jews from the colonies in order to assert France’s sovereignty in the colonies and secure its prosperous business in the violent sugar plantation economy. A version of the decree was ratified in 1724 in Louisiana.

This wall-text proves that it is not the book in the library I haunt that is the monster, especially as its author – Louis Sala-Molins – was well aware of its monstrosity. In fact, Sala-Molins’ book is an attempt to contain and control the monster of the text within – through a framework of contextual analysis and textual commentary.

I have to admit, however, that sometimes it is hard to live with (yes, I know I am a library-ghost but roll with me!) this monstrous book around, in spite of Sala-Molins’ commendable work. So, whenever it gets too much and the other books start to shiver and turn pale around me, I always remind them of the transforming work of artist and griot Pélagie Gbaguidi. If anyone knows how to live with this book, then she does and so much of her work – from drawings, to installations, writings, to performances – has offered us an intimate portrait of this monster in the library. Whenever I tell the cowering books her story, I often channel her very own words:

I was born in Dakar in 1965, I am of Benin origin.

I heard about The Black Code when I was a child ; it was mentioned during a lesson at school but so briefly, that it got buried in the deep crevices of my memory.

I have always been attracted to the Loire river and the surrounding region in France.In 2004, I was invited by the Center of Contemporary Art at Nantes on an artist-in-residency programme linked to the Dakar Biennale of the same year. It was during my stay there that I discovered The Black Code by “coincidence” sitting on a shelf in a local book fair.

Nantes was a revelation to me, it felt like being in a burial ground. Her position in French history is crucial as the point of departure of the slave trade; it was here that the slave boats were constructed between the 17th and 19th centuries, destined to embark on their mission to export slaves from Africa into exile.

I returned home with this “book” which has never since left my side and with the clear conviction that < no matter how you try to escape from your past it will eventually catch up with you> My encounter with the Black code has been at the very least the most metaphysical experience in my creative path; My first impressions were of disbelief an non-comprehension. After several re-readings, I was taken aback by the cold, methodical cutting tone underlying each phrase. My entire being rejected this information as if it were too horrible, too filthy to digest or even assimilate. Nevertheless, I felt compelled to dig deeper; I wanted to understand how fellow human beings could develop such an anti-human concept as The Black Code ( bear in mind that this was no quick after thought but that Colbert and his commission spent three years planning and writing “legal” text of 60 articles ).

I has been one hell of an internal battle trying to plunge into this book without getting soiled but this duel was necessary and has opened up in me new channels of strength; physically, emotionally and spiritually and the images started to flow….Consequently, I have been haunted by the memories of those who can no longer testify for themselves. Faces, Forms and Associations began to manifest as tangible creative expressions.

After months of immersion, it has become evident to me that it is time to de-mystify slavery as a unique phenomenon particular to the black race but  rather to view it as part of universal patrimony. It has helped me to link the problems of racism and Xenophobia, past and present,  N/S or E/W as essentially economically based.

For me, outing the “monster” from oblivion  has required my taking a stand in relation to the History of Africa; and in so doing,  participating in the transmission of the contemporary story.

Pélagie Gbaguidi

Translation Obi Okigbo

Octobre 2006