In an early scene in the new HBO documentary, Black Art: In the Absence of Light, artist and art historian David Driskell is working on a new piece in his studio, dipping his paintbrush into a bottle of glue to stick scraps of paper onto a canvas. He notes that it was Romare Bearden who inspired his lifelong commitment to collage—so much so that after he met the renowned artist in the late 1970s, he created a piece in his honor. When Bearden himself later saw that work in a show, he wasn’t impressed. “What you’re doing there is not David, it’s Romie,” he said to Driskell. Later, Bearden walked over to another piece of Driskell’s, stopped in front of it, and said, “Now that’s you, that’s your voice.”