In her 2020 novella The Office of Historical Corrections, writer Danielle Evans pinpoints âthe daily trauma of the historical record, the sometimes brutality and sometimes banality of antiblackness.â The framing of the pastâriddled with omissions and injusticesârequires endless reckoning, and even then, it will never faithfully reflect reality.
The âbrutality and banality of antiblacknessâ is something art historian David C. Driskell actively challenged. He was the curator, in 1976, behind âTwo Centuries of Black American Art,â a seminal survey of 63 Black artists that worked in counterpoint to the art historical disregard for Black artistic expression. Some 200 works were presented at LACMA, traveled to art institutions in Dallas and Atlanta, and concluded their circuit at the Brooklyn Museum.
A new HBO documentary that airs tonight, Black Art: In the Absence of Light, includes archival footage of Tom Brokaw interviewing David E. Driskell about the exhibition. Itâs a fitting place to start because, in a sense, Black art history got its toehold in the American cultural dynasty through Driskellâs pioneering show.
âWhen one says âBlack art,â it more or less isolates the Black artist from the mainstream,â Driskell told Brokaw. He clarified that this penning away is not self-appointed, it is inflicted: âThe Black artist has not attempted to set himself apart: he has tried to be part and parcel of the mainstream.â
âBut arenât you setting him apart in effect by putting the show together with just Black artists?â Brokaw queried.
âOnly because he has not had an audience with majority culture for the most part,â Driskell volleyed back. âHad this exhibition not being organized, many of the artists who are shown here never would have been seen.â
The documentary shows that the racism Black artists (and historians) experienced lay in not having their work valued at all. Black artists created independently outside the art âsystem,â rather than being included in institutions or commanding blockbuster sales figures on a par with white contemporaries. Modern activism and shifting cultural conversations have had a profoundly positive effect. Black artistic production has not necessarily changed, per se, but the way it is perceived by the art world has.

Amy Sherald painting Michelle Obama's portrait.
via HBOThelma Golden, a consulting producer and director and chief curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, in a panel about the film, described the way the racist exclusion of Black artists shifted over the years.
The Studio Museum was founded to create a platform for Black artists: It was space that simply didn't exist in other institutions. âDo we still need it? Well, we need it in different ways,â Golden said. âThereâs a lot of expansive possibility in cultural specificity, and thereâs a lot of amazing work that gets done when we dive deep into the depths of the culture.â
Creating space amidst majority culture is the corrective measure marginalized communities resort to when their visibility is wildly skewed or absent altogether. Itâs a matter of necessity to compensate with new optics. Driskell declared, âI had a chance to really say: âThis is something that ought to be done because the American canon is not complete without it.ââ
The artistic canon is a powerful vector in championing not just aesthetics but social representation and cultural heft. Rarely are we as reverentâor as impressionableâas before a work of art. The oversights of art history formulated by privilege and whiteness and maleness are being actively reshaped today: The revising of symbolic value and market hierarchies is slow but in process. Black Art: In the Absence of Light meditates on what such new considerations within the sector should be.
The film was directed by Sam Pollard, a veteran documentarian of the Black experience who has shined a spotlight on the first Black mayor of Atlanta and the post-Katrina devastation of New Orleans. Just last month, the release of his film MLK/FBI drew high praise.
The role of a director, more specifically a documentarian, wrestles with the nature of visibility. But Pollardâs impetus for making movies is underpinned by the desire for self-expression, not activism. âFor me, the process of making a film is shaped by first wanting to create,â Pollard explained via email, âand then to consider the political and social ramifications.â Itâs human nature to want to generate a story, first and foremost.

"Untitled (Studio)," Kerry James Marshall, 2014
via HBOPollard interviews a range of contemporary Black luminariesâacademics, curators, collectorsâand artists, of course, both celebrated and emerging. These include Amy Sherald (who did the official portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama) and Jordan Casteel (whose painting recently covered an edition of Vogue), plus Carrie Mae Weems, Kehinde Wiley, and Hank Willis Thomas, amongst others.
In a way, the film helps cement a new art historical canon. For Pollard, itâs unofficial, however. âItâs always tricky trying to figure what folks to include in your film,â he admitted. âMy first thought was, does the artist's work move me, and then second reaching out to them do they want to participate.â
Black identity has been presented in many different forms in artistsâ work. Driskell described painter Kerry James Marshall as having the âaudacityâ to focus exclusively on âordinaryâ Black life when he was starting out many decades ago. (Today, that audacity has literally paid off: Marshallâs work is the most expensive by a living African American artistâhis canvas âPast Timesâ was purchased, in 2018, for over $21 million.)
By contrast, Kara Walker is praised for her âwillingness to go into the kind of underbelly of the neo-Confederate narrative⌠through forms that disturb, that command, and that reshape our understanding of Black life and white Americans in this country.â
Whatever, Black voices need to be the ones to tell Black stories. Almost a decade before âTwo Centuries,â the Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted an exhibition âHarlem on My Mind.â This attempt to âhighlightâ Black culture resulted in an anthropological othering, rather than faithful artistic representation. (It wasâsurprise!âoverseen by a white curator.)
Critic Holland Cotter recalled that the exhibition was âreviled as culturally patronizing.â As Kasseem Dean, known professionally as Swizz Beatz, an avid collector in his own right, said in the documentary, âWe hate the way other people tell our storyâthereâs always flaws in it, because they didnât live it.â
The film highlights that part of the work of strengthening Black visions is to rigorously credit Black influences, thus firming up a Black artist legacy. âWeâre part of a continued Renaissance,â artist Theaster Gates said in the documentary. âItâs been happening.â Radcliffe Bailey noted, âItâs important for us, those that are younger, to constantly mention and bring up the names of those that have opened doors before us.â