In many disciplines including the creative fields, from the visual arts to theater, the white gaze has long determined whose stories are told, what gets to be seen, what’s given value, and what’s deemed worthy enough to be recorded and remembered. Today, though, many black artists are actively resisting that idea, creating work that speaks directly to a black audience, a black gaze, in order to reform the often whitewashed realms in which they practice.

This New York Times Style Magazine feature interviews nine black artists about making work that captures the richness and variety of black life. Amy Sherald, Michael R. Jackson, and others discuss the challenges and opportunities of cultivating black audiences and dismantling historically white institutions through their art. Amy Sherald, a Baltimore-based painter who is well known for her portait of former First Lady Michelle Obama, says of her work, "I realized very quickly, once I crossed into painting the black figure, that we are a political statement in and of ourselves, especially when we’re hanging on the walls of museums and institutions."