As famous architect Mies van der Rohe once said, “God is in the details!” So, when Raven’s Tail Black overheard a conversation between two unassuming strangers, describing her alternately as “Coal Black,” “Carbon Black,” “Midnight Black,” and by far the most offensive, “Inky,” she felt the need to set the record straight.

She began to ponder the veracity involved in identifying anything. Can anyone really ever accurately describe another creature? Can the unknowable ever truly be known, and perhaps more importantly, can one moniker precisely convey the vicissitudes of existence? The answer, at least in her mind, is a resounding NO! A name is sacred and not to be taken lightly. “Coal Black” is by its very description muddy, dusty and all together suffocating, just as “Midnight Black” is loose lipped, prurient and not to be trusted, as nothing good happens in the dead of night! With “Carbon Black,” one might assume she is derived solely from the atmosphere, and therefore rather boring as who wants to spend the evening discussing sediment striations at the center of the earth!

Raven’s Tail Black is a proud member of the avian classes and by far the smartest, noblest, and cleverest of colors. Regularly seen cracking walnuts in the center of the road, waiting for cars to drive over them, Raven’s Tail Black is incredibly resourceful, witty, and generally self-reliant unlike the duplicitous “Inky Black,” whose liquid exploits are well documented.

Perhaps most importantly, Raven’s Tail takes great pride in the perfect, unrivaled shine of her shoes, two points of luminosity like beacons of light on a cold blustery day in December. Lost souls have more than once found their way home by such compelling sleekness. So, the next time the color black occurs to you, remember the great William Shakespeare was wrong when he pondered “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” The rose is proud of her sweetness just as the raven is, sporting an incomparable shroud of Black!

 

  • Shirin Neshat, Hassan, Our House is on Fire series, 2013

  • Andy Warhol, Liz [Early Colored Liz], 1963

  • Richard Serra, Hand Catching Lead [film still], 1968

  • Alexandra Bell, Friday, April 21, 1989 - Page 2, 2018-2019

  • Paintings by Kazimir Malevich on view in “The Last Futurist Exhibition of Painting 0.10,” 1915-1916

  • Alexander Calder, Hanging Spider, 1940

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  • Simone Leigh, Stick, 2019

  • Joan Mitchell, Untitled, 1955

  • Katherine Hubbard, still life spoon, 2019

  • Kara Walker, Testimony-Narrative of a Negress Burdened by Good Intentions [film still], 2004