For black people in the western hemisphere, if you can't generate a mythology that creates models of heroism and power out of the mythology that you ….

Music is the universal language, it evokes an emotion in all of us. That, we can all look at each other and we may not speak the same language, but t….

In [Ralph] Ellison's case, it's more psychological than it is phenomenal, and it's conditioned by anger, animosity, and lack of desire to engage with….

In some ways you still have to buy your freedom, but that's because you live in a social structure that's organized around capital, and capital does ….

If you have a dream: Number one, make a plan. And then execute that plan. And there will be failures along that line. Don't let that discourage you. ….

Black painters have done all kinds of work. It's the treatment of forms they engage in-that's what determines the value of the work, not whether you ….

I think the museum should be an arena in which ideals can hash it out, fight it out, tooth and nail, for attention..

I really just want to be an inspiration. I'm a regular guy, that had a dream, that came from a small town, that wanted to play guitar and just liked ….

What I was trying to construct was relative symmetry, where it seems clear that the shapes have arrived through consideration..

A lot of stuff that I dealt with - music was my serenity, like kind of my safe place, my haven that I would just use in order to really just get away….

I just thought someone has to figure out how to break through that barrier and create a narrative for a black super hero story to unfold at the same ….

[My picture A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self ] was a way of demonstrating that there was a broad range of possibilities and fa….

If you look at the image [ Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self ], it treads on a kind of popular stereotypical image of the black f….

When State Way Gardens and The Robert Taylor Homes were being torn down, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to use that as a backdrop for the devel….

I tend to think having that extreme of color, that kind of black, is amazingly beautiful...and powerful. What I was thinking to do with my image was ….

Comics were a place where captivating images lit your imagination and showed you that you can create new kinds of people and worlds..

I think we need to remember...that a lot of energy was put into changing things to get us to the point where we are now. But being where we are now d….

I still make paintings and use the figure; it's hard to do and hard to succeed. On some levels, because I am working with black figures and black pig….

Part of the history of black people in the western hemisphere, in some ways, has been fleeing from this notion that they were black. So I can represe….

I decided that the whole idea of what it means to be an artist was that somehow you are ontologically oriented toward poverty : "As an artist, you do….

The appearance is the allusion of abstraction when in fact I am in control of every aspect of that symmetry..