Black Art in the Absence of Light

Jordan Casteel | The Relentless Pursuit (2025) | Available for Sale | Artsy
Jordan Casteel, The Relentless Pursuit, Oil on canvas, 56 × 72 inches, 2025


Jordan Casteel Finds Beauty in the Fleeting Commonplace | Frieze
Jordan Casteel, Direct Response, detail 2021, oil on canvas, 1.8 × 1.4 m.



Portraits of the pandemic: Direct Response, 2021 by Jordan Casteel  @mdcgallery London
Jordan Casteel, Direct Response, 2021, oil on canvas, 1.8 × 1.4 m.

Where Artist Jordan Casteel Sees Herself Going
Jordan Casteel, The Carolinas

Oil on canvas, 94 x 80 inches, 2021


Carrie Mae Weems lends images for Kamala Harris ad - The Art Newspaper -  International art news and events
 Carrie Mae Weems’s Untitled (Woman and Daughter with Children) from The Kitchen Table Series (1990)





A family having a picnic on a riverbank
Kerry James Marshall,  Past Times, from 1997


The Amy Sherald Effect | The New Yorker
Amy Sherald, Precious Jewels by the Sea, 2019, oil on linen,
120 × 108 × 2 1/2 in."Becoming an artist is not empirical. It's not about hard work. I mean, you have to put in the hard work but that doesn't mean you're going to make it. 



Kehinde Wiley paints African football
Kehinde Wiley, John Mensah, Samuel Eto'o and Emmanuel Eboue, ~2010
Romare Bearden, Serenade, 1969, collage, 45" x 32 "

Brooklyn Museum: Jacques-Louis David Meets Kehinde Wiley

Kehinde Wiley, b. 1977, LA

How Hank Willis Thomas became one of America's most prolific public  sculptors | Art Basel

Hank Willis Thomas born 1976 Plainfield

Theaster Gates - Sculpture

Theaster Gates, born 1973, Chicago



Sanford Biggers 'Codeswitch' explores quilts on Underground Railroad
Sanford Biggers, Codeswitch, 2018

Sanford Biggers, born 1970, LA

Kara Walker. Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred  b'tween the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart. 1994 | MoMA

Kara Walker's Sugar Sphinx Draws 130K Visitors, up to 10K/Day

Kara Walker, born 1969, California

Radcliffe Bailey, born 1968, NJ (died 2023)

Lyle Ashton Harris

Lyle Ashton Harris, born 1965, Bronx

Lorna Simpson: Spilling, Breaking Waves - The Fabric Workshop and Museum

Lorna Simpson | MoMA

Women in Photography: Lorna Simpson | BKC

Lorna Simpson, born1960, Brooklyn

Institute of Arts and Sciences to present talk by politically provocative  artist Glenn Ligon

Glenn Ligon, 1960, The Bronx

Renée Cox: A Proof Of Being - Guild Hall

Renee Cox, born1960, Jamaica

Fred Wilson | Pace Gallery

Fred Wilson, born 1954, NY, NY

Carrie Mae Weems | Sheldon Museum of Art

Carrie Mae Weems, born 1953, Portland, OR

Adrian Piper Is The Most Important Conceptual Artist Of Our Time

Adrian Piper, born 1948, Ny, NY


Many Mansions | The Art Institute of Chicago
Kerry James Marshall, Many Mansions, 1994

Kerry James Marshall b, 1955, Birmingham, "unequivocally black, emphatically Black." 

Kerry James Marshall - Untitled (Pink Towel)
Kerry James Marshall, Untitled (Pink Towel), ~2017

Emma Amos, Valued, 1992
Emma Amos, born 1937, Atlanta
International Faith Ringgold Monographic Exhibition to Open at Glenstone  Museum in Spring 2021 | Glenstone
Faith Ringgold, The Flag is Burning #2, 1997


Faith Ringgold, born 1930, NY, NY
Betye Saar Wins 2020 Wolfgang Hahn Prize – Artforum
Bettye Saar, Black Girl's Window, 1969

Bettye Saar, b. 1926 LA

Richard Mayhew · SFMOMA

Richard Mayhew, b. 1924 Amityville, NY

Charles White, who made some of this country's greatest art, transcends  labels - The Washington Post

