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When I met Charles White
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Black Art: In the Absence of Light

When I met Charles White, one of the things that stuckwith me that he said was that,...

When I met Charles White, one of the things that stuck
with me that he said was that, "Whenever you make work,
it ought to be about something, and it ought to be about
something that mattered." Because all of the work
I was doing had some relationship
to the history of art

Full Transcript

00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:02.292
When I met Charles White,
00:00:02.375 --> 00:00:04.458
one of the things that stuck with me that he said was that,
00:00:04.541 --> 00:00:07.791
"Whenever you make work, it ought to be about something,
00:00:07.875 --> 00:00:10.583
and it ought to be about something that mattered."
00:00:10.666 --> 00:00:12.167
Because all of the work I was doing
00:00:12.025 --> 00:00:15.167
had some relationship to the history of art.
Duration
15 seconds
Views
30
Timestamp in Movie
00:09:09
Uploaded
May 10, 2025
Genres
documentary
Production
HBO Documentary Films,Two Dollars and a Dream

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Movie Summary

An in-depth look at the works of up-and-coming Black visual artists.
It seemed to make a lot of sense - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:07
It seemed to make a lot of sense
To make pictures that had historical relevance - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:15
To make pictures that had historical relevance
I think that Kerry James Marshall has - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:09
I think that Kerry James Marshall has
To concentrate on just the Black subject - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:07
To concentrate on just the Black subject
And I think it's fascinating, not only from the point of view - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:10
And I think it's fascinating, not only from the point o...
KERRY: In the history of painting - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:07
KERRY: In the history of painting
You don't find many images of Black people in pictures. - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:06
You don't find many images of Black people in pictures.
You certainly don't see a lot of images - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:05
You certainly don't see a lot of images
At the end of the 19th century, - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:25
At the end of the 19th century,
And that's what abstraction sort of says, in a way, - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:07
And that's what abstraction sort of says, in a way,
There's work that needs to be done - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:10
There's work that needs to be done
One of the exercises she had us do in that class - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:05
One of the exercises she had us do in that class
You had to make a collage and then bring that collage back - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:06
You had to make a collage and then bring that collage back
So that you never really became too attached - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:11
So that you never really became too attached
I was very interested in, uh, non-Western philosophies - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:11
I was very interested in, uh, non-Western philosophies
KERRY: I had seen, uh, Black Girl's Window before. - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:04
KERRY: I had seen, uh, Black Girl's Window before.
When I looked back at that work, - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:12
When I looked back at that work,
And I made a painting called - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:06
And I made a painting called
Which is a Black figure against a black ground. - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:04
Which is a Black figure against a black ground.
And it was the first time I had used this simplified, - Black Art: In the Absence of Light 00:09
And it was the first time I had used this simplified,