Director Sam Pollard drew inspiration from a 1976 exhibition by David Driskell : "Two Centuries of Black American Art". With an 85 minute runtime, the film highlights a plethora of influential artists such as the late David Driskell, who passed away last year from Covid-19 complications, Sanford Biggers, Faith Ringgold, Lyle Ashton Harris and many more prominent names of the black art scene.
The documentary aims not only to give African-American art the visibility it deserves but also to highlight how black art has often been misrepresented or ignored in mainstream museums.
According to Thelma Golden, the documentary's consulting producer, "Today's Black artists have worked to envision their place in the art world, and in the process, their place in a historically exclusionary canon. [...] ‘Black Art: In the Absence of Light’ introduces an art history through the lens of Blackness, foregrounding the definitive importance of representation and its scholarship, and in so doing, inspiring generations to come."
The documentary will be available for streaming on HBO and HBO Max from February 9th.
image: Amy Sherald at work on her portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama, as featured in Black Art: In the Absence of Light. COURTESY HBO