Charles White b. 1918 Chicago

Jacob Lawrence's Great Migration Series Returns to MoMA - The New York Times

Jacob Lawrence b. 1917 Chicago


Elizabeth Catlett | MoMA
Elizabeth Catlett, Sharecropper, 1946

Elizabeth Catlett, b. 1915, Washington DC


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Romare Bearden, The Black American in Search of His Identity (1969)

Romare Bearden, 1911, Charlotte

Lois Maillou Jones, b. 1905, Boston


“I SHAPED MY DESTINY EARLY WITH THE CLAY OF NORTH CAROLINA RIVERS … I LOVED TO MAKE THE WHITEWASH FOR MY MOTHER AND WAS EXCITED AT THE IMPRINTS OF THE CLAY AND THE MALLEABILITY OF THE MATERIAL.”

With Powerful Murals, Hale Woodruff Paved The Way For African-American  Artists : NPR

Hale Woodruff, born 1900 Cairo, Il

Acquisition: Edward Mitchell Bannister
Edward Mitchell Bannister, 1828, St. Andrews, Canada 
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Robert Seldon Duncanson, 1821, Fayette, NY
Joshua Johnson, The Westwood Children, ~1807
Joshua Johnson, 1763, Baltimore

Collectors
Kasseem Dean (Swizz Beatz) and Alicia Keys 
Oprah Winfrey
Beyoncé and JayZ
Curators & Scholars: 
David Driskell
Richard Powell
Thelma Golden (Harlem Museum) 
Bernard Lumpkin
Mary Schmidt Cambell
Sarah Lewis
Valerie Kasseley
Rujeko Hockley
Linda Harrison (Newark Museum)
Maurice Berger


Two Centuries of Black Art in US

Tom Browkaw opens. 

The exhibition opened at the brooklyn museum of art after its debut at LACMA

David Driskoll chimes in– maryland– Fisk, curator of Two Centuries

What? Two Centuries? 

Valerie Cassell Oliver:U


Maurice Berger, white art historian, giving perspective

Driskoll: Black art criticized by isolating Black Artists

Sarah Lewis, Harvard

Mary Schmidt Cambell- Spellman

Bigger attendance than any other US-originating exhibition

6 Sanford Biggers

6:50 Jordan Casteel

7:30 Kerry James Marshall comes in, discussion classisite Charles white

8:30 work should be ABOUT something

9:50 Blacks, like Women, have to make representationAL ART

10:39 Bettye Saar important teacher of KJM

11:15 Can you find an artist or work that set you on your path? 

14 KJM major early works

16:50 harlem– how is the exhibition about harlem different from summer of soul

James van der Zee comes to common knowledge– why is important for his work to be outside the harlem exhibit organized by whites? 

Rujeko Hockley, curator at Whitney

18:20 Faith and Faith in W!A!R! At…

Mary Schmidt Cambell

Mary Wallace

21 Richard Mayhew and classicshere a black aesthetic

23 Spiral (Normal Lewis: is there a negro image? Is there a blac k aesthetic? Normal lewis, ema Amos, Richard Mayhew

28 Richard Powell

31 Robert hudson

32 Radcliff Bailey

Piano

Serious Play

35:30 Kehinde Wiley

38 Amy Sherald

Not about hard work


Collecting: Kaseem Dean; Swiss Beatz, Alicia Keys

49 Glenn Ligon

50 Thelma Golden

52 Lyle Ashton Harris

57 Basquiat

58 Kara Walker- mastered a form and went ahead to develop many other forms…. That’s not enough

58-103 KAra Walker,,,,, 103-105 kara walker more intensely about enslavement. 

What is the role of humor in grappling with extreme cases

Subtlety– whole new set of materials. 

105 Kara Walker: finish here; intense reflection on enslavement follows. 

(Sugar, bad bunny)

105 sanford biggers on kara

105 :40 Carrie mae weems 

106 kehinde wiley


Long segment on Studio Museum, Harlem 

1:14:40 Theaster Gates, Being a clay guy

Work in the absence of light until there is light. (Theaster Gates)


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