| Sumario: | In this article, I conceptualize the term "black op art" to consider how black artists are centralizing speculative sensory effects as both object and subject within their work and therefore as dynamic interventions within the political, hyper-racialized, and dispossessing field of visuality. I consider themes of dispossession through a studied meditation of two works that similarly play and push on the edges of optical effects: James Baldwin (2018) by Nekisha Durrett and Requiem for Charleston (2016) by Lava Thomas. Black op art is neither about what is knowable nor enigmatic through the visual field, but rather about what lengths black artists must go to in order to work within it, as well as the ciphered language of mattering and meanings embedded within their works of art.
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