This exhibition asks the question: what is black? Black is absorption, a gathering, all colors held at once, refusing to reflect. Black is the hug, the clasp, the cuddle with light itself. Black, in all its tonal ranges, moves across artists' canvases like music, like the shifting movements of a concerto.

Black Work: Absence/Absorption interrupts the white cube’s longstanding exclusion of Blackness from its frame, erasing histories, labors, and bodies that make art possible, excluding Black mark makers whose presence is foundational yet rendered invisible. Absence and absorption operate here as structural and conceptual forces across artists and media; while some works reference histories of Black liberation, the focus is on material, spatial, and perceptual practices rather than race or identity alone.

Black Work: Absence/Absorption is organized by the University of Richmond Museums and is curated by Dr. Kymberly S. Newberry, Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History.