Review: 'Black Art: In the Absence of Light'

There’s no question that the art world has a reputation for exclusivity. With a vast amount of debate struck over the past few years concerning the continued exhibition of problematic works of art such as Confederate monuments, the question remains: which artists ought to be showcased in museums and brought to the public view? For the vast majority of art history in the U.S., the answer has not included, or indeed even considered, artists of color.

In his new documentary, Black Art: In the Absence of Light, director Sam Pollard compels us all to recognize the work of Black artists in the world of American art. The film is dedicated to the renowned artist and curator David Driskell, who sadly passed away in April, 2020 after battling the coronavirus, but whose efforts to grant more visibility to Black artists still carries through today.

It opens right away with an interview between Driskell and The Today Show host Tom Brokaw in 1976, in which Driskell speaks about his major exhibition titled Two Centuries of Black American Art. This exhibition sets the base for the rest of the film, as Driskell’s words carry thematically throughout the narrative structure. In this interview, Driskell recognizes the inherent issues with labeling the art created by Black people as ‘Black art,’ for it “isolates the Black artist from the mainstream of American art.” Yet the reality of the art world in the 1970s was that Black artists were simply not seen in the public view. Driskell clarifies that despite its isolating language, his exhibition was absolutely necessary as a starting point for promoting more diversity within the industry.

The structure of the film is very simple: through interviews with both the artists themselves and several acclaimed art historians, the film highlights specific artists such as Faith Ringgold, Kehinde Wiley, Amy Sherald, and Kara Walker alongside its theoretical and socio-political discourse, analyzing their work in depth. Thus, Pollard’s film is an exhibit of its own, a reassertion of Driskell’s own attempts to push the art world to accept a broader range of works outside the Anglonormative mainstream.

A detail specific to this documentary lies in the lower thirds that appear within the interviews. Pollard uses the overlaying description for each interviewee much more frequently than in other documentaries, as if to instill the names of the artists, critics, and historians firmly within the minds of us viewers.

Additionally, the film makes use of different locations in which the interviews take place, subtly exhibiting the art of each artist in their studios rather than before a blank background. The music accompanying each artist contributes as well to capturing the essential tones of their artwork, whether it be upbeat (as with the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat), or more languid (as with the work of Radcliffe Bailey).

By delving deeply into the work of each artist, the film is able to move through many ideological approaches to art, fluctuating between different topics of discussion with which the different artists engage. For instance, Kerry James Marshall speaks to the importance of portraying the Black figure in painting, countering the notion that abstraction carries greater significance and/or value than representational painting.

This style and approach to art re-emerges with the artists Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, who painted the portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama respectively. With two figures as influential as the President and First Lady, Wiley and Sherald’s works, in their very existence as portraits, illustrate the power of the direct representational image, for the portraits necessarily became international symbols of graceful and powerful Black men and women.

In a different vein, painter Faith Ringgold introduces into the film’s narrative the notion of intersectionality between race and gender. Ringgold recounts in her interview the struggles she faced trying to coordinate with male curators, difficulties which were largely instigated merely due to her feminism and feminist art thereof.

This consideration of gender and sexuality in conversation with matters of race and the Black identity arises again with the Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art exhibition, curated by Thelma Golden in 1995. The objective of this exhibition was to confront the perpetuation of ‘Black masculinity’ as being inherently ‘Othered,’ examining gender as a performance existing outside of race while also being influenced and sometimes reinforced by race. 

Thus, Pollard introduces to mainstream audiences the multifaceted topics that arise in the art world. None of the arguments presented in the film exist in contradiction with one another; rather, they work collaboratively to support the overarching theme of the necessity for diversity and representation in art, without which these conversations would not exist.

Structured more as an essay than a plot-based progression, the film’s overall statement directs the attention directly onto museums and institutions, addressing both their historical and present-day unwillingness to showcase Black artists. Crucially, the film makes the distinction between exhibition and acquisition, shedding light on the reality that while many pieces of art by Black artists may be showcased, they are not necessarily purchased by the museums. As artist Glenn Ligon states in the film, when it comes to the acquisition of art created by Black artists, ‘in a lot of museums... they’re very recent. So I think institutions do have a long way to go in terms of catching up.”

The film returns to the work of David Driskell at its conclusion, celebrating the impact he made on the art world as both an artist and a curator, and reorienting its message around his efforts to change the makeup of high art. It is in many ways a plea to the art world to catch up on the front of racial inclusivity and refuse to adhere to any Anglonormative mainstream: by Pollard’s watch, the efforts of David Driskell and the plethora of artists are certainly not to fall in vain.