Ines Doujak’s black-and-white photos – they are associated with the work »Follow the Leader« - give a re-rendering of the story »Benito Cereno« by Herman Melville. Cereno is the captain of a slave ship that the slaves have brought under their command after rebelling on the open sea. They have to let the captain live because they need his nautical skills to be able to return to Senegal. In a word: Cereno stands for a sovereign who is not master in his own house.
This story has a special status in emancipatory Afro-American discourses. Examples of this are Ralph Ellison’s »Invisible Man« (1952) and Eric B. & Rakim’s »Follow the Leader« (1988).
The state theorist of National Socialism, Carl Schmitt, compared the situation of intellectuals in the Third Reich with that of Benito Cereno. In his correspondence with Ernst Jünger, he used the pseudonym »Benito Cereno«.

 

Translated by Timothy Jones

 

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