Recap of Khairani Barokka’s Annah: Nomenclature
By Piers Masterson
Documentation of Indonesian artist KHAIRANI BAROKKA’s
Embodying Paul Gauguin’s objectification of women, colonial gaze and pedophilia, Annah the Javanese (1893–94) was painted upon the artist’s return to Paris, after his first sojourn in Tahiti. The work shows a naked woman with light brown skin sitting in a chair, gazing directly at the viewer while a monkey lounges at her feet. Gauguin’s inscription on the back of the canvas identifies the sitter as his underage mistress Annah, who lived briefly with him in Paris. Today, the controversial painting is held in a private collection but has also gained a life of its own in popular culture. The scene of Annah posing for the painting is recreated in a 1980s biopic—with Donald Sutherland playing Gauguin—in the manner of softcore pornography, while Mario Vargas Llosa gives Annah a chapter in his novel The Way to Paradise (2003), which traces the life of Gauguin and his feminist grandmother, Flora Tristan.
