Directed and produced by award-winning documentarian Sam Pollard (MLK/FBI, HBO’s “Atlanta Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children”), BLACK ART IN THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT is a vital and illuminating introduction to the work of some of the foremost African-American visual artists working today, including Theaster Gates, Kerry James Marshall, Faith Ringgold, Amy Sherald and Carrie Mae Weems.
BLACK ART IN THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT debuts Feb. 9th.
Watch the trailer of BLACK ART IN THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT.
The film is a testament to the indelible contributions of Black American artists in today’s contemporary art world. BLACK ART: IN THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT is executive produced by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Thelma Golden serves as consulting producer.
At the heart of this feature documentary is the groundbreaking exhibit, entitled “Two Centuries of Black American Art,” curated by the late African-American artist and scholar David Driskell in 1976. This pioneering exhibition, held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, featured more than 200 works of art by 63 artists and cemented the essential contributions of Black artists in America in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The exhibit would eventually travel to the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the Brooklyn Museum. The film shines a light on the extraordinary impact of that exhibit on generations of African-American artists who have staked a claim on their rightful place within the 21st-century art world.
