Edgar Arceneaux’s art practice gives material form to Blackness as an index of racial and cultural identity. Arceneaux’s approach builds on the Black conceptual materialist practice of Fred Wilson. Wilson and Arceneaux are material historians, confronting the present with the past in order to critique dominant art historical discourses and institutions. Arceneaux appropriates Jacques Derrida’s aporia and materializes its key characteristics —impasse, suspension, irresolution, improvisation, entanglement, and violence into his artworks—as visualizations of Black freedom and possibility. This thesis considers Arceneaux’s drawing Detroit (2009), the interactive installation Library of Black Lies (2013-2018), and the sculpture Orpheum Returns— Fire’s Creation (2010). In these works, to varying extents, Arceneaux creates a critical constellation where he juxtaposes historical elements from the past— ranging from vernacular artifacts and architectures to iconic Black art historical works—with material culture signifying the urban, Black experience. Arceneaux’s works thereby provide a means of reflecting upon the ongoing tactics of assault, exclusion, and silencing waged on Black lives.