Black art is defined by technique and cultural reference, not the artist’s skin color

Evidence

The point here is to study black art because it asserts its belonging to African- American culture by its technique, its historic and aesthetic references, not because it has been achieved by a black-skinned artist. At the same time, the reference to black identity, introduced by issues related to the most visible elements of this racial difference — skin color, hair texture, facial features - is widely used by a majority of visual artists as a fundamental focus of their creative process. Thus, the reflection consisting in outlining the parameters characterizing the analysis of what we call “black art” can be defined in regard to American cultural history, from which it has been and is still mostly missing. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2875

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines what counts as ‘black art’ — a definitional claim separating cultural belonging from racial identity.
• XREF: Connects to standard art-historical debates about who can claim a cultural tradition, parallel to whiteness studies and identity-as-category critiques.